13.02.2010, Technical experience and tips regarding similar ventures

Preparing well for such a long journey is the key to its success. We give some insight into what the considerations are to make before heading off, what material has worked well for us and how long it actually takes to plan all aspects of such an unusual journey. But with all the planning necessary there is one thing one should never forget, though: always factor in some time for the unplanable, the resulting experiences and encounters are often the moments that make up the most memorable ones of the journey.

We have met people that complain about their bad luck of being stuck in Tbilisi waiting for the Azeri visa, then in Baku waiting for the Uzbek visa and finally in Tashkent waiting for the Chinese visa to come through. Others did not know that travelling around in Tajikistan by bus would be so difficult. Twice in Kashgar we met someone who was surprised to hear that it would most likely be impossible to enter Tibet without joining a guided group - all of these disappointments can be avoided if one does a bit of homework before heading off. As so often, it pays to plan ahead. It is good to have a rough idea of the countries one intends to cross and what the relevant visa requirements are. Knowing that it would be difficult to get a Chinese visa in Tashkent ahead of time spared us a lot of headaches, alas not all. For example it helped that we had “booked” a real flight from Tashkent into China and could thus provide a “real” flight-ticket rather than just a simple flight-reservation printout - this made all the difference between getting and not getting the visa. Taking time to select the bike equipment and other materials will potentially save lots of time on the trip if something breaks or is missing and cannot easily be replaced. Seeking the advice of others who have previously undertaken similar journeys was the most valuable source of information for us when preparing.

We started planning for our trip more than one year before we actually left, reading different travel books and more importantly travel blogs. We took time to assemble our bicycles together with our bike shop. We carefully chose and tested all pieces of equipment (never take something that you have not used at least once before). In the three months before leaving we undertook 21 visits to various embassies in Vienna. A time consuming matter, but at least we could do other things while waiting for the various visas to come through. Having the visas for Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan stamped into our passport before leaving had an enormous advantage and saved us both time and money on the journey. Yes, it took away some flexibility as we had to plan our itinerary with only a few days up or down for the first six months, but in hindsight we found that it was good to have some structure in the journey at the beginning. With endless things to see all over the world, otherwise one risks to spend much more time in each country, region or city than one had thought initially. Since it is impossible to see everything it is good to be forced to choose. Our initial time frame created by the visa decisions we had taken long before leaving on the journey helped us come to this conclusion.

Apart from choosing reliable material and the stamina to pull it through, the single most important element necessary for the successful completion of a bike journey such as ours is to have a good ‘basecamp’. Family and friends back home are indispensable when it comes to getting a hand from a known environment, sending those vital spare parts or delivering the moral support that keeps you going. We are very thankful to our families based in Innsbruck and Klosterneuburg who were always quick to react when it was urgently necessary, such as when Kathi was admitted to Murghab hospital or when ethnic turmoil made the situation in Xingjiang unclear for us or when a spare passport needed urgently to be mailed to Bangkok. Even with the best planning it is impossible to think of everything and it lies in the nature of such a long journey that circumstances change. Without strong support from our homebase it would have certainly been more difficult to solve some of these issues. Part of the ‘basecamp-team’ was the team at our bike shop in Innsbruck who knew the setup of our bike by heart and could thus supply us with the correct spare parts. We would strongly advise to obtain one’s bike for such a long journey from a small shop with personalised service rather than a big chain which might offer a better price but will always be more expensive if one factors in the service.

In order to further reduce the risk of disappointment once on the journey, it is a good investment to buy high quality equipment. A few hundred Euros saved before the trip by getting the hot-deal off-the-rack bike or by buying a cheap sleeping-bag instead of the down version or the no-name rainjacket instead of the GoreTex are not worth it. Material much-used reveals its true quality and trust us, if well planned, one does use every piece of equipment very often. It is not fun if things break, tear or stop working while you are in the deserted emptiness of the Pamirs.

