Life is like riding a bicycle…

Well I’m off on another cycling adventure, this time riding from Austin, Texas to somewhere in South America. With my transfer to York University not working out for me and a new transfer to UoT pending, I’ve decided to take off for a while and try and work on that travel bug that’s been itching at me.

The Route

Fly to Austin Texas, and after a short visit with Daniela, start cycling south. Crossing into Mexico at Reynosa, and riding Tamaulipas down then cross to Mexico City. Spend a minute there before heading to the west cost, meeting up with the trans-america highway at some point and down through central america. Ferry from Panama into Cartegenia, Columbia, then to Bogota. Check out cool urban renewal and active transport initiatives there before moving on to Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, & Chile, or perhaps cross into Argentina from Bolivia instead. Roughly.

This trip for me is one segment of my dream to travel all over the world by bicycle. Many of the obvious goals like having authentic experiences, meeting locals, discovering different lifestyles and exchanging ideas apply. Aside from these, I hope to excel my conversational Spanish, get lots of personal reading done, pick up some new skills and be as open and outgoing with people on the road and at home… thus the blog.

Beautiful views in Austin

The Bike

I’m riding my Surly Long Haul Trucker which I’ve been slowly but surly building this bike up for the past 3 years, but this will be it’s first major tour. I’m rolling with full camping/cooking gear, front and rear Arkel panniers, and my own cockpit setup and various nicknacks. Other than that, the core bike is pretty much stock. I foresee a majority of stealth camping, together with warmshowers and couchsurfing hosts, and the occasional hostel, motel or air B&B. I’ve got a bike trip, but no GPS and will be navigating by map and compass. I’m carrying a lot more gear, and specifically more tech than I was on my last middle east tour, but it still feels like a pretty lean setup so far!

Gear clean and laid out like it will never be again!

So that’s it for now – planning to make brief and periodic posts to my progress every week or so with more of a focus on pictures and briefly put random toughts and experiences than long storytelling! Stay tuned, and until next time, this Einstein quote I adopted for my blog name:

Life is like riding a bicycle. To stay balanced, you have to keep moving.