Trips

A tour of Hokkaido, the big island at the north of Japan. We land at Sapporo which is Chitose Airport and do a 1,050km clockwise loop, ending up back at the airport. We’d stashed the bike cartons there but alas they were discovered and so not there upon our return. Perhaps not surprising. This tour was a great discovery of a country that is perfect for cycling.

It’s all so clean and neat. I’ve brought my Patagonia and am already loving those bar-end shifters.

Around Furano. It’s a scenic wonderland.

If you are interested in farming or just growing veggies you will love Hokkaido. It is so rich. This is asparagus. As good as you’ll see anywhere in the world.

There are three things in this picture to point out. One is the derestriction sign above the 50kph sign. It was 40 but now, just out of town, it is 50. That is the max speed anywhere other than expressways. Second is the generous shoulder, often even wider and as smooth as anything. Third is the arrows above my head. These are for winter to show where the road edge is.

Following the devastation caused by the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, one of the five strongest ever recorded on earth, the east coast of Japan has seen all sorts of Tsunami warning systems and wave protections built.

Sunday afternoon and every town has a baseball game going on.

Japan is mountainous, but they tend to use a lot of tunnels rather than winding mountain climbs. This particular one is 4.5km long. But it is well lit and not dangerous. Again, the speed limit is 50. The thing with long tunnels is that the approaching vehicles sound like they are right behind you when they are not.

A HKG couple on folding bikes. They do one trip a year and plan it down to the finest detail.

Beans. The farm crops are truly amazing. They stop at nothing for perfection.

It is common to go through more than 10 tunnels a day. Obviously touring bikes need lights front and rear.

We were not surprised that the cartons were not where we had “hidden” them. With tape, zip-ties and rope on hand we bought some small boxes from a luggage storage/forwarding place and this level of protection worked fine.

The route. Definitely intending to come back!

A ride from Zurich airport to Romanshorn, the Swiss port on Bodensee where the ferry departs for the German side and Friedrichshafen where Eurobike is held.

Being from Australia I instinctively use the roads, and the signs on the roads, to work out which way to go. But here there are no cyclists mixing it with the cars and there is a maze of bike routes. Will I go on the car-roads and follow their signs or only follow the bike signs?

It is all very pretty in Switzerland.

Continuing to be pretty.

Now it is beyond pretty. Glad I don’t have to climb that!

I ride back to Zurich taking a different but also pretty route. It is my last tour on the Mongoose and alloy frame version of the Randonneur that began as a steel Gemini Randonneur in 1981.

A ride around the Swiss and German sections of the Bodensee.

There are ferries crossing the lake in different places allowing us to vary the route.

The towns are loaded with postcard scenery.

These signs mean nothing unless we have maps detailed enough to show tiny places.

Switzerland is tremendous for bike touring. Lots of unsealed roads but very smooth to ride on. A touring bike is ideal.

It is not long before another of these great coffee or snack stops appears. Beautiful.

Cycling is normalized here but it is hard for us to follow paths to places we don’t know. So we are often using the compass often to decide left or right.

Visiting Rosemarie Speidel at her parent’s place.

At Kloten airport there was no one selling cartons so I’ve found some empty boxes and will make use of some rope, tape and zip ties that I’m carrying.

Unlike with a bike carton, here everything needs to be attached to the single object. It’s now ready for final packing.

There are two options here. One is to make a carton with the rigid corners. One is to “wrap” the bike in cardboard. That is what I have done.

A loop ride out of Budapest heading SE then into Romania. Circling north around Transylvania and then west back to Budapest.

We keep pulling over to admire the roof thatching.

Floating bridges are probably common in history but this is the first one I have seen. Maybe they got sick of rebuilding a conventional bridge after annual floods.

In Arad, Romania. There are signs of former Soviet occupation all over the place.

Road scene. There was a noticeable change as we moved from Hungary to Romania. Romania is in the “Latin sphere” and we can feel it.

Deva. A town in Romania. The bronze work is amazing.

Coming out of Turda. A long climb into a stiff headwind with no shelter.

Cluj Napoca. Known as Cluj. This is a real gem of a city. In fact, all of Transylvania has been lovely and Cluj is the gem.

Gypsies on the road to Oradea.

I love a country where old ladies ride bikes.

In a small town in western Romania more amazing bronze work.

Szolnok in Hungary. This is a good example of an isolated bit that did not get obliterated in WW2. It is surrounded by post-war buildings.

We are coming back into Budapest. It is always a good sign when there are lots of bikes parked outside the shops.

A ride from Bangalore to Madurai through Mysore, Coimbatore and Trichy. This is heartland South India. From Madurai we get the train back to Bangalore as there is no international airport at Madurai (in 2004).

It is 2004 and bikes are THE way to get to work in rural India. Sadly, motor bikes are set to take over.

Road to Mysore. They are scything the rice and bundling it and carting it to a central location for threshing.

A bike wheel provides gearing for a small furnace. The wind provides oxygen to make the fire hot enough to make the iron red hot. It is then beaten into a scythe shape.

He is as fascinated by me as I am by him.

The tea is brewed in milk over a stove and then passed back and forth with great speed and dexterity to aerate it.

Vikki arrives in the first town for the day.

Woman along the road to Dindigul.

Carol in front of the Dindigul monolith with fort atop.

Cows in a truck.

Noel with the BOB trailer. Great to have on a tour but a bit hard to fly with.

We are on the ride to Madurai Train Station, all pretty pleased with our experience in Incredible India.

Complaint is a Gift. This is in a pure veg hotel. (Hotel being a name for a place where you eat)

A ride through Kerala from Trivandrum to Calicut via Nalambur.

Trivandrum flower market.

Pulling in the fish net.

There were hundreds of kilos of fish in this one net.

