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You are here: Home / Archives for biking

Strange Bikes

May 20, 2011 By Jillian

It’s the end of Bike to Work week in the U.S. and I thought we’d end with a few bicycles you may never have seen before.  Frankly, I’ve only seen one of these on the road before.

Pedal Bike Bar

The pedal bike bar. A genius idea or a really stupid one?  I can’t tell, but the idea of this bike is that 16 people pedal while someone serves food and drink from the middle of the bike.  We saw this in Cologne, Germany.  It seemed like a good idea at the time, but honestly, I’m not sure if I’m that coordianted.

Mountain Bike Backpack.  Forgive me, but I just don’t see hiking with a mountain bike on my back.  I’m not lazy, but admittedly I’m not that extreme.  Folding bikes however, are cool…

Folding Bike

Folding Bike.  I actually think this is kind of cool, especially if you commute in the city and don’t want pieces of your bike stolen during the day.  I saw seat posts, pedals and all sorts of difficult to lock and yet essential bike components stolen in DC.  This is small enough to take up to your office or cube.

 walking bike

Walking Bike.  I said strange.  This almost looks like a joke, I had my doubts as to whether this actually worked.  Apparently it does:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSzzgFb5rkg&feature=player_embedded

Thanks to velomobiling.com, lowriderbikespicture.com, blog.tradetan.com, toxel.com for the incredible bike pictures!

Filed Under: Cycle, Headline, Weekend Warrior Tagged With: biking

Photo: End of the World

May 20, 2011 By Jillian

We couldn’t end Bike to Work Week without a photo from perhaps our favorite biking experience- the death road in Bolivia.

If you’ve never heard of it, the death road is a somewhat infamous stretch of road stretching from La Paz, Bolivia to the amazonian lowlands.  It’s a narrow road with sharp turns and a steep drop.  Before the road was closed there were huge numbers of vehicle accidents every year.

The old death road is now closed to vehicles (the Bolivian government has built another road) so it’s completely open to cyclists.  It’s an extreme adventure- five hours of downhill riding takes you from 4800m to about 1200m in elevation.  It’s quite a climate change as well- at the beginning we were cold and the air was incredibly thin, by the end the temperature was somewhat tropical and we ate a late lunch in a jungle like setting.

Besides the awesome, completely downhill ride, we were dressed in cool protective gear that made us feel somewhat invincible.  It’s definitely a dangerous activity, as you can see from the picture, the road has no shoulder, just a sheer cliff and unfortunately there have been a significant number of bike accidents.  All the reason I tested the brakes time and time again before we actually started our descent.

To see more of our favorite photos from around the world check out our travel photo page. Let us know your favorites and we’ll include them in our photo of the day series.

Death Road, Bolivia

Bolivia is a very inexpensive destination and a great place to go if you’re looking for cheap holidays abroad.  It’s got an interesting combination of climates and plenty to do from extreme mountain biking (like the death road) to luxurious amazonian jungle lodges.  You can check out our Bolivia Guide for interesting things to do.

Filed Under: photos Tagged With: adventure, biking, tours

Great Places to Rent a Bike

May 18, 2011 By Jillian

Even if you aren’t an avid cyclist, there are times when it’s just nicer to be on bike than in a car or bus.  The ability to ‘stop and smell the roses’ so to speak and go at your own pace is an aspect of travel that can’t be ignored.  Here are a few places we were glad to rent a bike:

1. Florence, Italy. I lived in Florence in 2004 and when it came time for high tourist season the downtown area was packed!  Unfortunately that’s also when we had our visitors so we had to think of something different and fun to do that would give our visitors a sense of Italy.  Fortunately we found this great Italian-American guy who was just starting bike tours.  He took my roommate, her mom, aunt and I on an unforgettable journey through the Tuscan countryside through Fiesole and into Arezzo.  We went through historic villages and stopped at a delicious little restaurant for lunch.  Admittedly there was plenty of wine at lunch, but thankfully the road back to Florence was downhill.

