leaving Quito etc etc

OK, where to start… I have about an hour I suppose before I really need to go and find something interesting to eat… Right now I´m in a friendly little town called Latacunga, south of Quito… more on that in a minute however as the past couple of days have been quite fun….

Monday then…. got on my bike at 7.30am but the traffic was already horrendous, was a little nerve wracking navigating my way of the city, but only one incident when a cab driver (isn´t always… if it isn´t a bus or a BMW…) turned right across in front of me & I ended up with my front wheel in his door and the trailer at 90 degs to the bike… I was OK, made a face at him, he laughed and apologized so that was OK… he didn´t know about the small dent in his passenger door at this point…..

Quito is a long, thin city set in a basin… it took about 2hrs of mostly uphill riding through the city streets, in bonkers traffic, trying to avoid the broken glass and potholes to actually break free of the built up area. I was never really sure of my navigation thanks to the absence of signs so when I saw that big sign “Pan Americana Sur” it felt great. I love the moment on every trip when I feel I have finally broken free of all the bollocks and have nothing but adventure to look forward too… on Monday this point was on the crest of the pass above the city, just before descending onto the Pan Americana… the view of the mountains wreathed in clouds as far as I could see was my much needed adrenalin rush.

Mondays ride itself was a bit of a yawn, with no immediate option but to head down the Pan Americana it was just a case of trying to have as much fun as possible.. It wasn´t busy, the surface was good soI thought it might be easy going south down to the main entrance to Cotopaxi National Park… it wasn´t. It was nearly all uphill… I climbed 50km with another 10km of steep descending and some flat… I think. The truck drivers were good as gold, always ready with a friendly toot on the horn and in exchange for a silly grin and wave from me I´d get a wave and good blast of the horn back…. Part of the highway is a toll road, I knew I wouldn´t have to pay on the bike but I was in one of those silly moods so rolled up to the barrier slowly, smiled laughingly at the girl inside and said “¿Cuanto por gringo loco en bicicleta?” she laughed and sent me on my way to the amusement to the coppers standing nearby… made me happy ´cos it must be such a miserable job.

I had to stop after about 50km for a coffee, very much feeling the climbs in my legs.. there are plenty of roadside shacks (for want of a better word) along the Pan Americana… sadly coffee was a pretty poor word for the barely drinkable ´stuff´that arrived though I guess I was spoilt in Quito, sugar just about made it palatable.. it clearly had caffeine in it however so it served its purpose… that and a cheese sandwich cost the princely sum of 25 cents, yup US$0.25.

What else happened… ah yes, I stopped on one particularly long climb for a breather so was sitting on a log by the side of the road with a packet of biscuits when a local Indian woman came trudging up the road… took her by surprise I think when I offered her a handful of biscuits, we exchanged a few words and a smile and she went on her way… munching. She would have made a wonderful photo in her bowler hat and green velvet embroidered dress, I didn´t ask though… past experience says the locals don´t really like it and I´d rather leave her with a pleasant memory of the skinny gringo on the bike with the packet of biscuits…

Found a very cool place to stay after 80km, about 2km off the highway, down a little dirt track, right opposite the dirt road that leads into Cotopaxi. Very beautiful Hacienda type place.. all old wood beams and floors, fireplaces and white stucco. Friendly people too so depite being the only guest we had some fun with my Spanish and a beer or two….. Excellent thunderstorm after lunch too… actually I´ve enjoyed a good thunderstorm every afternoon since leaving the city… well it is the wet (or rather “wetter”) season after all.

The trailer handles brilliantly by the way, very different from riding with panniers. The only ´bother´ I´ve had really is that it can feel a little nervous descending faster than 50km per hr but I suspect that is just my unfamiliarity with its dynamics.

Tuesday I left the trailer at the hacienda, strapped my day sack to the rack and rode 25km on rough dirt tracks right up the side of the volcano to 4300m altitude. Didn´t bother going up to the refugio at 4600m because I was already in cloud at 4300. It was quite hard going, basically 25km straight up (2 hrs), shallower gradient at first on very loose surface of volcanic sand and gravel - hard going. The steep sections were easier, despite being around 15-20% in places the surface was harder so easier to ride, good fun too negotiating the rocks and gullies. Although Cotopaxi herself was hiding in the cloud, with just occasional and admittedly very exciting glimpses of the snow cone, the scenery in the park is spectacular, Can´t be bothered to describe, you´ll have to go see for yourself (or read about is here). Stopped at about 3900m at the park centre.. sat by the log fire, drank coffee and scoffed a couple of good chunks of bread and cheese courtesy of the proprietor. Felt a bit surreal really… I did have a very smug moment when a couple of mountainbikers showed up on a day trip from Quito.. they were being driven up the mountain so they could ride down… I looked at them and thought “lazy buggers”, they probably looked at me and thought “silly bugger”… though of course I would like to think they considered me as some sort of athletic god riding up there :o). I am lucky though in that I do adapt to altitude really well, it was fun to think that in the Himalayas I was riding my bike at the same height as the summit of Cotopaxi.. which in itself is a bit of a mountaineering challenge (but not a technical one) for most folk (sorry, I just needed that litte ego moment…:o)

