zaterdag 31 maart 2012

trip to Poland!

Hello friends,
Today I finished my planned trip on www.gpsies.com.
Now I can upload these trip parts in my GPS device!
The more I work on this plan the more I am looking forward to the first really long trip with the Carbon Quest this year!

The link to this trip, is http://www.gpsies.com/mapUser.do?username=menno58

Departure date will be saturday august18th (maybe friday 17th) and I must be back in the Netherlands no later than sunday september 2nd.
Every day I will climb (average) 1000 meters (easy) and about 200 km of cycling.
I will camp in campsites or in the wild. the second last day I will stay in a hotel.

I am trying to find a velonaut who will cycle with me. we will see.


In Poland I will meet my good friend Tjoan and his girlfriend Magdalena, in Konin.

It will definitely be a challenge, more than 2000 km within two weeks, wonderful!

Sent me reply I am curious what you think of this plan.

dinsdag 13 maart 2012

My editor!

Because English is not my own language. I asked my good (too far away) friend Alex in Bellingham to edit my updates, now and then.
I am very happy he is willing to do this for me.
I hope to improve my English in time and learn a lot!
Thanks Alex!

dinsdag 6 maart 2012

A fantastic piece of movie from a recumbent ride of my Facebook friend Robert Thomson (New Zealander now living in Japan)

"Plan B"


PLAN B

Where there is plan A, there is plan B.

When there are too many problems with plan A, I will move on to plan B.

These are the problems that I am thinking about:
·      If it is impossible to get a visa for Russia, I will have to cancel plan A, because the route is traverses parts of Russia. There is not enough time to bypass the huge nation, unless I follow route “A-1”:
  • Ukraine 
  • Romania
  • Bulgaria
  • Turkey 
  • Iran (visa) 
  • Turkmenistan (visa), 
  • Uzbekistan (visa), 
  • Kyrgyzstan (visa), 
  • Kazakhstan (visa)

·      If there is trouble in Kazakhstan, I could bypass that by going trough Mongolia and then into China (this would be route A-2). Of course, this is onlt a possibility if I have a visa for Russia.
·      If I am unable to get a visa for China, the whole plan A will be canceled.


Plan B:

I will use the Condor recumbent, which is easy to transport by plane and better suited to deal with the rough conditions on this “Plan B” route.
I will leave mid-July because the conditions for cycling will be good enough at that time.

The route will be as follows:
Airplane from the Netherlands to Seattle, then by a smaller plane to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, the most northern settlement (by road) in Alaska.

From Prudhoe Bay, I will go south to Fairbanks.
From Fairbanks, I will cycle south through Canada and into the USA near Bellingham, WA. (Roughly 2500 miles = 4000 km)
Here I plan to stay with my good friends, Alex and Megan, for a short time.

Maybe one of my cycling friends will accompany me for a short while, when I continue south again after this short rest in Bellingham.

Roughly my route (3000 miles =4800 km) will be:
  • ·      Bellingham, WA
  • ·      Astoria, OR
  • ·      Eugene OR
  • ·      Baker City, OR
  • ·      Reno, NV
  • ·      La Paz, Mexico


In La Paz, I plan to find a place to stay for a short while, before continuing to my final destination of Panama City.
The rest of the route (roughly 3000 miles = 4800 km) will pass through:
  • ·      Mazatlan, (Mexico mainland) by ferry
  • ·      Guatemala
  • ·      El Salvador
  • ·      Honduras
  • ·      Nicaragua
  • ·      Costa Rica
  • ·      Panama


From Panama, I plan to go to Miami and Washington DC where I plan to stay with my other cycling friends, Wayne and Dianna.
After a short stop there, I will fly home again to the Netherlands in the second half of December, 2014.

This “Plan B” will be tough.  The terrain is challenging with many hills and mountains.  The road conditions vary tremendously, with many roads in very primitive condition.  Morethan that, the weather conditions will be dramatic, as I travel from the Artic Circle to the Tropics, from cold and rain and 24 hour sunlight to high humidity and warm weather and tropical winds.
I will travel from bear country to the land of snakes, scorpions, and incredibly beautiful birds.

If I choose Plan B, I can break the whole trip into three parts, I will be able to deal with all the hardship and have a wonderful adventure!

Also, if I should find myself in “time trouble” I can take the bus, train or car, which will enable me to finish in Panama City in time to catch the flight home.