Always have your map strategy lined out. Sometimes it is not possible to carry maps for the whole journey with you, in which case having them sent or brought by friends could be the solution. In any case, buy and study maps of the regions you are planning to travel through well in advance - you will be more familiar with the names of the cities, you will have a general knowledge of the layout of the country, of the location of mountains, rivers and will be more flexible in choosing, and if necessary, changing your route. All in all, you will have more time once you are there. Relying solely on buying maps en route is very risky as in many countries it is next to impossible to get anything decent. In some countries it might makes sense to additionally buy a local map, for us this has worked very well in China, where we always bought the map of the province we were travelling in, which had all the city names in Chinese. Since often road signs were marked in Chinese writing only and if we had to ask directions, we could point to where we wanted to go as people often did not understand our attempts at pronouncing the city’s name correctly.

Once on the way we tried to understand the map of the area we were travelling in as well as trying to read the landscape before asking for directions. The topography, certain buildings, whether an oncoming truck smells of burnt brakes, all of this can help to know your way. Burning brakes indicate that the hill still continues for a while on which the truck’s brakes must have heated up. According to what we have nicknamed ‘the international antenna-rule’, whenever you see an antenna on a ridge this usually indicates the highest point you will be reaching. If trees are bent into one direction do not be surprised if a wind in the same direction wakes you up at night. When all cars are turning off a road that seems to be leading straight this might indicate that the main road actually also branches off. Crossing a river can either mean one has reached the lowest relative point and can expect a climb or the exact opposite if one parallels a mountain range in its foothills where rivers run in the centre of alluvial cones and therefore mark the highest point (this was responsible for a lot of frustration in Azerbaijan). And never forget the easiest of them all: the sun moves from east, through south to west (at least on the northern hemisphere) - there are countless examples of observations one can make to help with orientation.

If it is necessary to ask for directions, there are a few rules to follow as a cyclist to avoid disappointment. Never trust a motorist, they will always underestimate distances and the height of hills. A road is NEVER flat, regardless of what one is told, unless, maybe, you are cycling in the salt plains of Utah. Also, not too long into the journey even Kathi had to admit that in general, asking a woman for directions tends to get you involved into an interesting conversation, but will not help you find your way. Asking directions on the other hand is one of the easiest ways to strike up a conversation and more than just once did we end up holding a cup of tea and chatting to new friends rather being on our way - and that is somehow the whole point of the journey!

The bike

The most important piece of equipment of them all: the bike. We opted for a steel bike rather than an aluminium frame. There is really no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ decision, it is a bit of a philosophy question since nowadays you get excellent quality bikes made from each of the materials. Nevertheless, with modern steel frames built in a way that they are less than one kilogramme heavier than equivalent aluminium ones, for us the choice of steel was clear. Steel is a more flexible material and is better suited to absorb the millions of vibrations that inevitably come with riding on roads, particularly bad roads. When riding a steel bike, one can not only feel this ’softer riding’, but the stress on the bike which comes from all the additional weight one carries on a long tour will take much longer to lead to metal fatigue with steel than it will with aluminium. Also, just as we have experienced on our trip in Tajikistan, you will always find a garage that can weld steel if necessary, in our case it was just the rack, but it will be extremely difficult to find someone who has the technical equipment necessary to weld aluminium. Taking all this into account for us the choice was clear: a steel frame designed specifically for bike touring, which is exactly what the ‘Velotraum cross crmo II’ is.