From there it´s just about another 100m of loose dirt to a fantastic high plateau with the snow cone of Cotopaxi on one side, a lovely lake (Lago Limpipungo) and a bunch of other peaks on the other side. I spent ages up there exploring the vastness and enjoying the profound silence of the environment, before riding on up to the cloudbase. Around midday the clouds started to look really threatening so it was time for a high speed (well as fast as the terrain, surface and balls would allow) descent down the mountain with a thunderstorm snapping at my heels. Made it down with just a few tense “sand-trap moments” and back to my lodgings as the first heavy raindrops started to fall. Top stuff. It´s a shame about the cloud but I will pass by the northern access to the park on my way back north to Colombia so if the weather looks promising I´ll cycle in that way and camp up there.

This morning then was just an easy 30km down the highway to Latacunga… of course the sun was shining and Cotopaxi was clear of cloud… Only for a bit though so I didn´t feel too bad! It struck me as I was hammering down the road just how good this bike is… It´s the same every time I travel on it but to have a machine that can cope happily one day in offroad terrain I´ve seen mountainbikers struggle with, and then on the next day cruise quite happily at 45km/hr down the asphalt (I had a slight tailwind this morning… :o) without even a change of tyre pressure. Feels a bit like a freight train at speed with the trailer on!

Arrived here nice and early, it´s a very colourful, bustling little town. Found myself a very pink place to stay for $10 and have spent my day chatting to the locals and just wandering really (and writing to a couple of folk and a muppecita back home… OK, this is an inside joke, but I figure muppecita would be the spanish diminutive for muppet which is my general purpose word for, well, I´d better be careful here, “useless idiot”… but in the nicest possible way of course). The folk here are very nice, easy to talk to and friendly. Even the old lady at the market I bought fruit from was happy to exchange a few words (my Spanish is all coming back nicely now). This afternoon I simply retreated to a funky little cafe, asked the (very sweet and chatty..) girl for tea… it took a while, she said they didn´t have any but would see what she could do… took about half an hour… I suspect she went out to buy tea especially :o)

Onward plans then.. tomorrow I´m heading off to Baños south east of here, looks to be somewhere between 80 and 90km so I should be there by lunch though there areone or two villages on the way where I plan to stop for a brew. Baños, as the name suggests - and sitting right on an active volcano, has hot springs…. plan to spend a couple of days chilling there, making some day trips out into the mountains on the bike before heading SE to Riobamba and Chimborazo which is where the real opportunities to lose myself in the mountains will come. At last I feel totally at home again. Feel no particular desire to head back to the UK right now……. as my sister so delicately put it “get your lean, weathered ass on that bike and just ride…!”
Buenas noches…
p.s apols for poor image quality, no real editing facilities here… it´s a bit of a creaky old PC with half the characters on the keyboard worn off…

the equator… yawn!!

OK, so I did stick around an extra day, have been feeling a bit rough and besides this is a kind of a fun place to hang out. I have been good today though, it was time for a warmup on the bike… you know, get the blood going and open the lungs (and subsequently fill them with traffic fumes…) so at 7.30 I was on my bike and pedalling my way north through Quito’s streets towards the equator (a 50km round trip). The city is something stupid like 50km long north to south so it wasn’t  a particularly interesting ride…. but the idea of riding to the Equator kind of gave the ride some reason. Nothing to see as such, just a tacky monument but at least I can add bicycle to the modes of transport I’ve crossed the equator in or on (aeroplanes don’t count, but hiking boots do… and flipflops….). I left my 14 inch banana behind by the way, pocket not big enough……

Sunday has been a good day for spin in the city, the roads are reasonably quiet though navigation gets interesting at times, the road signs are bollocks, mainly because there aren’t any to speak of … I did have one ‘moment’ when i found myself in a  really poor and shitty looking part of town but the locals were really good with giving directions so that was OK.. I think they were just amused that I was even there in the first place, and stupid enough to be on a bicycle. The drivers in general seem pretty respectful of a cyclist, even the cabbies and bus drivers who tend to be the worst breed of motorist back home… of course there’s the occasional prick but it is the same the whole world over.

