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

httpv://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!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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!