Shock absorbers are a great invention for mountain-bikes but there is no reason to mount them on a touring bike unless one plans to cycle only off-road in Tibet, which is not possible because a) you won’t get in and b) because the Chinese are faster at paving everything than you can cycle. Shock absorbers are bound to break on a long journey because at some stage the dust will enter and clog up the mechanism and then you are stuck with the extra weight, which is quite significant and can easily add up to one kilogramme. Even if they do not break, think twice why you would even want them. With all the weight you are carrying on a touring bike, you will not be cycling at great speeds when the going gets rough on a dirt road like you would if you were downhill mountain-biking. There is not really much benefit to the shock absorbers if you are riding at 12 kilometres an hour on a really bad road. Also, if you are mounting front panniers you would have to find a solution where the weight is mounted below the absorbers, because what you really do not want is the weight of the panniers to additionally pound the shock absorbing mechanism. Not all absorbers are built for mounting front racks that way though. On tarmac the absorbers are also of no use, just extra weight added, and unless you want to spend months and months cycling around the cobble-stoned roads of Yunnan, you will find that at the beginning of the second decade of the twenty-first century, a large proportion of roads world wide are paved.

We initially mounted ‘DT Swiss DT XR 4.1 ceramic’ rims and were disappointed when after only 4.000km all four of our rims started cracking from the inside. The replacement rims were ceramic Mavic rims and again, after roughly 4.500km the hind rims started cracking in a similar way, making it impossible to use the hind brakes because the ceramic surface had become ‘wobbly’. Having heard a similar story from other cyclists with yet another brand of ceramic rims, we have come to the conclusion that the developers of this type of rim must have put all energy into developing the ceramic surface but at the same time the overall stability of the rim has been reduced. We would seriously reconsider choosing ceramic rims again, although the ceramic part worked as promised. After having had to exchange our rear rims for the second time in Kashgar and replacing them with a cheap Chinese aluminium model (which lasted the remaining 14.000 kilometres!), we did not use our rear brakes anymore. Our brake pads were optimal for a ceramic surface but they were wearing off the aluminium very quickly. All of the remainder of the trip we used only the front brakes and when arriving in Singapore after 137.000 metres of altitude the very first pair of brake pads was still not worn off, while cyclists without ceramic rims would have probably gone through four pairs of brake pads for the same distance.

The rims were mounted with ‘DT Swiss competition silber 1.8-2.0′ spokes and not once on the trip did we have a broken spoke, the spare ones we carried were just dead weight. We used ‘Schwalbe Marathon XR 2” ‘ tyres which have a high-density guard to protect against punctures. Schwalbe must do something right because most cyclists we met used these tyres. We had a total of six punctures amongst the two of us but know of other cyclists who have had more than 40 punctures covering a similar distance using the same tyres. It is tempting to pump them up to four bar as is indicated on the tyre wall and of course this will lead to a couple of percent more efficient use of energy. But do not forget that the values are not necessarily good for loaded touring bikes. We are not sure that taking into account all the time lost fixing those punctures one would not have been faster doing what we did, namely just pumping up to 2,5 bar. This was still hard enough to earn us ‘thumbs-up’ from many interested onlookers that often tested the tyres and it spared us having to take down all our gear too many times in the middle of a cycling day.

The hub is a central piece of the bike and we gave careful consideration as to which type to choose. The ‘DT Swiss 340′, former ‘DT Swiss Hügi’, that we mounted has proved to have been the right decision. The simplicity and sturdiness of the mechanism compared to other models such as the ‘Shimano XT’ solution or hubs with integrated gear-shift mechanisms such as the ‘Rohloff’ hub, is what won us over. You can take the whole hub apart in less than a minute should it ever be necessary to do so, which is extremely unlikely since the 18 cogs responsible for the transmission of the pedalling power onto the wheel are made of such a strong metal alloy that it takes forever to wear. The only reason might be to change the grease which helps reduce the noise level of loud ‘clicks’ which are the trademark of this type of hub. The mechanism of the popular ‘Shimano XT’ solution is much more complicated and fragile and instead of 18 has only 6 cogs which transmit pedalling power, making them much more prone to breaking off and blocking the hub and thus the wheel. We did not even consider the ‘Rohloff’ hub with internal gear shift as in our eyes it only has disadvantages. Just because it is technically possible to combine hub and gear shift does not mean it is a better solution than the good old external gear shift. Integration is no improvement - at the end all you can do with this solution is shift gears at the price of a much heavier hub, which incidentally is a moving part so the added weight hurts even more. The hub is more expensive and if there ever is a problem with it there is no way you can fix it on your own or easily find someone who can. The only long-term cyclist we met using a Rohloff hub had the attachment hole where one spoke was fixed to the hub ripped out with more others cracking already. He ended up having had a complete new wheel sent to Tashkent via DHL. An expensive and time-consuming solution which proves the fact that this is a solution for cycling back home when it could be an advantage not to have a dirty chain and gears when commuting daily or on Sunday afternoon outings.

