I will soon be adding pictures and GIFs to spice up this text, but for now let me describe the proposed route for those who wish to follow along. I will start June 1st in Anchorage, Alaska, and bike down the rocky mountain spine of Canada and the US to the mexican border. I will spend alot of time wandering around in BC and Alberta, which I know and love so well; alot of side trips in Wyoming/Colorado/Utah/New Mexico as well. This evokes the first principle of this tour, which can be stated as follows:
A primary concern of cyclists (and tourists in general) in South America is personal security. I have read all kinds of stories--horror stories, happy stories. I will make my final decision about how to handle the security problems of the Narco-states (if I may call them that) as I approach them on the ground. But I will be guided by my second general principle, which is
By the way security is an issue that goes far beyond concerns about specific places and specific incidents. I am going to try and keep this issue under control, in perspective, the same way that I will control most other aspects of this trip: through poise, and preparation.
From India things settle back down..India, southest Asia to Singapore, fly to Australis for my second winter in a loop around the country, then back by plane to Hong Kong/Macau and into eastern China, up to Manchuria.
Again, I agree it is highly unlikely I will be able to enter North Korea, let alone ride independently to the Chosin reservoir and down the steep grades from Funchilin pass that the frozen X corps and Marines slogged over 50 years ago. I hope my credibility as a world cyclist, my awesome personal powers of persuasion (I once got my dog to roll over!), and the thawing international atmosphere in Northeast Asia, will come together for me in those distant days of late Spring 2000...still two years away, still 30,000 miles ahead. Through all the joy, fears and wonder of the next 24 months; through all the scenery, friends, fiends, bonding and banditos, will be woven a sad, somber and meaningful thread: the hope that, when I do arrive at that border, I'll be allowed to cross and tread the ground I have read so much about for so many years. Thats why so many people will misunderstand the reason I am going on this trip, and see me off with silly smiles and quaint wishes of joy and godspeed. Ok Ok...enough of the heavy emotional stuff and pledges of principle. What about the brass tacks and nitty gritty of this tour? Well, here are a few..i'll add more later as I think about them.
Specifically, when I reach Albuquerque, i will make sure i have all good working parts and the spares I need. Waiting for me in San Juan, Costa Rica, should I need it, will be a package that contains, as needed, tires, chain, sprocket, derailleur, and rear axle. I will assemble this package before I leave, and instruct a friend of mine to send it to Costa Rica by courier, if I need the parts. Between albuquerque and CR I am on my own. From Costa Rica, with parts replaced and new spares provided, my next drop off point if probably Quito..at the South American Explorers club! From there, perhaps one more drop off, although people tell me very quality and variety of parts are available in Argentina and Chile. If all of this preparation turns out to be unncessary, GREAT!! I would rather overprepare. I am taking a cue from my military buddies on the other part of my website: the onus of logistics is from the REAR, to anticipate what folks up front need. So...i'll have stuff here in the states ready to send down, if needed.
For cooking gear, i want to carry an all fuel stove. I could kill myself for throwing away my dear olf Optimus 99, which burned anything and had a needle that poked up FROM BELOW to ream out the fuel hole. I decided to get an MSR that will ream out the feul hole when ya shake it. For cooking gear I carry a 2 small sauce pans, a fry pan with the handle sewn off, and a cup; knife, fork, spoon. I have a tradition of spreading peanut butter with a tire iron...somehow that trace of grease and rubber adds a bit to the sandwich. Its easiest to understand what I am taking if ya see pictures from my other tours...click here and have a look at a few pictures.
By the way for meals I tend to have cold milk and raisin bran at breakfast, followed by coffee in a cafe if they are around; sandwiches of some sort bought in a store for lunch; and a stew at dinner from a scrubby piece of meat, potatoes and a carrot which simmers while i write in my journal. Obviously this will vary widely as I travel elsewhere...in Czechoslovakia I had soup/bread and beer for all three meals and loved it! I am sure I will cook in canada and the US; once in Mexico i will cook when needed and munch at cafes/roadside stands since i hear they are pretty cheap.
For racks I used to use Blackburn and swore by them; but people tell me they can't handle the stress of off road riding so I will probably go with a different brand. Similarly I usually carried Kirtland elastic snap-opn panniers. But this time I will go with the Ortliebs for waterproofing and size. My main concern is to have panniers big enough to carry all my stuff inside: its less easy to see and grab. For front racks, by the way, I recommend you not get the 'low riders' so popular in ga-ga magazines for being aerodynamic or whatever. The space on top of the front rack is useful and you lose it with low riders. And if you are concerned about the effect of weight on your front wheel, you are probably carrying too much weight to begin with.
Those who know me well know that my favorite book is T.H. White's The Once and Future King, his rendition of the great legend of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. One major story in this novel is the guilty love Lancelot, the head knight at the table (no pun intended there, for my numerous Gay readers!) has for Guenever, his King's wife. There is a time when Lancelot returns to Court after being away on a long campaign with the King in France..and of course, his first sight when he comes into the Royal Chamber for a formal dinner is....his leading lady. There is phrase you which you can sometimes come across in country districts even nowadays, which sums up a great deal of what he might have tried to say. Farmers use it in Ireland, as praise or complement, saying , "So and So has a Word. He will do what he promised."
Lancelot tried to have a Word. He considered it, as the ignorant country people still considered it, to be the most valuable of possessions.
But the curious thing was that under the king-post of keeping faith with himself and with others, he had a contradictory nature that was far from Holy. His Word was valuable to him not only because he was good, but also because he was bad. It is the bad people who need principles to restrain them. For one thing, he liked to hurt people. It was for the strange reason that he was cruel, that he never killed a man who asked for mercy, or committed a cruel action that he could have prevented. On reason why he fell in love with Guenever was that the first thing he had done was hurt her. He might never have noticed her as a person, if he had not seen the pain in her eyes.
