Dave Conroy's Blog, page 2

Goin’ Fishing

Goin’ Fishing
Posted on: Sunday, February 23rd, 2014 at 3:09pm

They say if you first don’t succeed, try and try again. Very pleased to report that I’ve managed to be granted a tourist Visa to Angola – known as the hardest country in the world to access. I’m not sure how true that is, considering my luck at the Democratic Republic of Congo’s embassy in December, but it certainly took longer than most I’ve had to cross into.

I must have visited the embassy 8 times before the success. After hearing of the restrictions imposed on people visiting emabssies I went out and picked up a pair of slacks to make myself more presentable, only to enter the building and find other people in shorts, some talking on their phones, and a group of people sitting on the floor eating take away!. $10 lost.

I suppose the experience is going to be signs of what is to come. Waiting in line for 2 hours before trying to explain my position to the front desk clerk, only to have her look at me and walk away, leaving no option other than to sit back down on a chair. Another hour passed and the only person who spoke English appeared, asking basic questions, denying even the aspect of applying because I wasn’t in my home country. I didn’t waste time trying to book an appointment with the Chancellor, who conveniently wasn’t in the office, nor the next day, or the next day, with no idea when he would return. Eventually luck came into my favour, I explained the situation and he said that he would process an application based on circumstances – but only if I had a letter of Invitation.

Basically this letter of invitation states that a corporation or individual would be ‘sponsoring’ you in the event of issues. This, I didn’t have How do you find someone to sponsor you when you don’t know anyone in the country? Do I succumb to corruption and find someone to lie for me? I’d been in contact with people I’d learned of over various forums who could provide the service for $100 USD all the way up to $500 USD, all of which didn’t guarantee access to the country. The sponsor would have to provide their information, passport, identification and other details about my stay which can put someone in serious hot water – the process taking 5-7 days to wade through the paperwork, not to mention an expense on their end as the government has tightened up their security and verification due to a rash of human trafficking from various countries.

I got creative. A few weeks earlier I found information on Fishing resorts in the country that catered to fairly well off tourists. The first time I contacted the agency that represented them I was met with an aloof response. This time, I tried something different. Instead of asking about the possibility of getting a letter I went straight ahead and queried the availability of a room at one of the resorts. No less than 45 minutes later I had a response with them stating they would love to help provide a letter of invitation. It wasn’t 3 hours later that I had the entire package digitally in my inbox. Cost: $0.

Next came a letter of declaration – Basically this was a 17 page document I produced in short detailing my intent on visiting their country, my planned route, time estimated to spend in the country, and a brief overview about myself claiming that I was the best thing in the world after their beautiful country. In the document I had to also prove that there was sufficient funds available in a bank account in the event of emergencies (They wanted $25,000 USD proven, an unheard of amount, but I’ll soon see if Angola’s reputation of being the most expensive country in the world stands up with my cycling). A photocopy of immunizations, criminal record, and a nice picture of me dressed fairly well accompanied this letter.

Finally, I had to deposit a non refundable application fee into their Bank Account. This was obviously the last step, as I wanted to make sure everything was right as opposed to flushing money down the toilet. Luckily it was only $35 USD. A steal compared to what the process would have cost if I had to apply from Canada ($300! Not including couriering my passport, dealing with someone to manage the situation, shipment back etc). With the application in, the English speaking woman looked at me and said come back tomorrow. So I did, with nothing being done. I went the next day, and nothing was done. And again, and again. I was cycling by the embassy by chance one day and decided that I’d stop in. Apparently 12 noon is the best time to get their attention, and it seemed like their was going to be movement so I stood against the wall. “Why don’t you have a seat?” they said, with my response being “Remember I am bicycling around the world, I’m going to be sitting on my saddle enough when riding through your country!”. Apparently it caused some commotion and conversation with people behind the glass window – and well, you know the end of this story. I left with a smile on my face laughing at how the English speaking woman became very embarrassed when I understood her colleagues comment on telling her that she should be asking me for chocolate and gifts. I didn’t pay the bribe. Total Cost to get 30 day Visa: $35 USD and just time.

Il’l be heading north and should be crossing into the country the first week of March providing my energy levels are good, and the wind works well in my favour. Wouldn’t you know it, the wind has shifted again and I’m going to be again riding into it for 400km on a highway which I’ve traveled on in the past. No Shoulders, Too many trucks, not too scenic. The only other option is taking some dirt roads with limited villages and towns, so I’ll bite the bullet and keep my head down, teeth clenched, and knuckles white on this stretch. I know little to nothing of Angola, and going to keep it that way making it a surprise – trying not to draw comparisons to another Portuguese colony I visited 3 years back – Mozambique. I’ll have to figure out a way to get into DRC from Angola – but will deal with it in Luanda, the Angolan capital city with a population of 5 million, giving me more time to become creative.

So what else has been going on? I’ve been staying in Windhoek – Namibia’s capital city, population 300.000. It’s quite the hilly city to go and cycle around, but is filled with restaurants, shops, bars, and a decent quality of life great for a rest. I’ve been staying with a fellow who I’d been in contact with for 3 years , who actually bailed me out of a blowout in Botswana when I broke multiple spokes – It just so happens he has the same bike, although a lot cleaner – it’s never been used! A lot of the time has been spent watching the Winter Olympics which have been on Television, sorting out a few loose ends in terms of my own personal projects and hobbies, and a lot of beer – I don’t know how much we’ve both consumed over the past 3 weeks, but It’s certainly in the triple digits – A huge number espeically when the beer sizes are 440ml or even going to 750ml. I even had a chance to see a friend who just completed his Scotland to Cape Town bicycle ride – he returned to rekindle a flame from a spark when he previously passed through.

 So it’s been a very positive experience none the less, getting a chance to stay in a country where things actually work, services like electricity, sewage, and clean water from the taps is huge, and something that I’ve missed. I would have been OK with heading back into South Africa, getting the chance to visit Lesotho and Swaziland if the Angolan visa process went sour, also getting an opportunity to visit AfrikaBurn, a festival at the end of April with the same ideals as the much larger, popular annual Burning Man Festival in Nevada (those who have been following may remember that is where I ended up in 2011 after many years away). Maybe in the future…

The only negative thing that’s come was within the past few hours when packing my gear, getting ready and hoping to start off early in the coming morning. I’ve been carrying quite a bit of paper currency when I was trying to get into DRC. There are no ATMs available in the country and I wanted to have enough to deal with travel, and upcoming country visa costs. When reviewing the pouch today and looking to hide it further on the bike I noticed that a rather significant amount was missing. I don’t want to lay blame as the only person to blame is myself for not being more careful, but certainly tough to swallow when the bag hasn’t left the house in the entire time. It couldn’t have been my host, leaving only one person else.  With nothing to prove I can only sit, learn my lesson to be more careful and figure out how I’m going to complete the tour, definitely this is going to cause a challenge going forward – The amount has been more that I’ve spent in Africa in total. Dammit. Let bygones be bygones and not let it hang a cloud over my journey – and find a way to make some dollars. To Angola I go..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Now Available, Tired of I.T! - How I learnd to stop worrying and love the Bicycle - detailing just how far one has to go to embark on a long term bicycle journey, stories not found on the website, and a few lifes lessons thrown in there. Available in Digital and Paperback copes at http://www.tiredofit.ca/book/ and Amazon.

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Gear Purge (For sale: Tent & Stove)

Gear Purge (For sale: Tent & Stove)
Posted on: Saturday, February 22nd, 2014 at 8:18am

Hey Bicycle Tourists in USA/Canada, I’m selling a few bits of gear that I’m no longer using. Since I’m Africa and shipping is a bit of a mess, I took advantage of an opportunity to give the units to someone heading back over the ocean  for easier selling. Very suitable for Bicycle Touring, and for those who have been reading, will recognize them immediately. I’m OK with shipping in North America, I think crossing oceans would be a bit much at this stage.

Hilleberg Soulo 1 person Freestanding Expedition Tent $500
  The ultimate 4 season bomb proof free standing tent from Hilleberg, The Tentmaker. Can be set up in a little over a minute with inner / outer and groundsheet all in one – If you are in windy conditions just peg a few of the corners and if in some real nasty stuff use the guylines.

If it’s Ultimate – why am I selling? I’m currently in Africa, riding my bicycle around the world. I switched to this tent a few years back after being pissed off with my MSR Hubba Hubba tent. As soon as I got here though, I realized that I’d much prefer something with mesh as most of the time the weather is fantastic. I kept the tent though and used it for about 100 nights, and then snapped a pole (I picked it up when it was filled with my beddding gear, and compressed it trying to slide it through a door – snap. I fixed it with their included pole repair system, and then I managed to go hanging around the desert for a bit too long – Sand got in one of the zippers and then I started having problems with closing the inner tent. Hilleberg listens to me and went and replaced the entire inner tent and poles without question (They have a 25 year warranty). Unfortunately shipping was going to be a pain in the ass (mail is quite sketchy here) so I ahd them ship the replacements  to my Dad’s house in Vancouver Canada. I happened to find someone in the USA coming over to the country I was in and had them bring me a new tent because I didn’t want to risk waiting for getting the new components over to me and I was sick of getting Malaria – with the inner tent being a bit dicey bugs were getting in and so on and so on.

So what this comes with is:

Hilleberg Soulo Outer Tent: No Damage – Used approx 100 nights
Hilleberg Soulo Groundsheet: A few holes, that I’ve taped up with Gorilla Tape. Nothing you can do about this – that’s why you use a groundsheet.
Hilleberg Soulo Inner Tent: Brand New
Hilleberg Soulo Inner Tent: Used 100 nights, inner zipper a bit dicey, but works. (Use it as a spare?)
Hilleberg Soulo Pegs: Enough to sort you out for the nastiest of nights
Hilleberg Soulo Inner Tent Mounting Kit: This lets you pitch only the inner tent if you are in situations where you don’t want the outer tent. I thought it was a good idea, but never used them.

So basically you are getting a pretty new tent at this price.

For a light weight backcountry solo expedition tent you can’t lose at it’s weight, ease of pitching and bombproof construction at 4 lbs 7 oz. Tent is green for stealth camping.

Hilleberg Soulo Page here:

http://www.hilleberg.com/home/products/soulo/soulo.php

MSR Dragonfly Multi Fuel Expedition Stove $100

Here’s my trusty  MSR Dragonfly stove that’s been through hell and back.
after 5 years of using the MSR Dragonfly I wanted to switch things up and try a Primus just to add a bit more chaos to my life.

The MSR Dragonfly can run White Gas, Diesel, Unleaded, and Kerosene – I’ve only used White Gas and Unleaded on it, and since being in Africa I’ve done a few things to avoid cleaning it often. I pulled the Fuel Filter (It just jammed all the time), and I’ve Removed the Wick from the stove itself as I found it a bit pointless in my situation. I’ve had problems with the unit in the past, jamming, not performing optimal and worked with MSR/Cascade Designs several times where they went out of their way to make sure the stove performed optimally in every situation. I cleaned it regularly believe it or not in Coca Cola, as it was the best way to get the grime out from the crappy fuel that I was using.

I firmly believe this is the best way to clean a stove – Coca Cola.

As I said before, I had an opportunity to get some parts sent over from the USA when someone came to visit me so I wanted to try a Primus Stove just for a sanity test. It’s “OK” – The MSR performed faster, burned hotter, and was easier to assemble and disassemble.

I’m including the Stove (new body replaced), A Fuel Tank (590ml), A few repair kits, including a handful of fuel filters, handful of wicks, and handful of plungers for the pump – Those are the only things that need replacing on heavy use on the stove, the O-Rings and other things are rarely replaced, but you will get enough for 5 full on services of the stove which for most people will be more than they’ll ever use the stove. I’m even including a spare pump, as I carry two fuel bottles with me, but I kept the 2nd bottle with me in Africa for extra fuel storage as I don’t see quality fuel often and need my coffee in the morning or I become a dink. See what I’m doing at http://www.tiredofit.ca

So to repeat: Works great – Burns everything, Tonnes of spare parts, Will get you cooking wherever you are. If you are local to Vancouver, Canada my Dad’s going to be handling the sale as I’m halfway around the world – so you can’t expect him to know too much about things, so best to refer questions over to me. I think the price is more than fair considering new retail price at MEC, the spare parts, and the Fuel Tank.

The Stove working the way it should.

I wrote a review that I updated regularly at http://www.tiredofit.ca/2011/05/23/msr-dragonfly-multi-fuel-stove/

My usage pattern is slightly different than most, and I’m sure if these worked out for me for very long tours, they’ll be suitable for any other short / long term trek. My knowledge has become quite intimate with both these units, so feel free to ask some questions, or if you are the buyer,  I’d be more than happy to discuss usage and quirks when situations arose.

[image error]You're reading the RSS feed for Tired of I.T! Did you know that the website contains much more information such as articles, gear list, daily statistics, videos and photos and more! You can also get real time micro-updates by following on Twitter and Facebook!
Now Available, Tired of I.T! - How I learnd to stop worrying and love the Bicycle - detailing just how far one has to go to embark on a long term bicycle journey, stories not found on the website, and a few lifes lessons thrown in there. Available in Digital and Paperback copes at http://www.tiredofit.ca/book/ and Amazon.

