Tag: Cycling
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Why New Zealand might just be the most awesome country in the world
There are rocks in New Zealand which are just a few years old. By the time you read this, there might even be some which are just a few hours’ old, should one of the country’s many volcanoes have decided to wake up and shake up a bit. Geologically speaking, things are pretty new in…
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34% of All Cycle Tourers Use Internal Hub Gears
We surveyed 194 long distance cyclists to find out how popular internal (hub) gears are. Between them, the cyclists have completed 137 bicycle tours of 10,000km (6,000 miles) or more. Here are the results… [divide] Internal Hub Gears vs External Gears 46 out of the 137 journeys were completed using internal hub gears, 91 with…
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Solo travels as a woman in Africa and Asia: interview with Helen Lloyd
This interview is part of a series in which we interview certain people featured on the database of long distance cycle journeys (LDCJ), which records individual bicycle trips over 10,000km in length. For more details, click here. [divide] Helen Lloyd spent a couple of years cycling through Africa, tracing the west coast before heading through…
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Digging for gold in Australia
This morning, a man with an eye patch unrolled a map on our breakfast table and showed us where to dig for gold. I kid you not. We’d first spotted this chap – let’s call him One Eyed Bruce – rummaging through a bin a few yards away. We had spent the night at a…
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The First Man to Row the Atlantic, Climb Everest and Cycle the World
Today, a guest blog from James Ketchell AKA Captain Ketch, the man who has rowed across the Atlantic Ocean, summited Mount Everest and cycle around the world. James recently joined the database of Long Distance Cycle Journeys (LDCJ) and kindly offered to write a piece for The Next Challenge. Over to the Captain… Over to…
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Brooks Lands End & John O’Groats Panniers – Reviewed
Brooks England are best known for their iconic (and excellent) leather saddles. However, they do in fact have a wide range of other products. Most of their products fall into the category of beautiful but expensive. Their new pannier range – Brooks Lands End Panniers and Brooks John O’Groats Panniers – however, also happens to…
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Expedition Travel Insurance
Complete listings of all the best travel insurance companies for expeditions and adventure. Including: cycle touring, mountaineering, climbing, Arctic, Antarctic and Greenland icecap. Updated February 2020 Expedition travel insurance is a topic about which I have received a lot of emails. People struggling to get cover for trips of a long duration, particularly cycling tours,…
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Cycling across Arabia: a photo diary
We cycled from Sharjah in the UAE, via Dubai, to Muscat in Oman. Although cycling is very popular with expats, few cycle tourists make it to this part of the world and it’s a shame. With wonderfully smooth roads (oil money put to good use), frequent cafes to rest at and plentiful opportunities for wild…
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Come to the Cycle Touring Festival
We are very excited to announce that we are planning a Cycle Touring Festival, to take place in Spring 2015. Our first step is to gauge the level of enthusiasm for this kind of event, so please read on and sign up below if you’re interested. The aim would be to bring together those who…
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Honk Once for Hello, Twice for P*** Off
I am developing an involuntary reflex. At the sound of a horn, without volition, my right arm rises into the air. Though this may happen against my will, I am quite aware of the cause. Almost every day for the last six months, I have spent several hours at the right hand side of a…
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Managing knee pain and back pain for cyclists
Knee, hip and back pain are common complaints among cyclists. They are certainly my weak points, with a gait that is often more akin to an old woman, rather than a relatively fit thirty-one year old. I am not a physio and have no training in sports massage, personal training or anything similar. Over the…
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Tips for cycling into Istanbul
To be perfectly honest, we were dreading our arrival in Istanbul. We had heard other cyclists go on and on about what an awful city it is to cycle in and out of, with the main roads into the city effectively being four lane motorways. Traffic from the whole of southern Europe is funnelled into a…