We used ‘Shimano Deore XT’ gears and sprockets in ratios resulting from 22/32/44 for the sprocket and nine gears from 11 to 34 cogs. The resulting gear-ratios ranging from 0,65 to 4 gave us flexibility to adapt to every terrain and we could pedal up even the steepest hills on Thailand’s Koh Chang without having to get off. The gears were operated with a ‘SRAM Attack’ grip-shift mechanism which, again, excels because of its simplicity. Additionally, it has the benefit of no parts sticking out, which are the favourite toys for the many little children that surrounded us in so many of the countries we were cycling in as soon as we stopped.

Power was transmitted from the pedal to the gears with an ‘SRAM PC 991 Cross Step’ chain using SRAM’s excellent invention of the ‘power-link’. This enabled us to open and close the chain in a matter of seconds without the need for any tool. This feature came in useful in view of the fact that each one of us actually had three chains in use which we alternated after about 800-1.200km of use. Although this meant having to carry the weight of three chains at all times it was responsible for greatly extending the life span of sprocket and gears - we used the same ones throughout the trip without ever having to change them. When we discarded the first chain after 8.500km of use it was at the end of its reasonable usability, particularly worn by a combination of frequent rains in northern Laos and a low quality oil bought in Kunming. We discarded the second chain upon arrival in Singapore after almost 9.500km of use although it would probably still have held for another 1.000km. The long durability is not only a result of excellent quality chains and the alternating technique that we chose but also regular cleaning and oiling, in particular after every rainfall or after a longer stretch of dusty roads. This sometimes is a bit of a nuisance but it pays off not having to worry about where to find or have posted replacement chains and gears.

For pedals we used the ‘Shimano PD-A530′ model. They are reasonably light-weight and have one side suited for the ‘Shimano SPD’ mountain-bike cleat system and the other for normal shoes without cleats. Why anyone going on a long - or even a short - bike journey would even think of not using cleats is not clear to us. The two main advantages over normal shoes are the fact that one cannot only transmit power when pushing down, but also when pulling up. In addition the rider has more secure control over the bicycle especially on rough terrain, where he does not risk slipping of the pedal, particularly in wet conditions. Cleat shoes, such as the ‘Shimano MT50B’ model we chose, have the added benefit of being fitted with a hard and inflexible sole which guarantees much less energy loss than when wearing normal shoes where part of the pushing energy goes into compressing the sole. The only similar alternative if one did not want to use shoes with a cleat system would be pedal cages which fit normal shoes.

We admit we took a risky decision by choosing ‘Magura HS-33′ brakes that did not comply with our principle to avoid “complicated” technology. Not that the technology behind hydraulic brakes is that difficult to understand, but one is more dependant than with standard cantilever or V-brakes brakes. The reason for choosing these brakes had been our previous excellent experience with them. Due to the even distribution of the pressure and the perpendicular movement of the brake pads onto the rims, wear is much less than on cantilever brakes or V-brakes where the brake pads move in a slight arch and are thus more unevenly consumed. But on the journey we realized why the decision for the Magura brakes could be a risky one. Unlike with cantilever brakes, which can easily be adjusted to work with rims of different breadth, with the Magura model one is confined to a single breadth. When we were looking for replacement rims in Kashgar this almost turned into a serious problem, since all the rims we initially found were a tick broader and thus unsuited. Disc brakes were never an option for us, their one-side mounting leads to one-sided stress on the frame and it is almost inevitable to have to listen to a constant whining noise of the disc grinding on the brake pads.