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Making the Most of your GPS Data

Making the Most of your GPS Data
Posted on: Thursday, February 6th, 2014 at 4:50pm

As you’ve probably seen on my posts and statistics page, I like to keep an accurate log of where I’ve travelled. Part Excel Spreadsheet that logs all the necessary information such as End location, Food, Drink, Lodging, and Misc. costs, along with brief ride notes, the magic comes by means of recording data with  my Garmin Edge 705 GPS. It’s an older device that has been superseded by newer fancier models with touch screens such as the Garmin Edge 810.

The GPS has multiple functions – 1) being that it can display various maps generated from Garmin directly, 3rd party manufacturers such as Tracks4Africa, and even free maps from OpenStreetMap, as detailed on this website nearly 4 years back. 2) It can serve as a wonderful statistics recording device, recording your movements that can later be used on online services, loaded in tools like Google Earth, and displayed on a website. Not only does it track the movements, but it also tracks metrics such as distance travelled, speed, elevation ascended/descended, calories burned, and even can track things like your heart rate, and cadence if you care to follow that sort of thing. For touring I left the heart rate and cadence monitor behind, but find great use with all of the other metrics. While the unit isn’t perfect, it works wonderfully lasting near 3 days of cycle touring recording these statistics, and can be recharged easily enough off the bike by means of a USB port, or even while riding with my Pedal Powered Electronics Charging System.

I’m going to outline some of the techniques and tools that I use to manipulate some of the data that this device records. Even if you don’t have one of the above listed models, or even brands it’s likely your unit will record statistics into some flat file that can be accessed through your computer. I’ll discuss on how to make the file smaller/web friendly while keeping the majority of the data, dealing with when a rare occurrence the files get corrupt and how to fix, and also some tricks to display more data than was intended on the device. If someone has interest in some of the more fancier techniques I use to output my data onto this website, feel free to contact me privately or discuss in the comments and I can provide snippets of my code that makes the process near automated. Those who have been following this website for a while may remember my complaining that the recording/analyzing/output process to this website took near 45 minutes each night – It’s less than 1 minute now, and I can focus on relaxing at the end of a hard day by not sitting in front of a computer. Read On..

There are a number of tools that I use to perform this analytics – most are all available for both Windows and Apple computers, along with some other tools even available for Linux, and even mobile phones running IOS or Android. First off are the Garmin branded products:

Training Center – Sadly, now discontinued with no updates since 2011, this is the statistics recording application that one can use at the end of the day to import data from the device. Available for Windows Machines and Apple OSX, it offers a clean interface with multiple panes which allow you to store your entire rides in a database detailing the ride, graph charts of your metrics, and a map with our movements overlaid. Designed only for use with the Garmin EDGE Series – it’s a fantastic piece of software that can be used offline and in the tent at night. Recently, Garmin has moved the same technology to an online only service known as Garmin Connect. It’s function is to display similar statistics as Training Center, but with a social aspect tied in, allowing rides and courses to be shared and even integrated into your own website. Since internet access is hard to come by – I’ll stick with the Training Center.

Basecamp – An update to Garmin’s well loved MapSource application, Basecamp allows you to perform trip planning, analytics of past maps, surveying terrain, and the ability to load maps onto your Garmin Device. Lately in the past year updates have been many adding more social aspects to it. Those who want to stay away from these I suggest finding a copy of the Basecamp 3.x series, as opposed to the present day 4.x versions. All work the same. Available both for Windows and Apple Operating Systems. Those who find building routes with their handheld GPS will love this program and be able to transfer their work directly to their GPS for usage. Usage of BaseCamp is out of the scope of this write-up other than a few simple features.

 

 

  Starting your Day

When you start your ride each day, you’ll want to reset your reset your GPS to 0 to provide accurate stats. If you don’t reset, sometimes the data can get mangled when importing into Training Center, and you don’t have an accurate day by day account of where you travelled (this can be fixed if you have however, a bit later on I’ll show you). For the Garmin 705 it’s as simple as holding down the bottom left most key that is titled “Lap” for a few seconds, while the display counts down giving 3 seconds of safety to make sure you really want to do this.

Once everything has been reset to zero, you would simply press the bottom button on the right “Start/Stop”. Recording now begins and you can go and do your cycle. When I stop for any longer than 15 minutes, I simply hold down the power button, which stops the recording to conserve battery power. Once powered on, don’t forget to press Start again like I do sometimes.

Note: There is an option inside the settings screen on these devices called ‘Adaptive Recording’. This handy function only records data when it detects that your unit is moving, thus saving battery life and cutting down the file size. It’s recommended to turn this on, as it’s off by default.

 

Importing into Training Center

After your day is complete, and you get access to a computer, the fun starts here, plugging it in and importing the data into Training Center. Plugging the cable into the Garmin unit and into your USB port you’d can now head to the top menu under File –> Receive from Device. Depending on how much data you have stored on it it may take a while to import into the software.

You’ll then be presented with data populated in many panes as shown below:

 

Pane 1 – Shows your history of files imported fro the devicePane 2 – Is the detail of the days ride. In this example I have 2/1/2014 HighlightedPane 3 – Shows Detailed graphs of elevation, speed, distance, anything you like selectable by the drop down menus.While not a pain – 4 is a tab allowing you to switch to a Map view, showing the route travelled, and add notes for the day.

In Pane 1 I’ve changed the view removing fields that I do not normally care about. Things like Average Speed, Heart Rate and laps seems a bit useless when touring, obviously with lots of start and stops. This is about as far as we’re going to with the interface other than Pane 1.

I generally keep the “My Activities” folder populated for as long of a time that I am in a country. Right Clicking on the ‘My Activates’ folder allows one to export the data into a single .GPX file for later usage. When I’m through with the country, I simply open up the ”Imported Activities” folder and drag each week into a new country folder for reference. I keep these files exported as well in the event that Training Center breaks on me. One can even export the entire “Imported Activities” folder to create an entire continent as opposed to exporting each separate country and joining them with a third party product. Handy stuff. Finally, You can see total details in Pane two for each of these/all folders.

 

Reducing Size / Optimizing the Data

We’ve figured out the exporting routine and are left with a bunch of files that can now be used. But are awfully large if they were to be shared/placed on the internet. Even if you are in a country with unmetered internet and the fastest speeds, this is a bit excessive for public display. There is a handy multi purpose tool we can use named GPSBabel which will let us manipulate our data any which way we want. Designed to be able to import GPS file format regardless of manufacturer, it allows us to export the new file into as well any format we like. Other features allow for changing the dates and times of entries inside the file, merging the data so that tracks are now viewed as opposed to date but by distance (i.e., split it every 100km), clean some of the unnecessary bits from the file, but most importantly would be the ‘Simplify’ and the ‘Radius’. Inside these GPX files are thousands of marks that are written to the file upon each change in direction, geocoordinates, speed, and so on, hence the large file size. Simplify allows one to find the most useful track points and only display 100 (or whatever value you define). Radius allows you to fudge some of the data, specifically the start and end points purely for privacy purposes. Sometimes I stay at peoples houses who I have met, and I want to keep it private where their exact location is. The Radius is helpful by changing some of these coordinates based on a set of values.  GPSBabel can be downloaded here for Windows, Apple, and Linux distributions. It’s an open source product and if you have a few bucks, they’d appreciate a donation or two to keep the project alive.

GPSBabel can be used from the command line, meaning that you can type a bunch of commands into a box and have it perform your optimizations and changes for you, very useful in scripts for automation, but for beginners it’s best to use the included user interface. In this example I’m going to simplify and optimize my ‘Africa-zw.gpx’ file into something that can be more readable on the internet.

Since we’re using the universal ‘GPX’ format we’ll need to change the drop down box near Number 1 to ‘GPX XML’, and as well do the same for Number 2. As mentioned before you can mix and match your formats of files, but we’ll let you play with that if you have a device that doesn’t support GPX. Clicking the Filename in Number 1 allows you to select 1 or multiple files to act as the source file. In this case I’ve selected the Zimbabwe GPX file shown above, and in Number 2 I’ve set it to save on my Desktop with a similar filename, although I’ve padded “-optimized” to the end of it. Now we need to change some options.

Clicking the “Filters” button (I have it marked number 3) brings up a series of options. A lot of this is out of the scope of the document, read GPSBabels thorough documentation if you want to dive deep into some of them. I generally only use the Start / End Date, Packing/Merging / Splitting at specific Dates/Distances, and of course the Simplify option.

Note in the third image I have the program set to simplify to 100 track points. You can go higher or lower, lower meaning less detail will be shown, and higher with more detail but bigger file size. In the 4th image I nuke Routes and Waypoints, as sometimes this is private and personal data, that I don’t want the world to see. Once you’ve made your necessary changes click Ok and you’ll be brought back to the main GPS Babel Screen. Clicking “More Options” (I have it listed as number 4) has a nice little feature I like to have checked that brings up a map from Google Maps showing your route. Obviously if you have no internet, turn this option off. Now that’s only left to do is click ‘Apply’ in the main GPSBabel screen and let it do it’s thing. It’s fast, and unless you have a corrupt file, should give you your output file immediately and in our case, show the map. You’ll also see that it spits out some output in the “whitespace” in the program. This is the commands that can be used using the command line version of the program. For most it’s gobblety goop, but handy to for those who need it.

 

As  you can see in the map, it still shows accurately the basics on where I travelled, minus the parts where I went into the bush and camped, stopped to take a pee, and peoples houses. Now take a peek at the file size difference – the results are huge.

 Now with this optimized file I can display it in tools that can read the GPX format (Google Earth, Basecamp, Google Maps even lets you load GPX files as well if they are stored on the internet. You can also get plugins that will read the files in your blog and display fancy output similar to what you see on one of my blog posts. You are on your own to find what works for you.

Dealing with Corrupt Files

Sometimes when you import files using Training Center, they don’t appear properly in the screen. It’s a rare occasion, but sometimes the file doesn’t get saved correctly upon reset, the power off command garbles some data, or just because it feels like it. The Garmin Edge saves its files as TCX format – saving far more data than the traditional GPX format (Calories, and such), so you’ll have to work with the problematic file from the device itself. Garmin stores the files in the “Garmin/History” folder as shown below. I had a problem with one file ‘2014-01-27-06-34-12.tcx’ that wouldn’t read properly.

You can go and download that file here if you want to follow along and try the steps.

There are a few ways you can solve this:

 The easiest is to download TCX Converter which has a function in there called “Repair TCX”. Most of the time this will repair it and ask you to resave the file, thus allowing import. You would select the ‘Open File’ setting, load the TCX file in question and select Fix Bad TCX under the ‘Track Modify’ tab. In this case, ours doesn’t work. So we need to find a different option.

 

 

 

FirstObject XML Editor is a harder approach at trying to find where the corruption is in your files. As detailed here the TCX file s a series of data wrapped inside Open and Closing tags. Programmers will make more sense of it, but everything that starts i.e. 123 must have a closing tag. First ObjectXML editor allows you to open the corrupted file, and on the left hand tree will show a Yellow box where the corruption resides. You just need to expand it and modify the erroneous entry and you should be able to resave the file ready for reimportation. I spent about 5 minutes trying to find where the problem resided, but still had no luck. Not wanting to give up, I tried another solution.

 

 

 

Next, I opened up the TCX file in Microsoft Excel, knowing that it can read XML files properly, and it may be a way to find the error. I was presented with this error message on the left hand side. Excel couldn’t open it, but provided some very useful information upon clicking the details screen. What it said was on Line 2, “End Tag ‘LatitudeDuow’ does not match the start tag ‘LatitudeDegrees’. Now I knew that it was definitely corrupt, and had to do things the hard way. I opened up my notepad editor, and searched for the string of ‘LatitudeDuow’ (I like using Notepad++)

Sure enough, I found it in short order, with a whole bunch of junk trailed onto the end. I got to work holding down the delete key until I found something legible, and then made sure that the tag had a closing tag after the values of ‘-19.564332’. I resaved the file, tried to import it into Training Centre, and it worked! This was an exceptionally rare case of corruption, that I’ve seen once or twice in 1500 or so usages of TCX / GPX files. Hopefully this can be of assistance to you.

 

 Using your GPS to GeoTag your Photos

Since you are riding all day long and have your GPS running, you likely are taking photos at the same time. In my case I take so many that if I went back a few days later I couldn’t remember exactly as to where they were taken. If you’ve got your GPS and Camera’s time in Sync, you can have this data merged in with your photos, and then stored inside the photos description tag, very useful for Photo Galleries like Windows Live Photo Gallery, Apple iPhoto, and even for online services like Picasa and Flickr. This is a huge feature I’d sorely miss after using it for many years. Some cameras have a GPS chip embedded inside them, but if it doesn’t you can use the free program called GeoSetter. Sadly, it’s only in Windows, and I’m not sure what a suitable replacement would be for the Apple users. Garmin Basecamp also has the same abilities, but I find its user interface clunky.

Once you load GeoSetter, and aim it a folder of images, you would then select the individual image, or highlight the whole lot of them, and select ‘Synchronize with GPS Data Files’.

An options screen will appear, where you can set various options. Since every time I use Training Centre, I export the data into a folder I simply point it at that folder and let it find any photos that match with the GPX files in question.