I must admit I did feel the altitude and last few days of travel in my legs on the outbound trip… but found my legs for the return so was able to have some fun racing slightly bemused drivers down the main drag at 30mph… I couldn’t keep it up for long  but was quite amusing. Best way to get the drivers to pay attention to you is to hog the lane you’re in…. and they were so well behaved bless ‘em! Having the cloak of ’stupid gringo’ to hide behind is very useful at times too…. I rode about 5km the wrong way up a one way street simply because I really couldn’t be bothered with navigating the proper route… the pavements are pretty wide too so is easy to hop up onto the sidewalk when faced with a bus head-on, no one seemed bothered if ran a few red lights as well.

Tomorrow’s plan is to ride about 80 or 90km south to the entrance to the Cotopaxi Parque Nacional… there is a hostal about 2km off the highway that’s only a few $ a night and apparently a friendly place. I may stay 2 nights, leave my gear and spend Tuesday riding the dirt roads up the slopes of the volcano before heading further south on Wednesday. I’ll try and get away by 7.30am tomorrow before the traffic gets too mental in the city.

Oh yes, in case you’re wondering… right now i’m sitting in a cafe called papaya.net, drinking filter coffee and listening to Queen on the stereo…. culture eh?! (by the way… if you spot any typos it’s because the keyboards are mostly knackered…. but at least they have regular characters on them, the Arabic/French ones in Morocco were a real mind bender….)

Hasta luego amigos…..

a 14″ banana and other stuff

hey look at this… OK it´s not really a banana, it´s a plantain but flippin´heck if it was a banana it would be a cyclists wet dream, in my case that is from an eating point of view but depending on what you’re like you may have other things in mind… i won´t go there. Big isn´t it……

OK, other stuff… i’m still feeling thoroughly wasted today. Yesterday I was running on adrenalin, today I just have the combination of jetlag, fatigue and altitude (Quito is at almost 10,000ft) to deal with… i really can’t face riding a bike just yet so have decided to stick around for an extra day… it’s a bummer because the quiet Sunday traffic would have been nice for riding out of town, emotionally i just want to get going too…. Quito really is just another big city with a lot of tourists so not particularly friendly to the single traveller, i feel much more at home in small or wild places. Logically I have nothing to lose by sticking around, I have the racing cyclist’s nagging conscience that says I have been off my bike too long but the reality is that on a trip like this I need to be rested before I start and the extra day of adaptation to the altitude will be handy before getting on my bike.
I’ll be beginning my journey on Monday by heading south out of Quito on the Pan Americana. Mainly because I can´t wait to check out the giant volcanoes of Cotopaxi and Chimborazo. They are a whole order of magnitude bigger than the volcanoes I climbed and hiked all over in Indonesia so I guess I´m pretty excited. whether or not I´ll try and get my bike all the way up to the Cotopaxi refuge remains to be seen - it´s kind of early in the trip from an acclimatisation point of view to be going straight up to well over 4000m… after all Quito is only at 2850m….

I must confess as well I briefly felt slightly unnerved last night… having been reminded of the problem they have here in Ecuador of highway banditry…. and dogs… not sure which I´m more scared of. I’d already rationalised the risks away before arriving.. logically a bloke on a bike is more of a curiosity than a target and plenty of other folk have cycled round here. However chatting in a bookshop last night an English expat of 20 years I happened to mention I had my bike with me… he stared at me like I had suddenly grown horns or something, said something about stupidity and muttered “better watch yourself” as I left. Ah well nothing like being scared to make you feel alive… nothing ventured, nothing gained and all that…… The reality is that as a gringo, probably much wealthier than the local poulation and probably driving a nice car, he would be a much more obvious target than me and would do well to be careful I guess…… well, that’s what I’m telling myself! Heck, I’ve survived some very hairy situations in the past so if the worst happens then so long as I avoid getting shot then it’ll be just one more story for the pub on my return :o). Reality is that the highlands where I plan on going are supposed to be reasonably friendly, I have no intention of going down into the lowlands where apparently (I´ve been told) the risks are higher. I´m dead excited…

OK, now a local recommendation.. if you find yourself in Quito then the Ecuadorian potato soup at cafe papaya is to die for. Really thick and spicy, loaded with cheese and chunks of avocado. Top stuff. I met a couple of Americans in there travelling with all their white-water kayak gear.. including the boats…. & I thought lugging a bike around at times was hassle! I have to say they were a proper stereotypical pair of Northern Californian ´dudes´… this was actually a good thing from a conversation point of view mainly because they hate George Bush and are in tune with their ´gaia´if that makes sense (and if it doesn´t then tough luck).
OK, that´s it for now. I´m going to go and start sorting my gear out. I may leave tomorrow after all… I just can´t wait to get going.
Hasta luego….