We rode a standard straight handlebar with upright bar-ends. This gave us an additional hand position and the space to mount a small ‘Zefal’ rear-view mirror. Indispensable for covering one’s back without having to turn around every time and risking loosing one’s balance in particular in heavy traffic, we would never do such a journey without one. We aimed for a small, easy to attach-and-remove solution, mirrors permanently fixed to the handlebar bear the risk of breaking off when the bike falls over. We were not so happy with handlebar grip ‘Ergon GP1′. Although the ergonomic shape helps reduce the pressure on the nerves in the hand and the wrist, the light grey material it is made of is not a very stable plastic compound. Very soon the combination of sweat, heat and maybe UV-rays led to the slow disintegration of this soft material, constantly wearing off a smeary black substance which made the grips sticky and turned our gloves black.

We started out using two speedometers. Sandro was using the high-end ‘CicloSport CM 8.3AM’ model which utterly disappointed. It stopped functioning correctly on the very first day of the journey, the identical replacement model started having malfunctions after a few thousand kilometres and after working increasingly bad due to various software problems and the buttons not pressing well anymore ceased functioning all together after about 12.000km of use. The investment into this model which should have been able to track daily altimeter profiles in a way as to make them downloadable onto a computer, a function that from the beginning on never worked, was not a good one. Kathi’s computer on the other hand, a ‘CicloMaster 4.3 alti’ which was old enough not to use the unreliable radio-transmitting technology from sensor to computer that most new computers now use, worked without a flaw throughout the journey. Apart from distance and time it provided the extremely useful function of altimeter readings, which is indispensable when planning to cover as many mountains as we did.

Our choice of saddle was surprisingly uncomplicated. We went for a rather unsophisticated ‘Selle Italia’ gel model and gave the popular ‘Brooks’ leather saddles a skip not because they are not good quality, but because this saddle only makes sense if you have ridden on it for a few thousand kilometres before starting the tour.

There is no point in trying to save money when it comes to rack and low-rider. Any aluminium models are guaranteed to break for the same reasons that we chose a steel frame over an aluminium one. There are a few good ones on the market, we were absolutely pleased with the high-grade steel models of ‘Tubus’. The ‘Tubus carry’ rack has the advantage of a second lower horizontal bar onto which one can hook panniers. This results in a lower centre of gravity and thus a more stable ride. After 9.000km Sandro’s low-rider showed cracks on both sides and thanks to the welding abilities of a Tajik car shop in Dushanbe we were able to reinforce the affected pieces with a section of a steel pipe. Other than that the low-riders held up perfectly fine, despite the fact that the front panniers were particularly heavy relatively to the rear ones. We did this in order to take some of the weight off the rear rim, which has to bear the brunt of the person cycling anyway.

Never leave on a journey that involves unpredictable weather without decent mudguards. We mounted guards on both wheels but cut off the hind one in the middle. The rest of the protection was offered by the central pannier that both of us carried. In this way we made it more difficult for wet mud to become blocked between the wheel and the guard since the distance between the wheel and the pannier was significantly larger.

We did not mount a stand onto our bikes because on previous bike trips with all the weight carried they easily broke off. On the journey we have seen other cyclists using other stand models that worked perfectly fine even with all the weight on the bike. Were we to start again we would use a stand because not only does having to lean your bike against something limit your flexibility (especially when you are trying to pee in the desert while holding two bikes) but the panniers also get more scratched and worn from the constant rubbing against walls and the like.