People have odd reasons for ending up as saints. A man who was not afflicted by ambitions of decency in his mind might simply have run away with his hero's wife; and then perhaps the tragedy of King Arthur might never have happened. An ordinary fellow, who did spend half his life torturing himself by trying to discover what was right so as to conquer his inclination towards what was wrong, might have cut the knot which brought their ruin.
When the King and Lancelot arrived in England after the Roman war, the fleet landed at Sandwich. It was a grey September day, with the blue and copper butterflied flitting in the after-grass, the partridges calling like crickets, the blackberries colouring, and the hazel nuts still nursing their tasteless little kernels in cradles of cotton wood. Queen Guenever was on the beach to meet them, and the first thing that Lancelot knew as she kissed his King, was that she would be able to come between them after all. He made a movement as if his entrails were tying themselves in knots, saluted the Queen, went off to bed in the nearest Inn at once, and lay awake all night. In the morning, he asked leave of absence from the court.
"But you have hardly been at court at all," said Arthur. "Why do you want to go away so soon?"
"I ought to go away"
"Ought to go away?" asked the King? "What do you mean, ought to go away?"
Lancelot clinched his fists until the knuckles stood out, and said. "I want to go on a quest. I want to find an adventure......"
This was the beginning of the famous quests. They were not mad to win him fame, or recreation. They were an attempt to escape from his painful love of Guenever. They were struggles to save his honour...not to establish it.
Returning to trip particulars, I must admit that MOST of my planning so far has been the western hemisphere/south America portion. The trip thru the Asia republics on the silk road will present numerous challenges akin to the South American portion. Yet I have been delinquent in really planning for those, because that part of the trip is so FAR off...so much will change between now and then...that planning really is an exercise in futility. It would be great to get all the visas and paperwrok done in advance, but this is just not feasible. I will have to take some time when I am in Europe to get the required paperwork done; or perhaps in Turkey, where my employer has some connections to get the documents I need. As far as going into North Korea is concerned, that will require substantial political changes and alot of behind the scenes effort on my part. (I may have more to say on this later).
I plan on taking photographs and certainly would like to put some on this site. A few people have offered to manage this site in my absence; I will make my final decision in a the next few weeks. To be honest, I don't plan on submitting all that much: not only do i not want to carry a massive camera with its bulk/weight and likelihood of being ripped off; but also I just want to use my submissions to keep everyone up to date on where I am. I'll probably put alot of trip journals and logs on-line when I get back; rather than burden someone with my longwinded-ness before I go! From time to time i'll end up in cities large enough to have Universities with internet access; even internet cafes; thats probably when I'll add alot of stuff to this site which is text oriented. But i must admit-- when i get on the road, I often just completely vanish into the warm, loving arms of nature--so don't be surprised if you go long, long times without hearing from me. This is not going to sit well with some people but thats the way I am and thats the way it will be. I am not interested in doing this trip 'wired to the world' or proving just how ON-LINE you can be while looking under the foreskin of a tse-tse fly in Lagos, Nigeria while fighting off leprous cannibals.
The hour is late and i just got back from listening to a scad of Neil Young songs, and am tempted to wax a bit philiosophical. A recurring theme on my talk so far about my world tour has been the security issue. This is just part of a larger question, which is 'why bother to travel in areas where there is hostility to begin with??' Now, phrased in this larger context, it turns out I already have some experience and insight to share with you, even before I go on my trip.
On my cross country trip, many years ago on the transamerica trail, there always was a lot of bad ink, bad campfire and bad cafe talk about Eastern Kentucky; or the Appalachia region. I saw more of this region than most transAm-ers, since I turned off the trail in Kentucky, went thru Tennessee to North Carolina en route to the Blue Ridge Parkway. It is a tough country thru whcih to travel...the land seems broken, smashed by the hands of an angry God into steep hills and hollows, cursed with a steamy humidity seven months of the year; the land often raped for coal and oil by private companies and for flood control dams and irrigation projects by the Federal Government. And to be honest, I will not give them any awards for friendliness. I had my share of dogs 'sicced' on me, and got the nasty stares in the country stores given to anyone who wasn't a local. But I have traveled more than most, and in my humble opinion, see more of people and what they are made of than most folks do. I could see beyond the anger, the distrust, the hostility, to the reasons beneath: or at least, I think I could. You must understand that in these regions---and there are many of them throughout the world, not just in appalchia-- the outsider has never come with the intention of doing anything but making a fast buck off the local 'hicks'; and then splitting off to enjoy their wealth, leaving the spoiled remains behind. First it was the oil and coal mining companies, which took billions out of the region: leaving it with acid lakes, choked and black lung adults, piles of slag and mine tailings that leak toxic chemicals to this day. For its part, the federal government was no better: building flood control/hydroelectric dams and selling the power to the industrial cities of the northeast and south at artificially low prices. So locals hate fancy-pants strangers and all they stand for. Yet it can also be said that in this nations wars--especially the two world wars -- the rate of voluntary enlistment from these ravaged states was so great, and the subsequent death toll among the poorly educated infantry so total, that whole counties lost almost an entire generation. Does this seem like mean people to you? They appear uncouth and uncultured to the city folk bred on both coasts; but God bless'em, they don't give a shit, and I for one respect them for it, even if they act out their hostility a bit too often and in too generous a portion from time to time. (I do wish they would kill their man eating chiggers, ticks, mosquitos, and other assorted bugs! ) So I, roughstuff, have a somewhat more generous perspective on the hostility I meet in certain places than many of you, my readers, do. Again, that probably explains why at this moment, you are reading and I am riding.