Hola from Quito…

gawd what an arse of a journey…. I finally got to the hostal here in Quito about 8pm last night dead on my feet, right now it´s about midday local time and I still feel like dogpoo. On the bright side it´s about 26 degs and sunny here :o) 

so the journey then…. well 5hrs drive to stay with a good friend near Heathrow, 3hrs kip and then getting up at 2.30am to get to Heathrow for 3.30am to return rental car and check in on early flight to Madrid, then 3 hrs delay in madrid before the 11hr flight to Quito… so today is a do nothing day and I might stay here Sunday too before getting on my bike and riding out to the west. I booked myself in a nice place for these few days… my little bit of luxury before putting on my Indiana Jones hat and making a move. This morning I just got some chores out the way… have bought 4 weeks worth of doxcycline for malaria, she wouldn´t sell me the full 58 tabs i needed but no matter, i´ll pick up more in Colombia. It may have been becuase it´s not used here for Malaria, rather it´sa standard treatment for STDs and perhaps she thought there´s no way I could be that ´clapped out´if you see what I mean :o) Saved me a wedge though, 4 weeks only cost $5….

Back to the flight then.. I´m not flying long haul with Iberia again unless I really have no option (I could have flown via the US with United or American but they´re crap too in my experience, and arrive at midnight…) The aircraft was an A340 but with quite a dated cabin spec so no decent entertainment except a couple of big screens down the middle… I just curled up best I could and retreated into my music for the full 11hrs (this is the first time I´ve really appreciated the rather amazing battery life on my iPod Nano). Found myself sitting next to a  chap from a country I shall not mention lest it perpetuate the stereotype of all Germans as big fat arrogant folk with nothing to say. Doh!. OK, this is not true, I have some brilliant friends in Germany.  The food was pretty dire.. normally i can eat anything anywhere in the world, even raw buffalo liver on the Lao/China border many years ago… however this was the first time I have ever encountered something that genuinely turned my stomach… it was meant to be some sort of crab pate with a chickpea salad but both were just.. ugghhh! I think for my flight home from Bogota I´ll take my own grub on board. Bagels and marmite would be nice but doubt i´ll find marmite in Bogota…. :o) I suppose the only good thing about the journey was that at Heathrow my gear was so bulky it wouldn´t fit on the scales… so the chap checking me in just took me at my word on the weights and couldn´t be bothered to charge an excess despite being blatently over the 20kg limit with the bike. I´d bundled the trailer and dry bags containing my gear into one big package, wasn´t sure they´d accept it and I don´t think any of the other passengers did either judging by the “you stupid tw@t” looks I received in the queue :o)

Arrival in Quito cheered me up, aside from the stunning views of a giant snowcapped volcano poking above the rainclouds I felt instantly at home in the familiar chaos of a developing nation. My bike and trailer arrived OK too which was a relief and my room at the hostal is now a chaotic tip of gear. I always get nervous about being able to get the bike downtown on arrival somewhere new. It´s irrational really because I´ve always found a way and nothing a few extra $$ in the right hands can´t fix.  Quito was easy…. I bought a taxi token and was able to get rid of one of my $100 bills - the locals are really suspicious of them because so many forgeries around, as a result you only really see $1, $5 and $10 bills here… the taxi was $6 (we stuffed the bike and gear in somehow) so in return I had 2 $20 bills and 54 one dollar bills. It reminded me of being in Cambodia during the troubles in early 90´s when inflation was something stupid like 1000%… I´d change just $10 at a time and receive a 4 inch thick wad of Rial in return. I was also a little worried about being picked up by customs because the law here is max of 10 rolls of film and one camera that you can bring in… as you may know I´m a bit of a photographer so had almost 40 rolls of film, about $8K worth of leica M plus lenses and my digicam for snapshots that I decided not to declare… my bags were xrayed on arrival without even a raised eyebrow… not like in Pakistan where the rules are similar… the customs guy was coming after me so i grabbed my gear and ran into the crowd outside…..

I´ve been chatting to an American couple over brekkie this morning… she asked me where I was from… Cornwall… it turned out her ancestors were Cornish farmers that emigrated a couple of hundred years ago, and I asked where they lived… answer was upstate New York… so I said “oh, Adirondack area by any chance?¨”.. to which answer was yes and how did i know about it.. well I spent so many weekends playing in the Adirondack mountains when I lived in Montreal that I know the area really well. so there was a double connection, quite a nice coincidence I suppose…. They were suitably in awe (though perhaps it was a look of pity….) when they found out I was travelling by bike :o) Stating the obvious like everyone else… “oh, you must be fit/brave/stupid (all 3 apply in my case i think…)

Having fun with my Spanish too… it´s good enough to get by now, and will improve massively i think.. but French comes much more naturally to me so I keep tripping up and inserting the odd French word much to the bemusement of the locals…. I´m just a stupid gringo I guess….