Finally, we made sure that the frame of the bike had three pairs of boreholes into which we could screw a bottle cage. On these we carried five bike bottles and one petrol bottle. We opted for bike bottles because being made specifically for this purpose, they make drinking while riding much easier than if one were to use standard plastic bottles with a cap. The danger of not drinking enough because this would mean stopping for a sip every time is too large and this is neither good for health nor for the cycling performance. We carried two bottles of one litre each and three bottles of 0,75 litres.

Just like with the chain, regularly cleaning the bike helps avoiding unpleasant surprises. It is true that the bike will get dirty again (but then so does the bed get used again that we make in the morning) and following Murphy’s Law this is most likely to happen on the very next day. But during the process of cleaning one automatically makes a visual inspection of all bike components. Often in this way potential malfunctions or flaws can be detected before they create a major problem and can either be fixed or the bike ridden knowingly. For these purposes, but also in order to clean or soak up rain water from the tent, we always carried a bag of rags to which we regularly contributed every time one of the pieces of throw-away clothes that we had taken along had reached the end of its useful life.

Other equipment

In order to carry all the necessary equipment we chose panniers from ‘Ortlieb’. There is really no choice on the market if one wants to have guaranteed water-proof bags that are sturdy enough to take a bit of rough handling. It is no surprise that practically all serious cyclists we met on the journey were using this brand of panniers. We had two front panniers, two back panniers on the sides, one central bag on the rear rack and one handlebar bag. The latter we find indispensable for carrying all those little things that you often and quickly need access to and for the large digital SLR camera which also should be quick at hand. When moving around cities without bikes our handlebar bags doubled as handbags.

Sandro strapped a flag we had received from friends for our wedding to his bike. This flag was actually mounted in such a way that it could be removed from the pole in less than a second and the flagpole served as dog defence stick, something that came in useful against the aggressive Turkish and Azeri dogs. For the same reason Kathi carried an old horse whip which we lost somewhere in Ao Nang, Thailand. In addition, the whip was always good for a joke with the locals …”yes, I need it for my husband!”

When the tent is your home for 140 nights it is worth carrying the extra kilogramme that a large three person tent such as our ‘Salewa Kashgar III’ weighs compared to a lighter two person solution. It is not only the comfort but also a safety aspect to have enough room to store all luggage inside the tent and still be able to move around when sleeping. One of the two apsis was even large enough for us to be able to store both bikes inside, invisible to anyone from the outside which has the added benefit of keeping them dry and free from snow. It was imperative for us to have a separate inner and outer tent, affording us the extra flexibility of setting up only the mosquito inner tent when we were sure there would be no rain or wind and whenever we were camping under a roof.

In order to feel comfortably warm with temperatures of -8ºC inside the tent our good down sleeping bags were priceless. The ‘Carinthia ECC Expedition 800′ sleeping bags could be zipped together to create one big sleeping den for the two of us. For a couple of extra degrees of warmth and in order to keep the sleeping bags clean we used ‘Carinthia Mummy’ silk inlets which also came in handy in the desert and in Southeast Asia, where they were the only thing we used. We would not advise to use cotton because it is heavier and unlike silk does not dry in a very short time. We used self-inflatable ‘Therm-a-Rest Prolite 4 Wms Reg.’ sleeping mats which have ideal isolating properties, are soft to sleep on and yet can be rolled into a compact size that easily fits inside the panniers. Furthermore, every few months when we were in a hotel room with warm water, we washed the waterproof surface of the mats down with soap.

Many of the meals we enjoyed on the journey were home-cooked on our little ‘MSR Whisperlite Internationale’ petrol stove. Using a gasoline stove has the great advantage that the fuel can be bought anywhere in the world at any gas station quite inexpensively. When full, our 0,6 litre bottle lasted us for a couple of weeks even during the most intense cooking period in the Pamir mountains of Tajikistan. The disadvantage of a gasoline stove is that it is not wise to use it inside the tent. While pre-heating the stove the flames during the first one or two minutes are high and since the fuel is not completely burned soot fills the air. The danger of setting something afire, especially light materials such as the sleeping bag, silk inlet or the inner tent, is quite high and it is not pleasant to breathe in all the soot. Since during the first weeks of our journey we did not feel like sitting outside in the cold while preparing a meal, we also took a propane stove and three gas cartridges along. They are quicker to light and the gas burns completely clean so we could cook inside the tent with the added benefit that the stove acted as a heating element inside the tent and easily raised the temperature by about six degrees when turned on. Since it is near to impossible to get the gas cartridges in many of the countries we travelled through and it soon was warm enough to cook outside, after using our three gas cartridges we sent the stove back with our parents from Iran.