 

A screen will appear asking you to confirm which that you would like to lookup Data on the photos that were found in ‘sync’. What GeoSetter will do is connect to the internet and find out actual names for the GPS Coordinates. Countries, Cities, Districts, States, and also repair any erronous Altitude information if your GPS sometimes is recording bad values (My Garmin is known to do this every once in a while). Once complete, you would click save, and then the details would be saved inside the file. If you wanted to add more detail, selecting a file and clicking “Edit” will let you change the fields as well.

 

Simply close GeoSetter and it will ask you to save the modified files, and you now have this data populated in your photos, and can now use it for searching, displaying on maps, and other things. Very Cool!

Merging Multiple Maps on your Device

The Garmin Units can be a bit frustrating if you own multiple maps. For example I utilize the Garmin 2013 Southern Africa Maps, which are very detailed for cities, but not so good for rural areas, as well as using the wonderful community supported Tracks4Africa map sets, which aren’t so hot for cities, but fantastic when travelling on dirt roads. As well, I like to have an idea of what the elevation is going to be in areas. The problem is, is that Garmin only lets you load one map per storage device at one time. So, even with an extra MicroSD card in your unit that lets you only load 2 maps at once – as the data is stored in a file called “gmapsupp.img” located in the /Garmin/ folder on the GPS. I wanted to merge the best pieces of maps into a custom made map yet struggled with the BaseCamp map installation software and looked for a solution.

Luckily, there are tools that allow you to modify and muck with your installed maps and this one, GMapTool is a comprehensive GUI that lets you modify some of the options that Garmin didn’t really want you to do. Here’s how I manage to put multiple maps on one device, and even on one card.

GPS Map of Africa

Price: $99.00

(1 customer reviews)

 

  Load Basecamp and select the Install Maps Function. Make sure your GPS is connected, as it will want to verify what unit you are using, if you are authorized, and what space is available on the device. Somewhere around on the internet is a program called “BaseCamp Patcher” which removes this restriction and lets you use an actual SD card that’s plugged into your computer. Use your searching skills to find it, as I’m not going to post it  here.

 

 

City Navigator 010-11595-00 Southern Africa NT Digital Map

Price: $82.00

(9 customer reviews)

Select the map you wish to install from, and highlight the region areas that you wish to copy to your device, before clicking continue. It could take 30 minutes for the maps to be loaded onto your device, so go outside and get some fresh air or brew a coffee or something.

Once complete, on your GPS in the “Garmin” folder you’ll have a brand spanking new ‘gmapsupp.img’ file. Copy it to somewhere on your Desktop, and rename it something – in this case I’m going to call mine t4a.img. Next, go back and do the same MapInstall process all over again, picking a new map provider, regions, and let it copy to your GPS. Copy the file again to your desktop, and rename it to something other than gmapsupp.img. I’ll call this next one GarminDEM.img. Then, if you want to do another one, go through the same steps. I’ll call the final map file I want to merge “garminssa.img”.

 

 

Now you should have 3 (or however many) .img files on your Desktop. It’s time to load GMapTool, and merge them together. Click the ‘Add Files’ Button, and select your 3 .img files.

 

 

 

 

 

Next, Move to the ‘Join’ tab, and click “Select Output File”. Here is where I am going to save on my desktop a brand new ‘gmapsupp.img’ file. In the Mapset Name, I’m going to just call it something random, like “Daves cool merged maps”. Then, you would click ‘Join All’ and you should have a gmapsupp.img file on your desktop that equals the size of the ones that you had made earlier with BaseCamp and MapInstall. All you need to copy that newly made’ gmapsupp.img’ file into the Garmin folder on your GPS, and then power it up. In the Settings menu on my Edge 705 under Maps, it now shows the 3 mapsets that I can toggle on or off, or my favorite, have them all work together at the same time. Problem solved!

 

 

    Have any other cool tools and techniques to share? Speak up in the comments!

 

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Questions of the Day

Questions of the Day
Posted on: Wednesday, February 5th, 2014 at 5:18pm

To pass the time when cycling from Zambia to Namibia I started engaging the followers/fans on my Twitter and Facebook Pages. Once per day I’d ask a Question that related to Bicycle touring, in the hopes I’d get a response back from some other tourists, no matter how long they’d been touring, experience, or location. The results were useful not only to myself but others, and some were downright comical. I figured it would be good to share some of the responses on the website as I pass time waiting for Visa issues, seeing as tour reports on this site will be minimal, and it’s a great chance for you to check out some other tourists and bikers out there – Once I start moving again the series will start back  up, follow along and join in!

2014 – January 13 – Bicycle Touring Question of the Day: Do you keep your pump in your tank for your stove or do you take out after every usage? I leave in.

Steve Langston (@frisbeeplate) writes: leave in. Pulling out is for cowards.

Chris & Mel (@youjustpedal) writes: take it out. If it breaks we go hungry. We ain’t no fools

Richard Worth (@donkey_hoty) writes: In when camped, out when travelling.

Russ McCoy (@RussMcCoy) writes: Pull out to be safe.

River Mcleod (@mcleodan) writes: I leave it pressurised. No point wearing out the pump. No problems with it.

Penney Kemert writes: We take ours out.

2014 – January 14 – Bike touring question of the day.. What’s your most wildest emergency roadside repair? Or incident that couldn’t repair but u still moved?

I (@tiredofitdotca) wrote: There’s been so. Many but the most memorable was the time my hub and cog sheared off in Rwanda. We fashioned an emergency tool to repair.

Uninspired Ramblings (@EnglishChris75) wrote: Stripped rear hub internals on Camino de Santiago. Had to walk. Luckily a village only a few miles away where the non-English speaking hostel manager responded to my question on where the nearest bike shop was, by calling his mate with a taxi and his other mate in Pamplona with a bike shop, and in 3 hours I’d been there and back and had a new wheel!

Stoekey Films (@StoekyFilms) wrote: Double flat touring outside of Forks, Wa-trying to patch tubes in a downpour in the middle of nothing but forest!

Steve Langston (@frisbeeplate) wrote: shift derailleur into spokes rip apart rear wheel.

Penny Kemert wrote: My hub jammed solid in a canyon near Vioolsdrift ( border SA Nam), no cell signal. Nobody would stop or I wrote HELP across my mattress and held it up. Eventually scored a lift to Springbok to get it fixed.

 

2014 – January 15 – Bicycle touring question of the day: What’s the longest you wear your socks for?

I (@tiredofitdotca) wrote: 10 is my max, 4 to 5 days is the average.

Big Bumble Bike Ride (@bumblebikeride) wrote: tend to run at 3 or 4 days before I have to at least give them a rinse. Real question is, how long for a cham?

2014 – January 16 – Bicycle Touring Question of the Day: What’s the longest distance you’ve travelled in one day?

I (@tiredofitdotca) wrote: 211km leaving Jasper, Alberta Canada heading East

Thomas Dalmayrac (@kakounet) wrote: 96km only but in the alps !

Houston Marsh (@HoustonMarsh) wrote: 222km also in 2010 cycling Hwy3 here in BC. I was determined to get to Osoyoos

Ross Methven (@sprezzat) wrote: 235km in Botswana in December

Penny Kemert wrote: Mine is 135 think along that long Pandematenga – Nate road in Botswana 2013

Brian Beaudoin wrote: 127 miles, June 2011 leaving Savannah, GA for South Carolina via Statesboro, GA.

2014 – January 17 – What’s the longest you’ve gone without shaving while touring? (Ladies too!)

I (@tiredofitdotca) wrote: 215 days across Canada

Chris & Mel (@youjustpedal) wrote: I think this was about 3 months #teamtaliban 

Richard Worth (@Donkey_Hoty) wrote: I don’t shave- just trim it a bit every now & then

Eric Staal (@neanderstaal) wrote: shave? While touring? I don’t understand. Do people actually do that?

Penny Kemert wrote: 3 months

 

2014 – January – 18 – What’s the piece of gear you can’t live without?

I (@tiredofitdotca) wrote: I turn into a whiner without my coffee press.

Steve Langston (@frisbeeplate) wrote: Frisbee Plate!

Tailwind TV (@tailwindTV) wrote: My thumb.

Corey Itterman wrote: My IPod

Penny Kemert wrote: My Kindle and my Kettle

 

Chris & Mel (@youjustpedal) wrote: my $7 Aviators, as they make me look like a sozzled commercial airline pilot

2014 – January – 19 – #BicycleTouring Question of the Day: what’s the hottest/coldest you’ve ever cycled in?

I (@tiredofitdotca) wrote: Me: 117F Texas & and -9c Canada

Steve Langston (@frisbeeplate) wrote: +40 in Chatahoochee – 4 Rogers Pass

Daniel Jankowski wrote: 51c Kuwait not much on the cold side maybe 0

Penny Kemert wrote: 43c near Chipata in Zambia and -2 near Grunau in Namibia both in 2013

2014 – January 20 – #BicycleTouring Question of the Day. Size/Brand/Distance of Tires?

I (@tiredofitdotca) wrote: Me-F Schwalbe Mrthon XR 26×2.25 (28000+km) R: Mrthon Xtr 26×2 (8000~ km)

Steve Langston (@frisbeeplate) wrote: if I’m balling it’s Schwalbe Marathons all day.. Did Vancouver to T’under Bay without a flat

Chris & Mel (@youjustpedal) wrote: I like my tyres like I like my women – puncture resistant #schwalbemarathons

2014 – January 22 – #BicycleTouring Question of the Day: craziest injury when touring?

I (@tiredofitdotca) wrote: Me-on: Hemorrhoid breaking in Brooks Saddle. Off:bike falling from tree in face

Bicycle Hobo (@BicycleHobo) wrote: hands stopped ‘working correctly’ for a couple months after my first x-country

Endless Horizon (@endlesshorizon) wrote: within 3 days I got stitches in my chin then broke my leg severely jumping into the ocean to celebrate finishing my tour.

Endless Horizon (@endlesshorizon) also wrote in response to Bicycle Hobo: I had similar experience on my first XC trip. Proper stretching and rotation every night does wonders.

2014 – January 23 – #BicycleTouring Question of the day: most useless piece of your gear that you carried/carry?

I (@tiredofitdotca) wrote: Grudgingly carried water filter for 4.5yr

Amaya Williams (@worldbiking) wrote: STILL carrying a water filter that hasn’t seen the outside of the pannier in around 3 years.

BikeTour Global (@biketourglobal) wrote: A compass. Since more than 20 years – never used… But good to know that I can if needed

Helen Lloyd (@HelenLloyd) wrote: solar charger… used it once out of curiosity, realised it was pointless. No longer carry it. oh and a packraft. Carried it for 10000km before putting it in water was worth it, but coulda just posted it ahead!

Bicycle Hobo (@BicycleHobo) wrote: Most useless piece of gear I carry – probably me #bicycletouring

Chris & Mel (@youjustpedal) wrote: denim miniskirt. It hasn’t fit for about 5 years #onedayitwill #optimism

2014 – January 24 – #BicycleTouring Question of the day: strangest thing you’ve carried on tour?

I (@tiredofitdotca) wrote: Mine without question is the 400 pills of ‘man power’ that I’m carrying to give to anther cyclist who requested it

BikeTour Global (@biketourblobal) wrote: a watermelon

2014 – January 25 – #BicycleTouring Question of the day: what’s the craziest animal encounter you’ve had?

I (@tiredofitdotca) wrote:  toss up: 27 buffalo/Canada | 2 elephant Botswana. I should also give a special mention to the animals I see on two feet staggering around the many bars I stop at at the end of the day..

Christian Benke (@derreiside) wrote: Nominating @J2westcountry‘s encounter with a rodent in Hungary: http://j2westcountry.tumblr.com/post/70401610309/saturday-23rd-november-good-days-and-bad

Simon the Bum (@simonthebum) wrote: Woke up with this in my tent. Had to ride with a numb hand all day.

BikeVCC (@BikeVCC) wrote: A Big Moose!

Chris & Mel (@youjustpedal) wrote: scorpion in tent #truestory

2014 – January 26 – #BicycleTouring Question of the day: How often do you lube your chain?

I (@tiredofitdotca) wrote: when I remember – usually about every 8 days/800km

Dominic Luther (@onebikeoneworld) wrote: You’re supposed to do maintenance? Thats why I bought a Thorn. Lube is every 2-3 months at best

Big Bumble Bike Ride (@bumblebikeride) wrote:  Same here, rohloff for less hastle and blind negligence for the rest. Lubing after every major downpour

Chris & Mel (@youjustpedal) wrote: aren’t you only supposed to lube it once it goes rusty…

Simon the Bum (@simonthebum) wrote: Had to follow a coach through a crab migration. Covered, head to foot, in crab meat. But the only way to clear the road.

2014 – January 27 – # BicycleTouring Question of the Day: What footwear do you cycle in? Special Bike cleats? Sandals? Barefoot?

I (@tiredofitdotca) wrote: Hiking Boots

Chris & Mel (@youjustpedal) wrote: Winklepickers

Ross Methven (@sprezzat) wrote: Shimano hiking boots with recessed cleats. I can’t be in the same room as them, they smell that bad. They need an exorcism.

Richard Worth (@donkey_hoty) writes: Whatever’s comfy *Don’t cleat/strap*

Simon the Bum (@simonthebum) wrote: 5:10′s and flatties. Hiking boots if it’s stupid cold. (with fame style legwarmers)

Big Bumble Bike Ride (@bumblebikeride) wrote:  usually cleats but, for final 1000 km into BKK, flip flops. Cleats broke spectacularly.