OK, that´s it for now……

Adios amigos…

Happy New Year, I’ll be on my way to the Andes…

Blimey, 2008 crept up a bit quick… so Happy New Year, I hope it is kind to you. This my last post until I get to Quito… all my gear is packed, I’m quite pleased - I’ve managed to keep the weight down, the trailer complete with all my gear (tent, stove, tools etc included) as pictured weighs just 18.5kg all-in…. I have a brilliant little 25 litre roll-top waterproof day-sack from Alpkit that has my camera gear, film, maps, book and a few other heavier items in right now. I’ll use it for hand-luggage on the flight then on the bike it’ll be used as a waterproof stuff-sack on the rear rack for my camera gear etc.

It occurred to me yesterday that those big dry bags have a big advantage over panniers… I can get away with a lighter sleeping bag cos if it gets really cold and/or wet and I need some extra protection in my tent then one of those will fit right over the lower half of my sleeping bag… the other would fit right over the top but being airtight that might not be so good for the health and I have no desire to deprive of you my most excellent company (!! hehe) just yet.

I guess that’s about it then… folk keep saying “are you excited?”… well I suppose I am to a degree but to be honest I’ve done this so many times that right now I’m just focussed on getting my bike and gear to Quito in one piece. Once I’m there then the adrenalin will kick in, especialy the day I pedal out of Quito for 2 months of two-wheeled muppetry :o) I have to say am pretty happy right now at skipping January and February, possibly the dreariest months of the English winter… and 2 months away from work, this is a very good thing indeed :o)

My next post will be from Quito. I’ll do my best to keep this reasonably up to date as I go but the real trip report and photos will be along a few weeks after I return in March. Stay tuned….

a curved needle and other stuff…

I’m happy this morning, I’ve finally found a decent curved needle to add to my first aid kit, it makes life so much easier if you find yourself having to stitch up either yourself or someone else (cycling after all does carry more risk than, say, chess or even walking… :-). Thankfully I’ve only been in that situation once and it was myself so no need to worry about making someone else’s eyes water :o). It got me thinking about things as a I wandered back down the street… just the situations that happen when you’re out in the wilds on your own. Folk keep saying “ooh, I don’t know how you can do that….” (at this point I shamefully feel quite smug having looked after myself in some bonkers situations in extreme cold.. or altitude or whatever…) but you just do… when faced with something bad you just deal with it… My right knee, and to a lesser extent both elbows, is just a mess of scar tissue (only on the surface, it works just fine ‘inside’).. some of it the legacy of bike racing but the biggest chunk from a crash on a mountain hairpin when touring. As always the accident was a combination of causes… the descent was brilliant and I ‘forgot’ I was on a fully loaded bike, the surface was good so I was flying… and the slick patch on the sharp right hand bend was just that… slick! It hurt… a couple of passers by actually peeled me off the road and eventually I was able to patch myself temporarily from my first aid kit with their help. It was all downhill to a nearby village so I got back on my bike (testament to the durability of Ortlieb panniers… no rips!) with a very messy leg and arm and ribs that felt as if they’d been cracked. The place was deserted when I arrived (public holiday) and there were no medical facilities as such but a bar owner put me up. That afternoon, aside from eating his brilliant home-made burgers, I spent a few hours cleaning myself up. The arm was easy - that was just loss of skin, and there wasn’t much I could do about my ribs except painkillers (they were just badly bruised) but my knee was left with a sort of big hole about the size of a 50p piece down to the bone with the remnants kind of hanging away… Just a case of gritting my teeth and cleaning it up with my swiss army knife and lots of clean water. My first aid kit was pretty exhausted aside from a few sterile pads so I cut strips off the cotton bedsheet to bind it all up… didn’t say anything but left a few $$$ by the bed next day when I left. It was just another 100km to a reasonable size town where I could get fresh medical supplies. It didn’t half hurt riding though! I changed my plans and stopped there for a couple of nights extra. All part of the fun and it looks OK really….

Just a tip, if you didn’t already know… superglue (cyano-acrylate) works great at bonding skin together if you’re stuffed for stitches or burst some stitches open. Your body will break it down naturally over time. Gaffer tape as well… a few years ago camped out on a remote beach down under I wiped out and cut my cheek down to the bone just below my eye. Gaffer tape strips to pull it closed and some superglue to seal and I was back in the water a few hours later (luckily cold water, not tropical - that could have been nasty). The scar took a couple of years to fade but it’s gone completely now… I’m sure regular stitches would have left some sort of mark.