We cooked on titanium kitchenware from ‘MSR’ using a 2 litre and a 1,6 litre pot which could be stored one inside the other. Forks and spoons as well as two cups were also made from extremely sturdy but light-weight titanium. We carried a ‘Victorinox’ Swiss army knife which served us well until we lost it in Laos. In Kashgar we added a cheap large knife in a plastic sheath to our inventory which was in constant use to cut open the melons we enjoyed in the desert by the dozen. Inside our pots we stored a small container of sugar and some salt. The last few grains of the 750 grammes we bought in Khorog, Tajikistan, were used in our final meal of rice and tuna on the way up to the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia. Also inside, some well-travelled green tea. We actually managed to carry green tea that we had bought in China in late 2007 all the way from Austria back into China and finally to Singapore - one day back home we will have a very special cup of tea! Of great use were the three cloth food bags which we used for dry goods such as rice, oats, bulgur or the like.

Rather than buy, boil or treat water with chemicals we filtered all the water we drank. We started out with a ‘MSR’ filter with ceramic core and later switched to the ‘MSR hyperflow’ model with a plastic tube core which was lighter and had a higher capacity per minute. To speed up the filtering process we carried a cut-open two litre plastic Coke bottle from Turkey as a water catchment container. In addition to our bike bottles we nearly always carried a full two litre plastic bottle of water each, usually even more - there is nothing more unpleasant than running out of water when cycling, this actually never happened. In the really tough stretches of Turkmen and Chinese desert we also filled two 10 litre ‘Ortlieb’ water bags so that we carried a maximum of 40,25 litres of water (and even two watermelons when leaving Hami).

Clothing is the area where it is most difficult to cut down to taking only the most essential. Our policy was to give priority to items which could be used for multiple purposes. So instead of taking a down jacket, a rain jacket and a lighter jacket we followed the ‘onion principle’ of multiple functional layers. We carried a GoreTex rain jacket without lining for rain and wind protection. If it was necessary to additionally keep warm we wore either a GoreTex Windstopper jacket or a super-light-weight balloon-silk ‘adidas cycling’ jacket beneath this. Both of these could also be worn separately offering us the full range of flexibility to adapt to the weather.

The same system applied to pants, all of which we chose from the Austrian cycle clothing specialist ‘Löffler’. A pair of light-weight GoreTex PacLite rain pants were the excellent outer shell which we used when it was raining, particularly in the first few colder months into the trip. Our absolute favourite piece of clothing equipment were our long GoreTex Windstopper cycling pants. Even in the coldest days in Europe we wore only these pants, nothing beneath or over them, and our legs, in particular the sensitive knee joints, remained warm. Anything from moderate weather to the intense heat of the Chinese desert called for short cycling pants with a cycling pad. We met cyclists who used normal shorts without pads, but on such a long distance that is as close to being a masochist as you can be. In the rapidly changing weather conditions of the Pamirs the combination of cycling shorts and GoreTex Windstopper leg warmers offered us the flexibility to quickly change from cold and warm frequently every day. The only non-cycling pants that we took along was a pair of grey ‘adidas’ zip-off trekking pants, they never looked dirty and did the job both in the cold of Belgrade when out at night looking for a restaurant or in the zipped-of version in the heat of Siem Reap when touring Angkor’s temples.