Penny Kemert wrote: Keen Sandals.

 

2014 – January 28 – #BicycleTouring Question of the day: Do you prefer traveling alone or with another (or group).

I (@tiredofitdotca) wrote: alone. Am good for 1 month with a partner

Pankaj (@impankajp) wrote: alone my pace my stops

Steve Langston (@frisbeeplate) wrote: down with a crew. Like an end of day campsite party #theboyz

2014 – January – 29 – #BicycleTouring Question of the day: Do you prefer to eat while riding or stop for your meals?

I (@tiredofitdotca) wrote:  Me: I. Munch all day while riding & nap at rest time

Anders Kankfelt (@Cycling_Anders) wrote: Eat while riding on a tour? No, I enjoy a sit-down lunch mid-day and I cook my own dinner in the evening. No stress, relax

Richard Worth (@donkey_hoty) writes: Sit. *dismounts by handily positioned rock*

Eric Staal (@neanderstaal) wrote: I snack while riding but stop for meals.

Mike Gregg (@cycletrekker63) wrote: graze feed as I ride. My preference!

Andrew Gills (@AndrewGills) wrote: I’m new to touring but have cycled all my life. I eat while riding. I’m usually too busy resting or taking pics at stops. I can ride with one hand so can eat. I sometimes balance container in left hand on bars & eat with right.

Helen Lloyd (@HelenLloyd) wrote: I’m def missing a trick… how do you eat while riding? yeah but do u actually keep cycling while getting out the food and eating it? That’s impressive multi-tasking!

2014 – January 30 – #BicycleTouring Question of the Day: Do you smoke when touring? (Cigarettes, Doobies, Meat, What have you?)

I (@tiredofitdotca) wrote:  Me: I smoke cigs on occasion.

Steve Langston (@frisbeeplate) wrote: Spirit Breaks #theboyz

2014 – January 31 – #BicycleTouring Question of the day: what valves do u use on your tubes? Gates/Presta/Schraeder/tubeless?

I (@tiredofitdotca) wrote: Schraeder for availability and ability to add sealant

Richard Worth (@donkey_hoty) writes: Ditto: schraeder for availability

Eric Staal (@neanderstaal) wrote:  presta, for the handy dandy retaining nut and for not needing a plastic cap

Simon the Bum (@simonthebum) wrote: Rims filed sanded and finished for Schraeder. Easiest to find and get the sealant in.

2014 – February 1 – #BicycleTouring Question of the day: Do you listen to music while riding?

I (@tiredofitdotca) wrote: I use Portable Speakers to still hear traffic

Steve Langston (@frisbeeplate) wrote:  head phones from buck or two. knife one side put the remaining bud in RH ear

D. Phipp-Macintyre (@dpm67) wrote: not whilst cycling. I have Bluetooth headset/earphones for in tent or hostel also to keep noise out of my head/let music in.

BikeVCC (@bikevcc) wrote: Had no luck with portable bike speakers. Not loud enough around city traffic. Bluetooth headphones seem to work best.

Penny Kemert wrote: Ipod Shuffle and Popup Speakers: Our are those pop ups called Shox. They didn’t mind bumpy roads and we didn’t have rain.

 

2014 – February 2 – @BicycleTouring Question of the day: Do you use a kickstand?

I (@tiredofitdotca) wrote: Broke 3 Click-Stands and now Broke a Plescher ESGE stand. Will get a new one

Milestone Rides @milestonerides) wrote: That’s a negative for me. It’s a pain when packing but that’s what trees and benches are for.

The Biciclown (@biciclown) wrote: Get a stick (bambu is the best) and last long

Richard Worth (@donkey_hoty) writes: Bi-ped. In weight Vs Equipment debate I’m in the ‘preservation of equipment’ camp & will push a few extra grams #safetyfirst

 

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Return to Windhoek

Return to Windhoek
Posted on: Monday, February 3rd, 2014 at 9:02pm

Long story short, I took option #1. At no time in the past few years did I ever see myself back in Namibia, one of the most challenging countries I’ve ever cycled in. Extreme Heat, lack of water, extreme isolation, although paired with beautiful sights, a coast line, and an understanding of just how far one can push one’s limits before going crazy. But I’m back. Not just having crossed in, but am back in the capital city of Windhoek, population 300,000 people, the largest city in this vast expanse of land.

I really struggled trying to figure out what I wanted to do next, and after my fairly positive experience at the Angolan Embassy in Lusaka I opted that going to Namibia to try would be a suitable plan, besides, I’d never been on the north end of the country, and was always curious to find out more about the “Red Fence”. A stunningly racist line that still stands today constructed by South Africa in the 1960s, meant to separate cattle, and more ominously, people. It’s true, when I travelled the last time in Namibia South of Windhoek, there was rarely the time I’d actually see a black person roaming about. Spread between 50km or more would be a farmhouse of an old Afrikaner, or German family holding onto land, doing their best to grow crops like grapes, and cattle. While I’d say the south was certainly more scenic, I have to say that I needed to go through this northern area, to see things from a different perspective.

Saying goodbye to my friends and family (It gets no easier even after the multiple times we’ve gone through this), I cheated a bit, taking a 350km lift with someone to satisfy some loose ends I had out standing, and more importantly to not have to ride on the same road twice, which I found to be scenic at the time, but not enough to draw me back again, like some other areas in the world. The bike was clean, new parts setup, and I found new ways to organize panniers, handlebar bags, and was armed with enough spares to put me through the worst conditions. Even after not cycling with a loaded bicycle for 2 months I quickly found my groove, nearly getting 100km in the first day, stopping for the night as I promised to pick up some goodies for someone in Livingstone, right close to Victoria Falls – and deliver them to him in Windhoek. Being on roads that I’d been on before cut down on the gazing around, and allowed myself to focus on specific sounds coming from the bicycle, positioning of hands and work out any kinks before I went into my uncharted territory.

My “care package” for someone in Windhoek – I don’t ask any questions and expect no answers.

   

Zambia really doesn’t maintain their signage.

Seeing things in reverse continuously brought back a flood of memories – I generally regard the day I crossed into Zambia as one of the worst days of my life, but also one of the better ones at the same time. It was where I found Africa to really start – even though there were segments in Botswana, Namibia and South Africa. Stopping at the exact spot where the young boy was struck and killed 2 years before played with emotions, remembering in minute detail the events that happened, having to go and find his mother, explain even with the language barrier, and the memory of the look on her face that’s permanently etched into my vision. No mother needs to go through that, and it made for a few hours where it was difficult to swallow. Each spot I’d cycle through I’d remember meeting up with children, meeting up with my African family on their way back from a Vacation, stopping under the shade for a rest making me realize just how much I’d gone through in this country in my many visits. Once reaching the town of Kazungula, it was time to let it all go, and enter in with the new. Following a very remote 200km path down to the south west tip of Africa, stealth camping along the way, getting stoned by little children who ran in fear when they realized that I was going to go back and grab them, I rode mostly in silence trying to start to figure out just what I’m trying to achieve here in the next year. The sun beating down on my arms and face made for painful tender moments in the tent rubbing lotion on at the end of the day, often in areas where I could hear the singing, drumming of locals, yet they had no idea a “Mufulo” was nearby.

 

A typical Zambian homestead in the South

I can’t say for sure if I’ll be back in Zambia, but I can almost guarantee that I won’t be cycling in the country in the near future – There are only a few more entry/exit points left and they seem way out of the question at this point in time, besides, I need to get this continent finished and done with – 2.5 years has been an awful long time here – the more I stay, the more I love it, but a line from a favorite series of books says: “There are other worlds than these”. It’s a fairly scenic ride over the Zambezi river on a recently constructed bridge to reach Zambian/Namibian border lines. Exiting on my last day that my Visa was valid brought some raised eyebrows from the Zambian side, and the Namibian side just looked at me peculiarly as sweat dripped off of me and I smelled something like a sweaty sock. Time for a rest, and I found myself in the town of Katima Mulilo, a dusty Namibian town where the buildings and houses are painted bright colours, ample places to stay, and a few shopping centres to pick up goods. I opted for a campsite right at the river, as I wanted to be able to pick up the Zambian cellular signals to work through my unlimited data plan as I had some things left over to do. The alternative was to switch to a Namibian data service, lose the plan, and instead pay an astounding rate of $20usd for 1GB of data. I bought 5 at that price. Buying less is $30-$40 or higher per GB.

I nearly had a heart attack walking into the first shop in Namibia – This is what I was after! Pastries, Cheeses, Meats, Olives, all sorts of goodies for 1/3 of the price of everywhere that I’ve travelled over the past 2 years. Needless to stay I pigged out the first day, and haven’t stopped since. The South African shops are plentiful here, as the dollar is the same as the rand, and some people still regard themselves as one of the same, even though the country gained independence in 1990. Camped out along the Zambezi brought Hippos, monkeys roaming around my tent, and I found myself huddled inside hoping I wouldn’t fly away during a freak 15 minute storm that drenched everything, toppled my bicycle over, and sent my camp gear all around the campsite. Lightning coming down 5 at a time with thunderous booms made me glad that I had little to no metal on my body to attract a bolt and make what little hair I have stand on end.

It was also where I started to see actual tourists again. It’s been so long that I’ve been able to run into other travellers, whether they be on overland 4×4, motorcyclists – but sadly, no one on a bike. And who in their right mind would ride through the heat of summer in Namibia. I met a couple of old women from South Africa who I followed along throughout the course of 4 days meeting up with each other at campsites and lodges – they bought a book which made me happy and I gained some valuable newfound knowledge and desire to go back to South Africa for a very long sojourn through the country, rather than blasting through like I did before. I stealth camped often, while going through the Caprivi Strip, now known as the Zambezi Region, not because I wanted to, but out of pure force – 200km from towns made it challenging – even more so when the signs alerted you to Elephants, and other 4 legged creatures. What they didn’t tell me was that there was snakes in the area, and frightened myself to death during sunset when a rather large king cobra slithered past my tent. The next morning after that I caught a rare sight – a leopard crossing the road as I was halfway through BwataBwata National Park. I was concerned as when in Lusaka a few cats took it upon themselves to piss all over my rear pannier, and knew that this might attract some unwanted attention. Limbs intact, I’m in good shape, but was becoming redder and redder from the hot sun blasting me in the face from 11am onwards. Of course the first response was – where’s your sunscreen? No matter how many applications, the bright sun with a UV Index of 17 paired with the temperatures of high 30’s and low 40’s attacked me daily. These lodges that appear out of the middle of nowhere with their quirky signposts, décor, and meat dinners were a blessing.

Interesting that the strip at the top of Namibia has now been renamed. I made conversation to a police officer who was urging me to take a lift with him for my safety in the park – He paused for a bit when I asked why it was changed before he muttered “Oh you know, Politics”.. I decided not to proceed with the conversation, until he went forth and said that Namibia was undertaking changing as many names as possible from the earlier Colonial German names to more Namibian / Traditional Names. It’s not just here – word has it that Zimbabwe is now changing the name of Victoria Falls to something in the near future. Good on them. Looking at the history of Namibia, and the genocide that occurred in the 1900’s it doesn’t surprise me that they want to rid themselves of some of these names one bit.

The sun has really done it’s toll on me when cycling.

Hugging the border of Botswana and Angola for a near 500km I made it out of the energy sapping westerly riding daily and found myself in the 2nd largest town in Namibia, Rundu. Time for a rest, and to plan for the remainder of the trip. Definitely 1 day wasn’t enough, but it was great to pick up a wide brimmed hat, and some other goodies for the remainder of the 700km. 10km away from the city sadness struck – My front tire, the beloved Schwalbe Marathon XR that I’ve had with me through 15 countries, and 28,000km developed a tear. I almost wanted to repair it and put a boot in it, but decided to leave it as is, letting a crafty American get another couple thousand kilometres out of it. Onto a new Marathon Extreme, dropping by tire width .25 inches – The rolling resistance is very noticeable, and I haven’t picked up any punctures as of yet – only waking up in the morning and finding the front tire flat from my inability to properly patch old tubes. After day 4 of waking up with a flat I put in a new one.

The End of a Legend. 28000km. 15 Countries, Marathon XR Schlwabe – 3 years

The riding I can’t speak too much highly of, quite boring, wide open spaces, or surrounded by brush the majority of the time on moderately flat ground. Easy to get to 100km distances daily, and a lot of time to think in your head. I’d have to say out of the 1600km some odd kilometres I traveled, that only one day stands out – heading off the tar road from Grootfontein on dirt track (which I vowed never to do ever again in Namibia) to go and visit the worlds largest known meteor. The Hoba Meteor is near 60 tonnes, made of mostly iron, and flat on both sides – people seem to think that it skipped on the earths atmosphere like a rock on water before landing in a big thud in the middle of the desert. The return of the headstands – must have been 6 months since I last did one, take a gander.

A Shebeen is a concrete square building – serving only the p urpose to sell beer.

 

After cycling on the dirt road I found myself hugged through mountains on a very desolate tar road. With a great headwind I intended on taking it easy and stopping at 60km but found myself ending at a near 110km mark. Sadly, when the day I wanted a beer the most, I found a lodge closed for the reason and was forced to camp outside by their security fence.