OK, enough of that - I really must get on with packing… I know exactly what I need and what to do, it’s just a chore actually doing it so I’ve been kind of skirting round the pile of gear doing other things…..

ciao!

p.s just waiting for someone from the medical profession to come along and call me an idiot… I wouldn’t necessarily argue but at the time it was the easiest option and I could carry on with the fun…… so with regard to the above… “don’t try this at home kids” ;o)

Packing my bike…

I couldn’t really put it off much longer I suppose…. it’s not exactly my favourite chore when heading away with a bike, though with my touring bike it is refreshingly easy compared with all the padding and, in my case, a custom hard-case a light weight race bike needs. With it’s 531ST tubes, bombproof finish and already exhibiting the scars of previous adventures my Nomad really needs minimal care…. I’m flying to Quito, and home from Bogotá with Iberia. Annoyingly they absolutely insist on the bike being boxed which, aside from adding extra weight to the overall package, just adds work at both ends of the trip.

Lufthansa are the best airline I’ve ever flown with when touring, I used them to get to Delhi via Frankfurt (I had a lot of air-miles with them to burn….). All they wanted was pedals off and bars turned round. I wheeled it up to the checkout and a chap came along, took it off me (no charges…) and at the other end an Indian chap wheeled it into the baggage hall with covetous eyes…. it was absolutely unmarked. British Airways, Easyjet & Air Canada have always been happy with it inside a giant plastic bag… in this case I just take pedals off, turn bars round and stick a bit of padding (pipe lagging) on the main tubes - with it packed like that it’s easy to carry it around the airport on my shoulder. A box is a pain in the butt because now I’m tied to one of those baggage trolleys which never go in the direction you want and are always impossible to find when you really need one. I grabbed a box from the recycling pile outside my local bike shop a couple of weeks ago… it’s big enough for the bike to go in with the rear wheel still attached. I’ve had to remove the bars and front mudguard though. The front wheel, seatpost and saddle are just stuffed in along side the frame with a bit of bubble wrap. I’ll ditch this lot in Quito and then sprt something out in Bogotá to bring it home… though right now I have to say I’m very tempted to leave the bike and gear in Bogota, fly home, sort my affairs out and fly back a month or so later and point my wheels south and pedal all the way to Tierra del Fuego. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while….. we’ll see (and just in case anyone from the office is reading… don’t panic yet, I may well have had enough after 2 months :o). The trailer and dry bags I think I’ll just strap together and sling it on the plane as it is…. I hope Iberia are OK with that, I shall have to practice my sweetest smile for the check-in staff… and probably have my credit card ready from some excess charges. Sadly the argument that I’m already 20kg lighter than the average fatty traveller is never received with much sympathy……

Oh yes, my other little ‘niggle’ about travelling with my bike… the fact that airlines still insist on tyres being deflated. It’s stupid, aside from leaving the rims more vulnerable to damage all modern airliners have pressurised holds… same as the cabin, usually to an equivalent altitude of 6000ft. Heck, I’ve ridden my bike at three times that altitude and my tyres were fine….

a look at my Extrawheel

OK, as promised a couple of days ago I thought I’d take you on a little guided tour of the Extrawheel trailer I’m taking to S America with me….. Being busy (lazy) I hadn’t actually got around to sorting out the coupling and so on until today, it’s done now and I’ll take it for a road test tomorrow.

The whole thing is incredibly simple and very light - a 26″ wheel (other sizes available) bolted into a light tubular steel sub-frame with a plastic and stiffened cordura (at least it feels like cordura) mudguard, with an adjustable mesh sling hung each side. It comes with heavy duty roll-top dry bags for carrying your luggage and these just get stuffed in the slings.

The attachment to the bike is just via a special quick release lever (included, as are alternative nuts for bolt-on axles) with ball end, complete with little rubber covers for when the trailer isn’t attached.

The trailer is attached with a springy y-shaped yoke with concave bushes on the ends that spring over the ball ends on the quick release. The trailer end of the yoke similarly springs (but in a vertical plane) over ball ends welded to the sub-frame. Adjustment and set-up of the whole thing took about 5 minutes, and now it’s done attaching and detaching the trailer only takes a second or so.

The whole thing makes for a very neat and simple package that should cope well with rough terrain. The max load is rated at 30kg which is more than enough for me with all my camping gear.

If I have got a criticism it’s that the wheel use a bolt-on axle which means that for handling punctures or swapping tyres with a damaged one on the bike I need to carry an extra spanner to suit which doesn’t double up as a tool anywhere else on the bike. Ideally it would come with either recessed allen bolts into a hollow axle or a simple quick release. I won’t bother to change it for this trip but when I come home i’ll either swap the axle for a hollow one and QR or build a new wheel around a QR hub, probably XT to share some common parts with the hubs on the bike.

I’ll give you a ride report as soon as I can though the real test will be 2 months in the Andes. In the meantime though there is a pretty useful write-up over on the BikeRadar site.

my touring bike… a guided tour

I should be writing christmas cards really but I’m not good at that so instead I thought I’d take you on a little guided tour of the bike that will be coming to South America with me. It’s shockingly clean in these pictures which belie the wild and woolly adventures it’s carried me on over the past years, some of the components are also new since the last tour so it’s looking quite good at the moment.