Further winter equipment included three types of gloves ranging from expedition-style GoreTex mittens against the biting cold to which the fingers are exposed to a lighter version and very light-weight silk gloves. Our storm cap came in handy in some of the snow blizzards that hit us out of the nowhere in Tajikistan’s Pamir. We wore the silk scarf that Kathi’s mother gave us as a light-weight talisman very often when sleeping in the tent to prevent colds. When it was cold, we had a Windstopper helmet cap which looks like a bathing cap and fit beneath the helmet. Many consider it a useless nuisance, but after Sandro’s experience of surviving two bike crashes mainly due to the helmet he was wearing, it was no question for us not to cycle all the way wearing a helmet.

The ‘Shimano MT50B’ shoes that we used for cycling were an excellent choice. After more than a year they still look almost new after a thorough wash. Rather than choose GoreTex shoes to keep us dry and warm we once again relied on the ‘onion principle’ and combined our shoes with excellent neoprene overshoes to keep out the cold, especially when it rains, and GoreTex socks to keep the feet dry. Both of these are by far a better investment than a single pair of GoreTex shoes - take a look at our rain statistics which prove the point that the days without rain by far outnumber those with rain - as a general rule this is valid in most parts of the world. Apart from that, even the best GoreTex shoes will become soaked after a few hours of rain with water running down your legs and then they will take days to dry, if you are lucky to have full sunshine. Pretty soon they will smell half a mile against the wind, trust us, we’ve met other cyclists. The strategy which has worked for us was to wash the inner soles of our shoes every three to five days with soap and ideally warm water. The only other pair of shoes that we carried was a pair of ‘Teva’ sport sandals, which were our city and outdoor shoes whenever not cycling.

Carrying our own ‘ASUS Eee PC 900′ computer gave us a large degree of independence from loud and smelly internet cafes full of youngsters playing war computer games. Also, with the thousands of pictures that we were taking on the trip it would be a task requiring days if not weeks to go through them, pick out the good ones and put them into order if we were to do this only once back home. Combined with an external hard drive and a few USB-sticks in this way we could also make triple back-ups of all pictures. To maintain our website as we chose to do it, it was essential to be able to work offline in a more quiet environment.

Although it took us the best part of a year to prepare it, our personalised guide book contained all kinds of information, most of which were useful to us at one stage of the journey. Rather than carrying around lots of photocopies of important documents and other things, we had all of this material bound into a single book, the “bible” of our trip. This contained city maps ranging from Istanbul to the Cambodian provincial capitals of Banlung and Mondulkiri, photocopies of our passports to cut out, colour printouts of passport photocopies for various visa applications, various language phrase books, medical documents such as dental X-rays or vaccines, pictures from back home (always a guaranteed icebreaker with curious local people), a supporting letter from the Mayor of Innsbruck (don’t laugh, it did help us get the Turkmen visa!) and many more.

We carried a mobile phone but used it only to receive and in rare occasions send text messages. This was useful in Kashgar when ethnic clashes between Uighurs and Chinese led to an insecure situation in which our parents from back home supplied us with information after the internet had been cut off and before the phone lines were also cut. In Murghab it was possible to get in touch with a doctor at our medical insurance when Kathi was admitted to the local hospital with excruciating pains in the abdomen.

We were travelling with two cameras to catch some of the images that we saw as we travelled through a wide range of countries with different landscapes, cultures and people. These were a ‘NIKON D80′ SLR camera and an ‘Olympus μ1030 SW’ - a great combination for getting the perfect individualized picture on the one hand or the quick snapshot in the bustling crowds on the other hand. Additionally, a polarisation filter helped reduce the glare of bright sunlight and reflections on water. An infrared remote control combined with a small tripod was useful when taking shots with both of us on them, even though there were plenty of times when the distance was too long for the remote and one of the two of us had to run.

Finally, do not forget, all of the above is useless if your bike is stolen, so take along a lock - we had two of them.

Back to the equipment page.