 

At 3pm on cue, the skies usually darkened, rain came down, and the winds came with great gusts destroying any idea of fun as you exerted your final days energy into the wind cutting speeds down to a mere 8km/h. Way better to cycle in the morning and try to knock out 70km before 1pm and then take it easy for the remainder of the day. I was overjoyed when I found a website that showed real-time wind patterns around the world, until I realized that it was a good 400km of headwinds for my remainder of the trip into Windhoek. Needless to say, I did it, head down, strong mind and the knowledge that life would be fantastic when I made it to my final destination.

Which way to Grootfontein?

 

Now back to this red fence. The thing that made this trip so wonderful was meeting the many people each day in the small villages and towns, some of the most friendliest people I’ve met. With English as a main language here, it was quite easy to have deep conversations with shop keepers, farmers, and passer by’s. Life is hard for many of them, I spent the night behind a shop where a nearby cattle farmer told me he spent 12 hours a day tending his 75 cattle, herding them to cool spots during the hot day, milking them at 5am to get a 25 litres of milk per day for sale to other locals. That equated to about $15 a day, not bad for African standards, but an awful lot of work. I met a mother of 5 children under 6 on one of my last days who made $4 a day selling large mushrooms grown on her farm, sold on the side of the road to passerby’s. Come February, the mushrooms stop growing, and her source of income disappears entirely. While not entirely the most scenic riding, the people is what makes this North of Windhoek area so great – and I’ll be happy to cycle through it again for that alone – not that I have a choice. I have to backtrack a few hundred kilometres before I go back onto unridden roads on my way to Angola – providing I can get the visa.

I won’t go too far into my Visa process as it’s only been one day, but I’m expecting the process to take a few weeks. If it doesn’t work out? South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland seem like a good fit for the future. Let’s hope that things go well in my favour. I even bought a pair of pants to enter the embassy.

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[image error]You're reading the RSS feed for Tired of I.T! Did you know that the website contains much more information such as articles, gear list, daily statistics, videos and photos and more! You can also get real time micro-updates by following on Twitter and Facebook! Now Available, Tired of I.T! - How I learnd to stop worrying and love the Bicycle - detailing just how far one has to go to embark on a long term bicycle journey, stories not found on the website, and a few lifes lessons thrown in there. Available in Digital and Paperback copes at http://www.tiredofit.ca/book/ and Amazon.

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Thinking out loud

Thinking out loud
Posted on: Monday, December 30th, 2013 at 4:18pm

What seemingly was a straight forward situation at the end of the year has turned out to be nothing but – Get ready for it. I’ve got to head South again. Sadly, no matter how hard I’ve tried to plan, work my way into various scenarios, I’m at a stand still. I’ve got a few regrets for coming down this far south at this point in time, but you can’t cry over spilled milk. I’ve had a chance to make new friends, see old friends, and collect a bit of coin while waiting. Read on to see what’s going on for me in this continent – I drink for a reason.

First – My laptop, You know how I’ve been complaining about it since probably May of this year? Well, I opted to hold onto it all this time until I made it to Lusaka simply due to problems with the ASUS Warranty system – It’s an international Warranty and they were more than happy to help. And then forgot to help after the first initial emails. After reopening communication the same friendliness occurred, until they realized it would cost them $650 usd to ship the laptop to them to repair. Find someone they said to bring it to Dubai or South Africa. Since it “sort of” worked, I held onto it as I headed South, keeping in contact with them letting them know my intentions, making sure they would still approve the Warranty which expired August 1st. In Early November I arrived in Lusaka, backed up the existing unit, found someone who could loan me for 2 weeks a replacement laptop (17” 6lb beast!) and then Fedex’d it overnight to Johannesberg, where they recommended I send it to. All was well.

Until I received an important email 2 weeks later from Fedex in Lusaka, stating that if I didn’t contact them that day they were going to incinerate my laptop. Wait, what? I guess they missed the part where the contact the shipper if there is any problems with the package to be received at the destination, and instead waited until the last minute. Racing down there I spoke to the attendant I had worked with weeks before, and found out the problem – They didn’t believe my value of item ($100 – it’s broken, why not?) and South Africa’s customs section flagged it and wanted forms from the receiver, and to prove that it wasn’t a gift. You would think that since it’s clearly marked BROKEN FOR REPAIR, and being sent to a repair facility that would be the case, but no. So basically they wanted to find out who it was going to. I directed them to deliver to the gentleman who I had been speaking with for months, only to have a snarky email come back the next day stating that the person didn’t exist at the company and they were going to dispose of my unit. So I sent an email to them again, and found out the details of a person who _did_ work at the office. Good to go.

The next day came around again, and they called me stating that the person wasn’t answering their calls and they would keep trying. So I provided them with an email address, and request to let me know upon any other problems. No problems apparently as I waited for 10 days. Here I am assuming it’s been received, the guts are on some technicians desk and it’s going to be shrink-wrapped to send back to me. Until I looked at the tracking number provided. Unable to deliver. Why? Off I went back to the Fedex office to find out the problem, which now turned into a Duty and Import Fee that the receiver had to pay. Why not let me know? I already paid $100+ to get the laptop there, what’s $50 more and my sanity? I asked the value they needed, and after about 15 minutes of calculation the pleasant woman stated “About $7 dollars”). Ridiculous – so the laptop has been sitting for 14 days without any movement over $7? I reached in my pocket and pulled out a $10 equivalent and thrust it over the counter, stating that they can keep the change for airtime to call me if there are any problems. But they couldn’t accept the money, because they aren’t ACTUALLY affilitated with Fedex. But I could go to the bank and Swift Transfer the $7 to the Fedex Operations in South Africa (and also pay for $68 dollars for SWIFT/Wire Transfer fees). I nearly lost it, but kept my cool, emailed everyone I knew in the Asus Organization alerting staff from Taiwan to Dubai to Texas to Johannesberg. Amazingly enough, I received a response.

“Hi, we will accept it, what’s the tracking number?”

Finally – movement. Fast forward another 6 days, and the Fedex package has been shown as received. Woo! One month later and I’ve got my laptop in repair! So I waited. And waited. And Waited. With no response from them I finally decided that enough was enough. I sent the first email to the contact who received it. Nothing. 2 days later nothing. So I blasted another request across the organization to find out what was happening. Finally – I received yet another contact to deal with.

“Hi, the laptop is repaired, we just need to know the password, and the serial number of the question!”

Not a problem, I provided the Fedex Tracking number, the Serial number and a polite explanation that there is no password as stated on the note that I included as the contents are encrypted, can be wiped with a recovery image, and any of the issues were strictly hardware related. An email came quickly back to me.

“We don’t have that serial number in our system? What is the model of it?”

But wait a minute, I thought it was already repaired? Obviously not. Customer Service training at its finest to relax the querying customer. I provided the details of the unit, along with all of the problems, soon to get yet another email.

“Sorry, we don’t have record of that machine ever coming into our premises. Can you provide the tracking number?”

I reforwarded the original email.  And included details on when it was delivered, along with a small bit outlining my existing frustrations that this was taking so long, and waited for the reply.

“Hi, We see that it’s been received, but we don’t have a Kimberly here. Someone accepted the laptop and has stolen it. Sorry about this, Have a great day.”

Have a great day? What? You have to be joking –  so- someone watched the Fedex guy come daily for weeks, and then leave with the same package, and decided to actually pay for the $7 and receive my laptop as a fake employee of the company and run off with it? This is beyond ridiculous. I send out a huge email demanding answers as to what is to be done with my system.  No response. I send another, no response. I send yet another and start back through the Warranty process again, hoping to get a different rep. No response….

—

So that is where we stand at December 30th, 2013 for the 2 week service laptop. Am very lucky that I was able to borrow a friends for a bit while stopped, but that won’t last for long, as I’ve got to move soon. So there will be more silence as I don’t have the budget to support the repurchase of a laptop at either African OR Western World Prices. Let’s go to a different area of the brain now for another story.

I came to Zambia for a few reasons, but the most important was safety. I’ve been trying to find a way into the D.R. Congo for a while now, passing close-by to many borders in the east since June. If only the situation was calmer, and I’d be able to have gone over somewhere around Goma, which borders Rwanda’s Gisyeni. At both times I was near that area would have been reasonable times to cross now looking back, but I let my mind go and continue on the path to the much safer Southern end of the country, intending to cross into nearby mining town Lubumbashi. I’ve read a many reports from travelers on Horizons Unlimited, Thorn Tree, and and countless overlanders and cyclists blogs on that it would be fairly easy to get the visa to enter in from Lusaka, even though in 2011 there were new restrictions put in place, which were soon modified to make it easier for foreigners to enter from a neighbouring country.

So with high hopes, I proceeded to the embassy eager to find out information and what was required for entry. I arrived at the embassy after getting 10 new passport photos snapped and sat down, nodding hello to the receptionist, and a few of the men behind the window. I advised that I was there to query about the requirements for the visa, and sat back down. 5 minutes later, I looked up to see a man standing over me glaring…. “Hello! How are you?” I said, preparing to get up to go to some sort of office to discuss the requirements. Instead, When I was standing face to face with the man, he advised me curtly that “You are not welcome here, leave immediately”. I opened my mouth to ask what I could have done to cause this ejection from the Embassy, but decided to keep my mouth closed, and turned around and walked to the bicycle with the man, and left. Confused, I thought about it over night and decided that I would try again in a few days.

This time, I wore the suit and tie I had brought from Kenya, thinking that it may up my credibility. It worked! I made it past security again, the security asked similar questions of my bike as last time maybe not realizing that I was the same person or not, and proceeded to the front desk. This time I went up, and asked for an application for the Visa, to which the female secretary said, “No”. “But why not? Is this not where I pick up the forms?” and went and sat down. I waited for 10 minutes before the secretary knocked on the window and explained to me that I was not to have a visa if I was not a Zambian resident, and I had to go back to my own country to pick one up. I explained that yes I was aware of this rule coming into effect in 2011, but being amended at the end of the year for foreigners who were picking up a visa in a neighbouring country to the DRC. She wouldn’t even give me a form, so I asked to speak to her boss. Of course, the boss wasn’t in, and any queries of timing were pointless, so I just said that I would wait until he/she came.

1 hour came by, and the secretary exited her booth to go outside, turning as she walked away to me, stating that she wasn’t sure if the boss was going to come today “Because, you know, of Christmas..” Right! Of Christmas! OF course! Christmas is on the 25th, and this was on the 17th. Close enough I suppose. So I sat and waited for yet another hour.

Eventually the secretary returned and was fielding questions from her peers about the white man sitting in the reception area not saying anything. She eventually called me over, handed over a meeting request slip, ordering that I fill it out. So I did. Name, Address, Reason for visiting. That’s it. I wanted to give an email address, a phone number, anything, so I wrote underneath the line that said “Response”. Upon returning it to the secretary she regarded this as an insult to her work, lashed out that I shouldn’t have filled out her section and turned away. I in my best manners apologized, and requested a new form, stating that I’d ask for help if there was anything I wasn’t clear with. She was flustered, and while she was reaching for the form, I quickly slid in, maybe I can have one of the application forms too, and I’ll just come back tomorrow with it filled in. She took back the new meeting request form, and handed over the Visa application form without worry, and I quickly changed the topic before she realized what she had done. “What’s your name?” I asked, which seemed to open the doorway to happiness as the grave look on her face softened, eyes lit up, and a smile protruded from her mouth as she stated “Sylvie!”. I said thank you Sylvie, you are wonderul, turned around and pedaled back to where I am staying. Filling out the application was easy enough, and the next morning I was back at the embassy.

This time I went right up to the Window, shoved my passport along with a copy of my book, a business card, the application, and double the amount of cash required to enter into the country. She said a few words to a man stnaidng beside her (which I gather was the boss) – Who shrugged and ordered her to take the goods. As she scanned the paper she asked a few questions, as to why things weren’t filled out. I explained I wanted clarification, and we filled the sections through together. Upon the blank area talking about my spouse and children, she asked why I had left it blank. Here we go, my in I figured. “I have no wife and children, what about you?” which obviously seemed to have worked as she giggled and took photocopies of my passport. I continued with the routine “Do you travel here from DRC every day or do you live in Lusaka? How old are you? We should go out for a meal later tonight if you are free”.. The non stop barrage of trying anything to keep the good luck going. She replied yes, she was from the area and she’d be free from 7pm, but first I needed to return at 1pm for my Visa. I nearly fell over from surprise and had to keep my face straight as I held in the laughter turning and walking away, pedaling back to my place eager to tell friends the news at how absurd things were.

Returning at 1pm sharp I walked into the office, said hello to Sylvie, and sat down. 15 minutes later, she appeared with a piece of paper, which upon closer inspection was my application, this time with a large red X written over it, stating that I had been denied, and could no longer apply, and had to fly back home to Canada. It was then she asked me how I was moving, to which I explained the bicycle – which built quite a lot of excitement inside the embassy with other people waiting for help. Less than 10 minutes later I was telling stories, getting these Congolese residents on my side, while I explained that I was having problems getting in. 2.5 hours later went by, and I still hadn’t moved off the chair, when I realized that there were now armed security in the embassy heading towards me.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m applying for a visa to enter your country!”

“You have already been given your answer, you are to leave!”

“But, there must be something that I can do. May I speak with the Chancellor?”

“No”

“Is there anything that can be done? I wish to speak to the ambassador”

“No, he is in Kinshasa, he does not want to see you”

“When will he be back?”