The frame is a Thorn Nomad from SJS Cycles in Bridgewater, built 5 years ago, with beautifully clean fillet brazing, from heavy gauge 531 pipes with a thick black powdercoat. The frame and finish has proven to be bombproof, barely showing any scars from numerous occasions being slung on top of buses, trucks, in the boot of an ancient Mercedes Grands Taxi on Morocco not to mention some seriously heavy off-road terrain, all while carrying a full camping load. The handling is impeccable even on rough dirt with a full pannier load, i can ride it in my sleep {figure of speech, I’ve not really tried it….} which always makes getting back on my flighty race bike after a couple of months on board the Nomad an interesting experience….

Anyway, a few little details… My favourite part of the bike are the 9spd thumbshifters adapted from Dura Ace bar end levers with a nicely machined custom mount from Forge MTB (sadly now defunct though Paul does does something very similar). Nice and simple, durable and switchable to friction shift if you end up with a buggered or bent rear mech or something. Ideal on a tour to funny place. The bars and stem are new since the last trip, my initial attempts to keep the bike entirely utilitarian and reasonably cheap failed miserably… as you probably know i’m a complete tart when it comes to two-wheeled jewellery so I justified a nice looking and beautifully machined Thomson stem and Easton bars (silver specifically to contrast with the black frame and stem… aesthetics are everything…) on the basis that if you’re sitting in the saddle for up to 10hrs a day, day after day, I might as well have something nice to look at down there. The battered Titec stem/Profile bars were binned as soon as I came back from my last trip.

The brakes too are possibly a little more spangly than you might expect to find on a heavy duty tourer, though aside from looking nice there was some functional rationale behind the SRAM 9.0 levers and calipers. I had LX levers and XT calipers on there originally… they worked but the design of the XT caliper makes it so susceptible to squealing like a dying pig that I couldn’t live with it, the SRAM caliper is much stiffer one peice design and doesn’t squeal at all. The old levers were metal… even with gloves on they gave me real cold finger problems during long days riding at high altitude. The SRAM levers are a composite material that is much ‘warmer’ to the touch and just as tough. They’re lighter too though that really is irrelevant on a bike that weighs 13.5kgs unloaded (but with the racks and pedals).

OK, what else … ah yes, the saddle, it’s a San Marco Regal, my arse is really at home on this. The other San Marco Classic, the Rolls, didn’t quite work for me in touring mode (though I loved it on my race bike back in the early ’90s). I see no reason to fit a classic Brooks, as so often seen under the backsides of cycle-tourists everywhere, the Regal is fine, needs no looking after and was cheap as chips… looks good too. It sits on top of an Easton seatpost… same logic applies to this as for the handlebars…

Wheels are Mavic 618 Ceramic rims built onto XT hubs with 36 DT Competition spokes per wheel. The ceramic rims have been superb, the braking in the wet is excellent and once bedded in the pads seem to last forever, in shitty conditions. I have seen reports of Mavic rims cracking when used long term for loaded touring (Sun Rhyno seems to be the heavy duty rim of choice) but I’ve not experienced any such problems, possibly ‘cos even when camping my load is actually pretty light… being a gear freak I have uber-light (and consequently expensive) kit that packs down very small and when combined with my ‘feathery’ (OK, scrawny) frame means my load is significantly less than most other folk I meet on the road. The XT hubs are ace, they use standard size cup and cone bearings on bog standard axles so are serviceable on the road, they’re well sealed too. The tyres in the pic are the ones I use if I’m on-road only Conti slicks, but for rufty tufty stuff I’ve always used Panaracer Pasela TG 1.75×26″ tyres. They roll brilliantly on asphalt and work amazingly well in the dirt too… and they’re pretty light which is nice for speed and handling but have proven to be plenty durable - same reason perhaps as for the rims. Most folk tend to recommend Schwalbe Marathon XRs for heavy duty touring but I’m buggered if I’m going to cart around 800g of rubber per wheel, in some 8′000 miles of rough touring with the Paselas I’ve had just 2 punctures and have only just bought some new tyres for my upcoming trip, not because the old ones are worn out, it’s just extra ‘insurance’.

 

Drive train is boring old XT. It works, the rear mech is well sealed and reliable. The cranks are defunct Octalink splined. I did have square taper ones on there but when I wanted to replace the rings a complete new XT chainset from fleabay was cheaper than rings alone (this was when external bearings had just appeared). The Octalink BB isn’t supposed to be as reliable as square taper but so far it’s been fine. I’m sticking a new one in anyway before heading off to S America, at only about £20 for XT off the web it seems to make sense.