We are in the monsoon season. Not smart. Not again. Nov-March is best.

Vikki about to enjoy a classic and delicious Keralan breakfast. They use a lot of coconut, spices, and unlike most of India, have plentiful avocados.

Cochin fish nets.

We are sharing the road.

Nutmeg. The nut is inside the bright crimson soft tissue which is inside a husk.

Leaving Nilambur. Danny and I stayed with this family in 1978.

Menu. It’s interesting to have records like this. Later you can look back.

Proud and fit. Rickshaw rider standing by ready.

A ride all over the LA region. I have to attend a meeting in the Midwest so I arrange to land in LAX and take several days there to tour around before locking my bike at the airport, leaving for a week, returning, finding my bike just where I left it (locked under a CCTV camera), having another ride then packing and departing. I lost a lot of the pictures from that trip. People that don’t live in LA probably think it is a bad place to cycle but they are completely wrong about that.

I land early morning and after the obligatory 2-1/2 hours in the immigration queue (how come it only happens in the USA) and after I assemble my bike it is still many hours before I can go to my Airbnb so I take off down the coast a bit past Redondo Beach and back.

The downtown area is easy to ride in with wide streets and even some bike paths. After this I head out through Hollywood, Beverly Hills, over the 405 then south. Navigation is not hard here.

Last night online I read about Skid Row so went back into the city to see it. There is a homeless population of up to 10,000 people here. It is claimed that some cities give their homeless folk free bus tickets to LA.

Back to the coast and I’m heading north.

Malibu up ahead.

The amount of sand along the coast is amazing. Machines sift it at night no doubt removing cigarette butts and other “trash” as it is called here.

Today I head across to Santa Monica then south along the beaches. There is quite a scene along here.

The Ballona Creek bike path has become one of my favoured ways of getting around.

From this path there is often access to other paths and to shopping centres.

Even big scary roads like Sepulveda are usually quite ridable. When not then it is really obvious and you just get off. Bikes are not permitted on some big highways.

Back at LAX to depart I go to the Qantas sales desk to buy a carton and get a “what’s that?” look. So I come back a few hours later with this and am told it MUST be in a carton. In his effort to convince me the supervisor boasted that only yesterday a passenger abandoned his bike due to the inflexibility of Qantas on this point. I lost the photo but to solve the impasse I just bought more small boxes and returned with a mega-carton. I reported the guy to Qantas back in Australia. Normally Qantas is helpful with bikes.

A ride north. From Warsaw in Poland to Tallinn above the 59th parallel in Estonia.

Poland is best described as “variable” when it comes to cycling conditions. But there are undoubtedly good bits.

The not-yet-opened-expressway continues for 10’s of kilometres.

In Augustow a fellow bike lover shows off to me in the park.

I’m on a long straight highway with lots of lorries and no shoulder. My mirror is saving me. I find I am glancing at it about every 10 seconds. Here you can see the next lorry in the mirror.

In Lithuania there seems to be a more serious effort to prepare for the coming age of bicycles.

This is in Nth Latvia. To escape a nasty headwind I opt for forest tracks but this one is a tad too sandy. Although my rear tyre is 32 and my front is 28, so no good for this sandy pine forest, they are still the best widths overall for this trip.

A rest day in Riga. An impressive old town with a modern vibe. Best not in peak-tourist season. There is a great museum dedicated to 1935-1990.

Constantly north. I am fantasising that this is a reindeer but perhaps not.

In Parnu, Estonia. In the central park on a Saturday afternoon a whole series of ethnic dance performances all in costume.

A preserved relic without a plaque in a wheat field without a town nearby. Like so much of Europe, history here has seen conquerors and religions come and go.

Baltic pine is the most common construction material but there are some superb stone buildings in Estonia.

Arriving in Tallinn. About 1,150km from Warsaw the way I came.

Tallinn is a major tourist destination but that is concentrated in the old city which is very well preserved.

After getting a bike carton at the sports shop near the airport I have been able to check-in weighing 22.2kg. The planes out of here are quite small and they are exercising a 23kg limit. Otherwise about $200+.

A ride across Argentina starting at Mendoza and heading East. Josh is going to be an exchange student here for a year so we thought we’d get acquainted with the country through a bike ride.

Western Argentina is very dry but rivers coming from the snow melting in the Andes have allowed irrigation to exist for centuries.

We are running South and the Andes are 80km to the west. They are massive.

On the Cuyo. The Andes are 125km away but dominate the scenery.

In Alto Pencoso. The boy has his bike pump attached to his back wheel.

Road to San Luis. We became seriously dehydrated on this stretch and even drank out of a cattle trough.

Rio Cuarto bike shop visit.

There are some nasty headwinds in these parts. Today it was full-on headwind for hours and then a storm came through and we had a massive tailwind.

In Rio Cuarto Josh and a radio interviewer try to understand each other.

One of the great benefits of touring with a trailer is that you can haul bike boxes.

Buenos Aires is an impressive city.

We are reunited with a dear friend in Salto.

The boxes are too short and too low but we came through with no damage.

As a young family we take on the island on our custom touring bikes. I’m running a touring shop in Sydney and have access to any component made. With a 15 month old child on a Rex baby seat, we land at Negombo, follow the coast down as far as Hambamtota, then come up into the highlands to Nuwara Eliya. A few days later we rode onto Kandy. While we were at Peradeniya Gardens the Tamil communal conflict exploded and when we rode back to our lodging Kandy was burning.

Heading South to Galle.

Our daughter is having a rest after being such a hit with her blond hair and blue eyes.

Awake again and the audience rushes back. Because she’s on the back I have to have all the luggage on the front. Note the Sanyo Dynapower, Campag bar-end levers, centre-pull brakes, Cinelli bars and stem, Brooks Team Professional saddle.