 

”He will not be back until end of January, you can go to the border to see if they will let you in, but not here, go back to Canada”

I pointed towards the two signs of Gorillas walking around the jungle, and a strange four legged animal drinking from a pond, to which the signs said “Visitez R.D. Congo pour tourism!”

“But I want to do that!”

“You can do that in Rwanda. Get out now!’

There was no other option but to leave. On the way out the security grabbed a passport photo stapled to my application and brought it alongside to the front gate, where he handed it to the gate operator, telling him that I was no longer welcome in the embassy ever.

And that was that. The gate slammed, and I was standing outside of the embassy, no visa in hand, when the police pulled up. I’ll have to keep the rest of this story quiet until I at least get out of this country as I think I may have caused enough attention to myself in October, and now in December. It’ll make for a good book chapter. And we’ll just say the past two weeks have been a living hell.

Which brings us to now – the backstory is done on why I can’t go into Congo, something I have had planned for this point since April of this year – throwing any sort of type of plan up in the air. So here is my thinking out loud – What the hell am I supposed to do?

First, let me set the stage here. I need to go North. 2 and a quarter years on this continent has been enough, and I’ve got a good 10 months of solid cycling to do to get off this rock. If I go back up to Uganda or Kenya, that’s it for the trip for good, I just know it. I also refuse to cycle through Tanzania again, for at least 1 year. 6 times in the country was enough, and I know the routes I’d have to take to head north and don’t think I’ve got the sanity to deal with it.

That leaves only two countries. D.R. Congo, and Angola. Two of the most if not the most difficult countries to enter into on a tourist visa. There’s an Angolan embassy here in Lusaka, but it’s the holiday season, and I’m assuming it’s not going to open until the 6th of January. They might even say that it needs to be applied from the home country as well. Which would really throw wrenches into things. Regardless, my visa for Zambia expires on January 16th, 2014, meaning that I need to get out. I had planned to be in the North of Zambia visiting the Copperbelt, but now it seems that I have to think about alternative solutions.

To get to Tanzania if I was to go there would take 13 days of hardcore cycling.

To get to Zimbabwe would take 2 days of cycling – I travelled through this area 2 years back.

To get to Botswana would take 7 days of cycling, I entered into Zambia from here last time.

To get to Namibia would take 8 days of cycling.

Zimbabwe charges $75 to enter, for 30 days at a time to a maximum of 90 days. Botswana gives me 30 days to a maximum of 90 days for no fee. Namibia offers 90 days at no fee. I really want to go to the DRC. Sending my passport to Canada is an option, quite costly actually as the entry fee is near triple ($450) from what it costs here in Zambia, along with finding someone to do the work for me to chase the embassy staff, pick up the forms, accept my passport, take it in, pick it up, ship it back to me. I can’t trust an embassy to get that done in short order. I’d have done it here in Zambia, but the email inbox has been full (and has been for 5 months) at the DRC Embassy in Canada, and it’s also holiday time, which means nothing would happen. To make things worse, you need to restamp your passport every 30 days here, meaning that this couldn’t be done in time and I’d overstay my Visa getting me into trouble. Am in enough already.

As much as I want to go north, I have to go South it seems just to cover my ass. So the dilemma is, do I go to Namibia, head to Windhoek (20 days cycling) to apply for an Angolan Visa, or try the DRC Consulate there? Or do I go back into either Zimbabwe or Botswana and head back to where I started, South Africa over 2 years ago, check out the Durban area, visit Swaziland and Lesotho, and then send my passport away to Canada for the 45 or more days its going to take to get the Congo (or Angolan visa sorted out)? I don’t think I can find enough things to do for 45 days in Namibia, as scenic as it is, it’s hell to travel through and not really much going on. South Africa seems to be the more reasonable approach, but to do the loop and eventually end up in Windhoek means that it’s going to be an additional 3 months of cycling before finally ending up back north in Windhoek either heading into Angola, or back into Zambia for the DRC. Remember, I don’t like riding the same roads twice, although I’m going to have to some way or another.

 The other way out of this mess is to somehow find a resident’s permit for Zambia, which would then allow me back into the DRC Embassy, thus gaining a Visa for entry. I don’t know what the cost is, but I recall it being $700 for a 2 year work permit, but $800 for an additional 3 months over the course of the year, as I did last year in 2012 when I returned to this country. Of course the $700 sounds great on paper, as they ask for a police criminal record from your home country (fine), diplomas from the post secondary institution (ha!), and actually make it quite difficult for one to get it. There is some palm greasing required, and I’m hearing it’s costing up to $3000 USD. There’s something I’ve never let onto while I’ve been here, and I hope that on January 5th of 2014 I can have a chat with someone who may be able to pull some strings for one or the other. If either aren’t possible, I have to move quickly in order to get out of here.

Option #1 – Lusaka to Windhoek – 700km of already ridden roads, and the rest of it likely a yawner.

So what should I do? Should I go to Namibia, as little south as possible and work magic over there with a 50% chance of success, sit around, or should I just go and cycle, in an area which hasn’t entirely pleased with before due to it not being what I wanted out of Africa for a couple months, go bang on the door of ASUS in Johannesburg and knock some heads together for a new laptop and deal with another 50% success rate for the entry visas. Or should I just say to hell with it, quit cycling, go to Uganda and settle? What else? I think out loud as I want to hear other ideas as I’ve exhausted all ideas in my own head.

Ultra long trip option that would at least keep me moving, but in places that lack the sort of African Chaos I crave, and may just see me flagging down a boat to Australia.

[image error]You're reading the RSS feed for Tired of I.T! Did you know that the website contains much more information such as articles, gear list, daily statistics, videos and photos and more! You can also get real time micro-updates by following on Twitter and Facebook! Now Available, Tired of I.T! - How I learnd to stop worrying and love the Bicycle - detailing just how far one has to go to embark on a long term bicycle journey, stories not found on the website, and a few lifes lessons thrown in there. Available in Digital and Paperback copes at http://www.tiredofit.ca/book/ and Amazon.

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Day 21 – Drastic Change of Course

2013 Gear Checkup

2013 Gear Checkup
Posted on: Tuesday, December 10th, 2013 at 6:33am

It seems as if another year is coming to an end, and a perfect opportunity to go through how the gear is standing up. I’ve only covered very short distances in the year and a half, changing my riding style, finding myself spending more and more time in cities making friends, learning the languages and enjoying myself, but rest assured the riding isn’t over. It would be impossible for the body to sustain constant cycling for multiple years without some major breaks and that’s what I’ve been finding myself doing, keeping my body 100%. I’ve suffered from a few bouts of malaria, and other water borne illnesses along the way, but those quickly disappear with the help of tablets and good eating. Let’s focus on the gear. Since the last time I wrote about the gear I’ve seen major failures with equipment along the way, and components are definitely starting to show their wear. What was once new and colourful is now faded and fraying, filled with holes, dents, scratches and dings. Some of the failures have been very surprising, some have not. Let’s go into Detail..

The Bike

Startling of all in the past 18 months has been the failure of my drivetrain, and wheels. The Front wheel, touted as being one of the strongest wheels on the market, suited for off road riding, long distance touring, and aiming at lasting over 50,000km on the road or more developed a bend in the rim close to the tire in Mid 2012. This made braking quite the jarring experience when applying brakes causing a major thumping sound and forcing you to hold onto the handlebars tightly when in a sticky situation. When In Arusha, Tanzania I was lucky to have met a fellow with a suitable workspace and I bent the rim back into place with a vice carefully. It wasn’t exactly straight, but I figured it would be suitable to ride for thousands of more kilometres. It made it no more than 2000km before again I noticed a strange sensation while braking. The rim split eventually, and I continued to ride for 1000km while I tried to sort out a replacement rim to be sent over from the UK to my destination. Eventually the rim split more and a sharp shard protruded from the rim dashing any hopes of making it to Zambia where my rim would be delivered. I replaced it with a used rim and hub that I found in Kigali, Rwanda which exceeded my expectations as I put it through some of the most challenging conditions I’ve ever rode through. The downside to having this failure is that I lost my Pedal Powered Electronics Charging System, which also meant frequent visits to guesthouses for lodging to charge the electronics components I carried with me. Once I made it to Zambia I found a bicycle shop to replace the Schmidt SON 28 Dyno Hub to a new rim with new spokes to the cost of $10 USD. Quite disappointed that the rim only lasted 22,000km.

How this bend in the lip occurred is beyond me.

This is the front rim after the metal shard came off. Those markings are left over from when I was cycling on the final 100km to gauge how fast it was peeling off. The other marks went with the shard, which I kept to be used as jewelry, or something.

Another startling failure was the internal gear Rohloff Hub that sits on the rear wheel. After some heavy days of cycling steep hills I noticed that while on descents or flat ground that it would slip while pedaling. I initially thought it was because I had ground my rear cog into a sharp throwing star, neglecting to change it (and also trying to see how far I could go with the original cog), and went through trauma when trying to remove the old cog to replace ending up damaging the specialized removal tool, shearing off exterior parts of the hub in the process. I ended up changing the rear cog, flipping the front chain ring, changing the oil, and replacing the chain, only to find 10km later the problem persisted. Rohloff stands behind their products and drop shipped a new gear assembly along with a new removal tool which I had to replace on my own once I arrived in Lusaka, Zambia. 25,000km some odd kilometres shouldn’t have caused this problem to the hub as there have been other long distance cyclists who have travelled much more distance on these hubs with no problems, and I’ll be careful to watch how it functions in the future.

New vs Old Rear Cogwheel. Next time I’ll flip it to not destroy it.

The gear assembly for a Rohloff Hub. Mine failed after 25,000km.

My Ergon GP-1 Handlebar grips are starting to show their age, with the rubber starting to flake off in pieces. These grips are wonderful for riding, removing any pains regularly associated with gripping things for long periods of time. In the hot African sun they get soft and sticky, leaving residue on hands. I went ahead and swapped the grips to the other sides in the process of flipping them upside down to use the side that has not been so worn through, and eventually moved to using an old pair of gloves over top of them to reduce the grime that appears on the hands. At 25,000km and 3 years I’m satisfied with the wear, and have a new set coming early January before I start off.

Ergon Grip P1 Series Bicycle Handle Bar Grips (Standard, Large)

Price: $24.36

(143 customer reviews)

 

My front tire, the Schwalbe Marathon XR is picking up more thorns and road junk, but surprisingly is still rolling with a decent amount of tread. This tire believe it or not has 25,000km+ on it, and has been with me since Canada. Too bad they don’t make these anymore. My rear tire found a large gash in it after 8700km which seems to be a normal amount of distance that was replaced with a Schwalbe Marathon Extreme 26×2.00”. I found 3 Schwalbe Extreme 26×2.25” tires for a steal of a price and had them sent over to Zambia which will act as spares for the remainder of Africa. All of my tubes have at minimum 10 patches on them, and I’ve picked up 5 new tubes and 4 new patch kits as well. The Ortlieb Panniers are getting more faded as each day passes, and I’m glad I chose the colour grey, as I’ve seen what happens to the black ones (they turn grey too!). Thin, filled with holes from punctures, tears, and the odd cigarette burn I’m going to assume they’ve lost most of their waterproofness, and certainly couldn’t ride through rivers anymore. That being said, they still hang on the racks fine, the latches close properly (with the exception of the rear trunk bag where one of the fasteners snapped in two). The Handlebar bag lid is getting thinner and thinner, but I’ve decided to hold off on replacing and invest in more Gorilla Tape. I’m at a little over 42,000km of touring with all the Ortlieb Equipment.

Not even a tire boot could save this on a Maraton Extreme Tire

 

Gorilla Tape 1.88-Inch by 35-Yard Tape Roll

Price: $8.45

(116 customer reviews)

I’ve redone my pedal bearings, changed my brake pads (at the 22,000km) mark, replaced a seized brake cable, and shoved a wad of grease overtop of my sealed headset bearing cartridge to remove a constant clicking sound, and the bike is riding as good as day one. It’s covered in scratches and dings, mostly due to it falling over, so I searched for a solution after giving up entirely on the Clickstand Folding Kickstands. Instead, I went ahead and voided my Thorn Nomad MK II’s warranty and installed a new Pletscher ESGE Dual Leg Kickstand. Wrapping the frame in an old rubber tube I made sure to not crush the chain stay as some people have done, and have been more than happy with the unit, even though it requires a bit of tightening here and there with a 15mm wrench as it sometimes gets loose.

Kickstand Demonstration – Note that one of the wheels usually gets elevated, great for maintenance!

Pletscher Two-Leg Kickstand 320mm Black

Price: $43.76

(68 customer reviews)

The other star purchase of the year has been the addition of two massive water bottle cages, the BBB FuelTank XL’s. These adjustable units have the capability of holding onto 1.5 litre water bottles that can be found virtually anywhere, allowing me to get rid of two of my moldy water bottles at the same time increasing the amount that I can carry on the frame an extra 2 litres. I still find myself scrambling for water daily, but its nice to know that I no longer have to use strict metering on my water consumption with this extra volume. Am quite tempted to add a third cage if I have the possibility of finding someone coming over from the UK in the next few months. I’ve also gone and put a B&M Lumotfly LED light back on my bicycle. The front Dyno Hub powered light I used to ride with met a dusty death way back in Nevada in 2011 and the very few times I’ve been caught in the darkness I’ve been scared to bits to not know whats coming. This new light has a way stronger lumen count, a wide light spread, and is now mounted closer to my frame so that I don’t break it again.