That’s about it really… except for the racks, these are also from Reynolds 531 and powdercoated. Super tough and repairable by anyone with a welding torch. Though for this trip the front low rider is being left at home as I’m using a trailer for the first time, an Extrawheel which I”ll write about next time ‘cos it’s rather a funky piece of kit.

You might have noticed the very 1980’s a MTB accessory on the rear droputs… a bent steel “mech protector”, they appeared on MTBs in the late 80s and early 90’s when decent mechs cost relatively more than they do now and folk hadn’t realised just how tough they were for mountainbiking. I stuck this one on for extra protection when I do sling the bike in/on buses and trains etc… it’s proven it’s worth I think judging by the number of times I’ve had to bend it back into shape.

so there you are. Just as an aside the photo above the bike on the wall is of us high in the Himalayas, around 17,500ft high..

Colombia & Ecuador maps, routes etc

seeing as there’s been some interest I thought I’d take five minutes and write a little about route planning for my time in South America, what little planning there is anyway. First then, maps… right now I have for Colombia the IGN (Istitut Geographique National) Carte Touristique Colombie (how’s my French eh?!). At a scale of 1: 1 500 000 it’s not really detailed enough for day to day use on the ground but it’s fine for developing an idea before actually getting on the bike. Similarly for Ecuador I have a1: 700 000 map from ITMB . This latter one might actually be good enough for use on the bike, I’m not sure yet. It’s a shame the ITMB map for Colombia is only 1:2 000 000. In both countries I plan to see what I can find once I actually arrive, and if I find nothing better then the answer is simple… just go with what I have, tap into some local knowledge and enjoy the adventure. If you after similar maps then Stanfords is a good place to start.

Now for the routes,,, I plan nothing in detail because nothing ever goes to plan, however the rough idea is to initially head south of Quito, down towards Riobamba for an ‘explore’ of the area around Volcan Chimborazo, then fiddle my way across the mountains, taking in some altitude and detours along the way towards Quevedo before heading North to Santo Domingo de los Colorados, then east back to Quito before turning north up to the border with Colombia to cross at Tulcan/Ipiales. Once in Colombia I imagine it’s going to look something like a ride via Popayan, San Agustin and so on to Bogota, though I hope I have time for some detours and to visit Medellin, Villa de Leyva, and the El Cocuy national park. We’ll see!

Flights and stuff

Yes, I finally got around to sorting myself out with some flights today, I’m off to Quito with my touring bike on 3rd January, flying home from Bogotá on the 28th Feb. Ok it’s only 8 weeks on the road but it’ll do for now while I think about what to do when I return. I plan to split my time roughly 50/50 Ecuador/Colombia though I’m especially excited about Colombia, it will be an interesting time. I’m not bothering with any detail planning, I never do - nothing ever goes to plan when I travel by bike, especially when off the beaten track … I have an idea, a map, a bicycle and a tent - that’s all I need (well, I do have other things as well, you know - like a toothbrush, a pair of underpants and stuff… :o). So, errm, that’s about all I can say about that right now… Stay tuned though, I’ll post some of my thoughts and ideas over the next few weeks plus of course I’ll do my best to update on here from the road to make you all envious in the dark months of January and February :o)

Bit closer to home now… I’m totally revelling in the amazing weather we’ve been having. It’s colder now but dry roads in November… now that is something special. My choice of route to work this morning carried me round the shores of Stithians Lake, it was quite atmospheric in the pre-dawn grey with a cold north wind scudding across it’s surface. It’s really high up and the surrounding views are fabulous. There’s a special melancholy about the sense of being by a cold lake at dawn before the orange warmth spreads across the sky from the east - it’s the cold, damp air on cheeks, the chill of dawn, the steely grey water ruffled by wind - it reminds me of early mornings camping high in the mountains or highlands by water when the cosy warmth of your sleeping bag is in such stark contrast to the monochrome cool outside. Nice. The rides home have been nice too this last couple of evenings, I’ve dragged out my decent lights now so I can enjoy Cornwall’s quiet, unlit lanes, just the last glimmer of pink in the sky to the west with nothing to disturb the peace aside from the odd mysterious rustling in the hedgerow, the occasional hoot of an owl and the ever present whisper of Conti Gatorskins on asphalt… doh! I’ve spoiled the romance of the scene.

Now, just before I sign off I must revisit the search engine terms from yesterday. I was shocked to see someone today came along to my blog based on a search for “fat bloke in lycra”….. I hope he wasn’t specifically looking for me ‘cos there’s nothing here but sore disappointment in that respect. By the way, I’m assuming it was a he, I just can’t imagine any girls plugging ‘fat bloke’ into their search engine in the hunt for an internet beau… “thong wearing athlete god” perhaps, but “fat bloke wrapped in lycra” .. no… unless perhaps there is a fetish undercurrent developing in the cycling world… I won’t worry until I see someone searching for “crotchless winter tights”.

cheerio!