Biking in Cappadocia

2. Cappadocia, Turkey. Although we got a little lost, cycling through Cappadocia was amazing.  We were able to stop and explore all the different formations, fairy chimneys and caves, and despite the fact the area is so touristy, we were alone all afternoon!  We rode through farmers vegetable plots and nearly ran into a horse on a cart.  It was a lovely afternoon, even though we ended up hiking a lot!

Biking in Berlin

3. Berlin, Germany. We didn’t have to rent a bike in Berlin, our CS hosts had extras, but boy were we glad.  It was incredibly easy to zip around the city on bike and having our own transportation meant we could hit more museums and sites in a day.  We found the city really bike friendly, and no one looked at us twice when we walked into a shop holding our helmets.

Buddha Statue in Vang Vieng

4. Vang Vieng, Laos. Admittedly Vang Vieng is renown for other things besides biking, but the area has a lot more on offer than ‘Happy Menus’ and reruns of ‘Friends’.  Renting a bike in Vang Vieng meant we could see the Limestone caves on our own, meaning we could go to the ones that the tour groups didn’t go to!  We made it to the Blue Lagoon very late in the afternoon, just before closing.  It was a special experience to be inside the cave at dusk, with light just touching the reclining Buddha statue inside.  Unfortunately we also got a flat and Danny ended up riding into town on the back of a tractor.

Biking in Mendoza

5. Mendoza, Argentina. There had to be at least one wine region on our list didn’t there?  We got off the bus in wine country and bike tour touts approached us, the first and only time that ever happened.  Although we rented independent of a tour, we did get a map.  Had we made it to the area earlier in the day I would have enjoyed going to some of the further away wineries where there was more of a country feel.  Ultimately we ended up passing hours at a winery at the furthest end of the wine region.  A good bottle of wine, a picnic lunch and our bikes, nothing could be better!

Filed Under: Cycle, Headline, Weekend Warrior Tagged With: biking, cycling trips

Photo: Biking at Work

May 17, 2011 By Jillian

Well biking to work isn’t all fun and games.  Just check out this daily ride for some wildlife rangers at South Africa’s Kruger National Park.  Everyday they take tourists on a cycling trip in the bush.  Notice those shotguns.  Our guide had only had to use his once, and in that case it was just a warning shot at a rather aggressive elephant.  Thankfully we didn’t run head on to any scary wildlife while on bike. We got pretty darn close to some hippos, who thankfully stayed in the water, but otherwise the elephants stayed a good distance from us as did any cats!

Look closely at the left hand dirt track  in the picture.  The prints you see are of the white rhino (if we remember correctly).   We saw several prints on our path, elephant and rhino.  Our guides could point out each track, tell us about when the animal had moved through, and all sorts of other neat things.  Sure, it could have been a story, but it was a good one!

To see more of our favorite photos from around the world check out our travel photo page. Let us know your favorites and we’ll include them in our photo of the day series.

Biking in Kruger Park

If you’ve followed this blog for a little while you know we loved traveling through South Africa (check out our guide to South Africa!).  We spent nearly two months in southern Africa, from ocean to ocean and all the way down to Cape Point.  We spent most of our time in South Africa’s National Parks (our tip: get the SAN Parks Wild Card!) We can’t wait to go back, hopefully we’ll find some late deals!

Filed Under: photos Tagged With: biking, kruger, national parks

Photo of the Day: Copper Canyon

January 28, 2011 By Jillian

Mexico’s Cooper Canyon. Coming from Baja and traveling toward Chihuahua we took the train just so we could travel through this canyon. This picture was taken at the train’s only real stop, where everyone unloaded and crowded into a little viewing platform to glimpse this canyon.

Special thanks to Flickr user Itinerantlondoner for marking this photo as a favorite.

To see a few of our favorite photos from Mexico click here.

Our PHOTO PAGE has links to all of our collections on Flickr. Be sure to mark some of your own favorites so that we can include them on this column. We’ll be highlighting a different photo every day.

Remember, you only have a few more days to mark your favorites and be entered in our photo contest!

Filed Under: photos Tagged With: biking, hiking, lanscape

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