BBB bike bottle holder water bottle cage Fueltank XL matt black

Price: $21.17

(0 customer reviews)

Am hoping for no failures for the next 15-20,000km on the bicycle, the only thing I can see failing is perhaps the Brooks Saddle which has turned into a saggy banana shape, which one day I’ll need to replace and go through the excruciating pain of re-breaking it in.

Cooking

Ever since coming to Africa I’ve suffered major problems with my MSR Dragonfly Stove. I’ve repeatedly touted it’s versatility and ruggedness, but with the constant maintenance required to it, and components failing, legs breaking on it I’ve decided to move on and try a new system, to see if I can get better results. This stove has been with me from the very start, and is more than suitable for someone who is able to put better fuels into it, so it’s been shipped back to Canada for sale (If you want it, I have 3 pumps, and a huge amount of spare parts, fuel filters, plungers, o rings and the like provided from MSR along with it). I don’t expect that this new stove, the Primus Omnifuel is going to be the holy grail of stoves, just something different for me to try out. The fuel bottles for the MSR and Primus threads are not compatible, so I’ll only hold onto one of my 2 bottles. MSR really went the distance to make sure I could use my stove – their customer service is top notch and I’d still recommend this stove to anyone, but if travelling through Africa be warned that repeat maintenance will be required.

One of the many problems with the MSR Dragonfly.

 

Primus Omni Fuel Stove

Price: $122.87

(16 customer reviews)

MSR Dragonfly Stove

Price: $109.65

(48 customer reviews)

Living

I’ve ranted about tents before in the past, always trying to find the perfect tent. In 2011 I (sort of) trashed the MSR Hubba Hubba tent, frustrated with some of its shortfalls as I moved across the USA, and went back to the Swedish made Hilleberg tents, this time a self supported model named the Soulo. At twice the cost of the Hubba Hubba I figured it would be much more suited to cycle touring, but once In Africa I realized it was too much of a tent for me. I found myself sweating each night in the tent, and when I did find rain the inner tent would be moist because I hadn’t properly staked down the tent. It’s small, only allowing one person to barely fit inside, and a bit claustrophobic for repeat sleeps. Still, I used the tent for nearly 2 years until I suffered a failure of the zipper on the inner tent. Next, one of the support poles snapped into pieces quickly setting me into action looking for a replacement tent, or trying to fix the existing. Hilleberg jumped to the cry for help and sent a replacement set of poles and inner tent to my address in Canada, but I had already made up my mind and found a fellow coming to Africa on vacation who was nice enough to bring some cargo along. Not wanting to experiment with another tent, I’ve gone back to the MSR Hubba Hubba, which even with its frustrations I feel will be much better suited to the hot nights one sees in Africa again, at half the cost. I feel the Soulo would be better suited to rainy, colder climates. It’s for sale too if any of you readers in USA or Canada want a half new tent. The outer shell is in excellent condition, yet the groundsheet has a few bits of tape to cover from some holes placed by thorns in Southern Africa.

MSR Hubba Hubba Tent

Price: $244.97

(21 customer reviews)

Hilleberg Soulo 1 Person Tent Green 1 Person

Price: $598.00

(1 customer reviews)

My Sleeping pad, the Exped Synmat 7 is on it’s way to being replaced for the 4th time – Throughout the years it’s come up with a wheezing problem, loss of air, and now some of the chambers have started to separate causing a ballooning of the mattress, making things quite uncomfortable to sleep. With a 5 year warranty I’ve certainly gotten my moneys worth, and wonder how long this new unit will last for. I’m unsure of what to use next as there really isn’t much other pads on the market that pack up into half the size as traditional pads. Let’s hope this one lasts for some time. It’s still quite comfortable and my review still holds true as it being a great value.

Exped the Air Mattress had… One Hump.. Being replaced for the 4th time on its 5 year warranty.

Exped SynMat 7 Sleeping Pad (Terracotta, Medium)

Price: $119.98

(28 customer reviews)

I’ve sent my MSR Miniworks EX water filter back after not using it ever in a total of 4 years of bicycle touring. Let’s hope my Dad gets some use out of it in the backcountry, where I feel it would be more suited as water is everywhere when passing through villages and towns, My silk sleeping liner that rode with me for 3 years eventually became thin and tore and I replaced it with a new EBay Special from China, and my $45 sleeping bag that I picked up in 2011 is still performing well, after a few bits of stitching in villages. It’s rarely used anyways and sits at the end of my mattress in the night and mysteriously finds itself on me as a blanket in the morning.

Clothing

Not much to say here, other than I have too much clothing. During my stint living in Nairobi, and Kampala I seemed to amass far too much clothing to carry on a regular basis. 5 pairs of pants, 7 shirts, 4 pairs of cycling shorts/liners needs to be pared down. I’m no longer wearing my pants until they fall off and the only thing I seemingly need to keep buying are socks, as I lose them along the way. I’ve been wearing these socks daily, sometimes for 7 days at a time and they outperform any others I’ve tried.

DeFeet Men’s Woolie Boolie 4-Inch Sock, Charcoal, X-Large

Price: $11.38

(11 customer reviews)

Although not entirely clothing, I had to replace 2 Leatherman Wave Multi tools, and my Spyderco Manix Knife, all stolen. I also had a Spyderco Dragonfly knife stolen which was acting as a money clip while robbed in Kampala, Uganda. I also left my helmet in Kampala Uganda, and since ride without one opting for a bandana instead.

Spyderco Dragonfly2 Lightweight Black FRN PlainEdge Knife

Price: $46.93

(81 customer reviews)

Leatherman 830039 New Wave Multitool with Leather/Nylon Combination Sheath

Price: $54.99

(523 customer reviews)

I’m also on my third LED Lenser P3BM Flashlight. One failed because I couldn’t remove the battery cap in Kenya, and one was lost in Rwanda. I love these little units and can’t imagine not moving without one strapped to my belt.

 

LED Lenser 880018 P3 LED Flashlight, Black

Price: $13.43

(30 customer reviews)

Electronics

My Garmin Edge 705 GPS Unit has been swapped out for a new/refurbished model, after a momentary lapse of memory thinking that it was lost during a 2 month backpacking excursion. I ended up with 2 units, sold the used one to a fellow in Canada at a deal. Sadly I hear it lasted only 120 days on his bicycle tour never to power on again after a large downpour. I always took the GPS off anyway and put it in my handlebar bag during those moments even though it is rated to be water resistant. My IHome Capsule speakers have been replaced with newer/larger models, and still keep the music blaring on a regular basis. My music player which was an Apple IPhone 4 was sold in Zambia, replaced with an HTC One Android Phone. The device was sleek and powerful, but had poor battery life and no external memory expandability. I went back to the IPhone 4, had it stolen, bought another IPhone 4 in Kenya that had overheating issues, and eventually moved to a Samsung Galaxy S3, which is suiting my needs well, along with a mammoth 7000maH battery. I’ve picked up a few more portable flash drives after losing them, another portable Hard Disk for backup as I’m collecting way more media than ever.

Garmin Edge 705 GPS-Enabled Cycling Computer (Includes Heart Rate Monitor and Speed/Cadence Sensor)

Price: $449.00

(33 customer reviews)

IHOME iHM79BC Rechargeable Mini Speakers (Black)

Price: $33.89

(237 customer reviews)

I swapped out my Acer 1830T Laptop for a much more powerful and sleeker unit, an ASUS UX32VD Ultrabook. It worked well for a while, although suffering damage to the LCD Screen from the keyboard touching it, but started showing problems in mid 2013 with overheating, electrical shocks, power issues, and then dying altogether. ASUS South Africa was nice enough to extend the warranty as I found a way to get it to them (I eventually couriered it to them from Zambia, and it was lost by Fedex), and I’m waiting to see what happens to it next. I hope a speedy end to this nightmare comes sooner than later. If I was to do it again, I’d go back to a 11.6” laptop and move to something with much better battery life, newer units tout 9 hours of battery life as compared to my 3 or 4.

ASUS UX32VD-DH71 13.3-Inch Zenbook ( Silver Aluminum )

Price: $1,029.99

(26 customer reviews)

Seizing the opportunity to have parts brought over to Africa, I also have opted to upgrade my camera. My small compact Canon Powershot S95 camera has served me well over 2 years, taking crisp clear photos in low light conditions, but I wanted to have more control over the shots I took with focus and speed of shots. I’ve taken the leap to a small compact interchangeable lens unit known as the Olympus OMD-EM5, which produces stunning shots and can shoot at an amazing 9 frames per second. It’s about as big as a Canon G12 camera depending on the lens and gives me more than what I need with its someone what daunting and overflowing feature set. It’s weather sealed which is important to me and seems to be able to stand up to some abuse.

Olympus OM-D E-M5 16MP Live MOS Interchangeable Lens Camera with 3.0-Inch Tilting OLED Touchscreen [Body Only] Silver

Price: $899.00

(219 customer reviews)

Since it provides the capability to use different lenses, I’ve opted for 3. One being a Panasonic 20mm f1.7, to be used as an everyday usage lens, an Olympus 45mm f1.8 for portraits, and couldn’t pass up a cheap telephoto Olympus 40-150mm lens just in the event that I wanted to get distant shots. The latter two will likely sit in my panniers for most of the time, but it’s nice to have the flexibility if needed. I found that when I was shooting I would not be using zoom functions often, so opted for a small fixed length prime lens as my daily glass.  Blindingly fast auto focus with little to no need of using a flash except for the most challenging of situations I’m excited to see what sort of shots I can muster up. They’ve all got decent UV filters on them, and some cases, and extra battery I’ve picked up from Chinese super warehouse dx.com

Olympus M. Zuiko Digital ED 45mm f1.8 (Silver) Lens for Olympus and Panasonic Micro 4/3 Cameras

Price: $273.98

(122 customer reviews)

Olympus M. 40-150mm F4.0-5.6 R Zoom Lens (Black) for Olympus and Panasonic Micro 4/3 Cameras

Price: $119.00

(59 customer reviews)

Panasonic LUMIX G 20mm f/1.7 Aspherical Pancake Lens for Micro Four Thirds Interchangeable Lens Cameras

Price: $469.00

(241 customer reviews)

I lost a battery for my Pedal Powered Charging system and have since replaced with a newer, inferior unit, but since I have invested in larger capacity batteries for the phone/mp3 player this is seemingly not an issue to keep the GPS, and speakers charged regularly. 2013 seemingly cost a lot of money to replace and bring over new parts, but I’m confident that 2014 will be easier on the pocketbook and find costs only related to core bicycle touring. Will that be the case? Let’s see next year.

[image error]You're reading the RSS feed for Tired of I.T! Did you know that the website contains much more information such as articles, gear list, daily statistics, videos and photos and more! You can also get real time micro-updates by following on Twitter and Facebook! Now Available, Tired of I.T! - How I learnd to stop worrying and love the Bicycle - detailing just how far one has to go to embark on a long term bicycle journey, stories not found on the website, and a few lifes lessons thrown in there. Available in Digital and Paperback copes at http://www.tiredofit.ca/book/ and Amazon.

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It only takes one

It only takes one
Posted on: Tuesday, December 10th, 2013 at 6:29am

It’s been years since I’ve lied awake all night, tossing and turning. After about 5 hours of it, it dawned on me – I should write a blog post that I’ve been meaning to do for the past month! It’s mostly just filler, as I need to put a post inline to make sure my travel/mapper renders properly, there has been another one written for weeks already, but I was waiting for this one first.

I did make it to Zambia eventually, quickly moving from 80km days to 110km+ days due to the sheer boredom of cycling on the Great North road of Zambia, constantly being passed by long haul truckers (no, not the bikes, these ones are maniac petrol delivery vehicles), and “new” used vehicles that were imported from Japan, being speedily delivered to their new owners. Apparently there is a bonus on what time they arrive in, and also they move quickly as they are prime targets for carjacking, with the thieves whisking them back away and selling them in the underworld. The roadside scenery wasn’t so exciting – trees, and grass, the odd truck that loses it’s cargo. Flat.

Looking back, it had to be likely the most boring 5 days of travel in a long time, I was hitting 100km by 10am most of the time, so spent the majority of the day sitting under a tree reading, waiting for the searing heat to lower before finding a place to camp out/stay for the night, eventually meeting up with a friend from the Netherlands and seeing her new lodge that she had been working on opening for a while. I’m helping out setting up an internet café for the community, which has been a fun way to pass the time over the past month.

Coming into Lusaka, I didn’t know what to think, 3rd time back, I have some history here, and I know the city inside and out. The last two visits were off the charts great, this one, I’m not so sure about. It’s not that there has been any bad things that have come up, the city hasn’t changed much, the government has in a very strict way, and my friends and near family are still here, welcoming as always, friendly smiles, and the weather is great. I just don’t think I’m wearing the rose coloured shades with this visit, or perhaps I’ve spent far too much time in Eastern Africa specifically in Nairobi and Kampala to see how African metropolises merge cosmopolitan at the same time. Again, no cut on Zambia, or Lusaka, I’ve had some amazing times here again, but something keeps going through my head “I’ve been here, I’ve done this”..

Oddly, Lusaka is one of the few places that my mind flicks a switch, and I find myself being a dumb dumb smoking cigarettes again. It’s always short lived, I make up for the time that I’ve quit (12 months!) and go crazy for a few weeks, ‘willfully poisoning myself’ as one of my readers put it a few years back, and then just stop like that, not to think about it again. This place is funny. It only takes one puff and I’m back at it. I’ve stopped again but it’s always interesting to see what the trigger is.

So the internet café project is completed, what else have I been doing with my time? Fixing my bicycle for one. I’ve replaced the front wheel, the rear Rohloff gear components, mounted new lights, cleaned everything up, purged half of the contents of one of my panniers, regreased everything, mounted a new light, replaced my tent, mattress among other minor things. This bicycle is strong and sturdy and ready for whatever I throw at it again. It was a learning lesson from September onwards to cycle with a bike where parts were failing regularly – I was still able to move, I just had to be patient, not get completely stressed out on the road, and just move forward. That I did.

Other things I’ve been doing solo, is a few months back I had a complaint from a reader who in politer terms said “your layout sucks!” – So I took thought about that for 2 months, and made a new option for the readers. See that little gear to the right of you? That’s your new settings box. In there you can change the layout of the menus (top or left), the size of the text, or the new lower bandwidth site that works great on your desktop and on the mobile too. Whatever you do, it’ll remember your settings for the next time you visit. Most of the time if you are on what I classify a mobile device it’ll automatically redirect you, and on that (mobile) site you can set do the same, force yourself back to the desktop version. Basically I’ve always built these sites as a way to experiment, keep current with what’s going on in the web development world (read: I’m not a web developer, nor was I by earlier profession, this is just hobbiest junk) and sometimes it doesn’t work for everyone. Bandwidth is always a concern in Africa so maybe the mobile site works for you? You can always access it at http://mobile.tiredofit.ca – Same content, lower bandwidth. Fun nerdy project when I wanted to be away from people, and actually harder than it looked – the site runs on WordPress, and running two seperate themes is close to impossible. I reworked the internal code of the WordPress software and then handbuilt logic to redirect and wrap the two sites together while sharing the databases. I don’t want to do it again, like most things I do for fun. Maybe it’s time for a new hobby. If this is after one comment, I can’t imagine what I’d do with 10 comments, go ahead, I’m bored.

I’ve been not staying at the typical place in Lusaka due to some changes in the living arrangements there, but instead moving about house sitting at various friends places here and there, perhaps this is adding to the unsettled feeling that I’m feeling this time around. It’s been good, but certainly missing the private places I could call home when taking other extended breaks. I tried to find something here in town, but prices are completely out of control. Something that I’d pay $400 usd for in Kampala for a month is $1800 usd here. No thanks. It just reinforces my idea that I have to keep moving. I have yet to arrange for a Congolese Visa yet, but thinking in the next day I’ll head down to the embassy and query what the requirements are – am expecting minimum $275 USD for the visa, strict in and out dates, and that’s even before entering into the country. First two weeks of January seems like a good time to go, and if the Visa is denied? Who knows. I’m definitely not going back to Tanzania, 6 times is enough, which leaves the Southern countries like Lesotho, Swaziland, Madagascar, and Angola open. Really hoping to head North though. Am just waiting for a package of socks and other trinkets to make their way over from Canada, and my (hopefully repaired) laptop to be returned from South Africa after being lost for 3 weeks by the courier system and I’ll be back in the saddle moaning about something or other.

Now time to see if sleep can come.

Elevation Chart

[image error]You're reading the RSS feed for Tired of I.T! Did you know that the website contains much more information such as articles, gear list, daily statistics, videos and photos and more! You can also get real time micro-updates by following on Twitter and Facebook! Now Available, Tired of I.T! - How I learnd to stop worrying and love the Bicycle - detailing just how far one has to go to embark on a long term bicycle journey, stories not found on the website, and a few lifes lessons thrown in there. Available in Digital and Paperback copes at http://www.tiredofit.ca/book/ and Amazon.

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And we’re off!
Equipment + Wishlists + Thoughts

Threepeat

Threepeat
Posted on: Tuesday, December 10th, 2013 at 6:29am

It’s been years since I’ve lied awake all night, tossing and turning. After about 5 hours of it, it dawned on me – I should write a blog post that I’ve been meaning to do for the past month! It’s mostly just filler, as I need to put a post inline to make sure my travel/mapper renders properly, there has been another one written for weeks already, but I was waiting for this one first.

I did make it to Zambia eventually, quickly moving from 80km days to 110km+ days due to the sheer boredom of cycling on the Great North road of Zambia, constantly being passed by long haul truckers (no, not the bikes, these ones are maniac petrol delivery vehicles), and “new” used vehicles that were imported from Japan, being speedily delivered to their new owners. Apparently there is a bonus on what time they arrive in, and also they move quickly as they are prime targets for carjacking, with the thieves whisking them back away and selling them in the underworld. The roadside scenery wasn’t so exciting – trees, and grass, the odd truck that loses it’s cargo. Flat.

Looking back, it had to be likely the most boring 5 days of travel in a long time, I was hitting 100km by 10am most of the time, so spent the majority of the day sitting under a tree reading, waiting for the searing heat to lower before finding a place to camp out/stay for the night, eventually meeting up with a friend from the Netherlands and seeing her new lodge that she had been working on opening for a while. I’m helping out setting up an internet café for the community, which has been a fun way to pass the time over the past month.

Coming into Lusaka, I didn’t know what to think, 3rd time back, I have some history here, and I know the city inside and out. The last two visits were off the charts great, this one, I’m not so sure about. It’s not that there has been any bad things that have come up, the city hasn’t changed much, the government has in a very strict way, and my friends and near family are still here, welcoming as always, friendly smiles, and the weather is great. I just don’t think I’m wearing the rose coloured shades with this visit, or perhaps I’ve spent far too much time in Eastern Africa specifically in Nairobi and Kampala to see how African metropolises merge cosmopolitan at the same time. Again, no cut on Zambia, or Lusaka, I’ve had some amazing times here again, but something keeps going through my head “I’ve been here, I’ve done this”..

Oddly, Lusaka is one of the few places that my mind flicks a switch, and I find myself being a dumb dumb smoking cigarettes again. It’s always short lived, I make up for the time that I’ve quit (12 months!) and go crazy for a few weeks, ‘willfully poisoning myself’ as one of my readers put it a few years back, and then just stop like that, not to think about it again. This place is funny.

So the internet café project is completed, what else have I been doing with my time? Fixing my bicycle for one. I’ve replaced the front wheel, the rear Rohloff gear components, mounted new lights, cleaned everything up, purged half of the contents of one of my panniers, regreased everything, mounted a new light, replaced my tent, mattress among other minor things. This bicycle is strong and sturdy and ready for whatever I throw at it again. It was a learning lesson from September onwards to cycle with a bike where parts were failing regularly – I was still able to move, I just had to be patient, not get completely stressed out on the road, and just move forward. That I did.

Other things I’ve been doing solo, is a few months back I had a complaint from a reader who in politer terms said “your layout sucks!” – So I took thought about that for 2 months, and made a new option for the readers. See that little gear to the right of you? That’s your new settings box. In there you can change the layout of the menus (top or left), the size of the text, or the new lower bandwidth site that works great on your desktop and on the mobile too. Whatever you do, it’ll remember your settings for the next time you visit. Most of the time if you are on what I classify a mobile device it’ll automatically redirect you, and on that (mobile) site you can set do the same, force yourself back to the desktop version. Basically I’ve always built these sites as a way to experiment, keep current with what’s going on in the web development world (read: I’m not a web developer, nor was I by earlier profession, this is just hobbiest junk) and sometimes it doesn’t work for everyone. Bandwidth is always a concern in Africa so maybe the mobile site works for you? You can always access it at http://mobile.tiredofit.ca – Same content, lower bandwidth. Fun nerdy project when I wanted to be away from people, and actually harder than it looked – the site runs on WordPress, and running two seperate themes is close to impossible. I reworked the internal code of the WordPress software and then handbuilt logic to redirect and wrap the two sites together while sharing the databases. I don’t want to do it again, like most things I do for fun. Maybe it’s time for a new hobby.

I’ve been not staying at the typical place in Lusaka due to some changes in the living arrangements there, but instead moving about house sitting at various friends places here and there, perhaps this is adding to the unsettled feeling that I’m feeling this time around. It’s been good, but certainly missing the private places I could call home when taking other extended breaks. I tried to find something here in town, but prices are completely out of control. Something that I’d pay $400 usd for in Kampala for a month is $1800 usd here. No thanks. It just reinforces my idea that I have to keep moving. I have yet to arrange for a Congolese Visa yet, but thinking in the next day I’ll head down to the embassy and query what the requirements are – am expecting minimum $275 USD for the visa, strict in and out dates, and that’s even before entering into the country. First two weeks of January seems like a good time to go, and if the Visa is denied? Who knows. I’m definitely not going back to Tanzania, 6 times is enough, which leaves the Southern countries like Lesotho, Swaziland, Madagascar, and Angola open. Really hoping to head North though. Am just waiting for a package of socks and other trinkets to make their way over from Canada, and my (hopefully repaired) laptop to be returned from South Africa after being lost for 3 weeks by the courier system and I’ll be back in the saddle moaning about something or other.

Now time to see if sleep can come.

Elevation Chart

[image error]You're reading the RSS feed for Tired of I.T! Did you know that the website contains much more information such as articles, gear list, daily statistics, videos and photos and more! You can also get real time micro-updates by following on Twitter and Facebook! Now Available, Tired of I.T! - How I learnd to stop worrying and love the Bicycle - detailing just how far one has to go to embark on a long term bicycle journey, stories not found on the website, and a few lifes lessons thrown in there. Available in Digital and Paperback copes at http://www.tiredofit.ca/book/ and Amazon.

The post Threepeat appeared first on Tired of I.T!.

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Equipment + Wishlists + Thoughts

Never Alone

Never Alone
Posted on: Saturday, October 12th, 2013 at 8:36am

I came back specifically to these mountainous countries because I sought adventure, and a challenge. That is certainly what I’ve had over the past 14 days, as I find myself pedaling along on a race against the clock to get out of Burundi before my three day transit visa expires. I took a different route from last time from Kigali, this time heading north west so very close to the Ugandan Border, and then hugging the Democratic Republic of Congo’s border for a few hundred kilometres. Getting to that part brought a bit of nervousness and jitters when setting off from Kigali, leaving earlier than planned out of fears of what was ahead paired with uncertainty of how my new African wheel and Hub would hold up. Heading Northwest contains some rather jarring climbs, and on the first day I found myself hanging off the back of a cargo truck for 4 km as it dragged the bike and I up 400 metres. It had just rained which forced an inside stay for 1.5 hours and I was faced with decision of spending a night in a tent with a broken door and pole, or take the lift and descend for 20km at the summit into a town where cold beer awaited. I opted for the beer.

Since when does this happen in Africa!!?!? This is the first sign I’ve ever seen requesting people to be quiet.

 

City of Kigali In the Distance

Steep climb, epic look down.

Rwandan National Cycling Team – These guys were flying!

Steep Mountains and a Volcano in the Distance

Tea Fields of Rwanda

Passing by Volcanoes National Park (yup, you guessed it, there’s a huge volcano “Virunga” in the distance) which is very well known with the high spending safari trekkers to go and chase after Gorillas it’s a continuous grind up hills followed by a very long descent past UN Refugee Camps and small makeshift villages towards  the town of Gisyeni, which borders D.R. Congo and the recently volatile city of Goma. I like border towns, and this one was no different. Vibrant, full of life, and certainly different than other cities one would see in Rwanda. There were still military lined up on the sides of the roads at night with AK47s, but everyone seemed to have a jolly kick in their step as they went about their day, night markets popping up on the side streets come darkness, and the bakeries overflowing with people wishing to pick up sweets and a fresh loaf of bread for the next morning. It’s also at the northernmost part of one of the African Great Lakes, Kivu. I’ve been eyeing this area for more than a year, wanting to cycle alongside it, knowing that it would be a challenge due to its notoriously steep climbs, poor road conditions, and I finally had my chance. The night before I was to set off from Gisyeni I noticed on my maps I would have had to backtrack 15km up the steep hill, certainly not the way I wanted to start this adventure.

A quick look on the internet showed otherwise – The Congo Nile Trail (opened 2009, formally in 2011) is a trail for hikers, bikers, motorcyclists, and 4x4s to travel down the entire length of the lake. They promise unrivaled scenery, tranquility and a light challenge. Challenge it was! I split it into two parts, stopping for the weekend in scenic and quiet Kibuye, lazing around enjoying food, beers, and friends who came out to have one last hurrah before my eventual exodus from the country. On Day one, a mere 70km was covered on this extremely rocky track, with some grades approaching 12%. I suppose at different parts of the year It could be easier, but this is rainy season, and things seemed to be chewed up more than usual. The maps I found on the internet and even the sign posts guiding one to the destination (don’t worry, between each sign you have this weird sense of feeling completely lost and venturing into no mans land) contained false information on the distances, and the elevation that one would climb. My GPS logged an elevation of 2138 metres as opposed to the “high” of 1880 on the signs. When the rain came the road became a slip and slide, and while waiting for an intense rain storm to pass I met a man in one of the many isolated fishing villages who jogged 3.5km with me to the nearest guesthouse. I bought him one of the big 720ml Primus beers for his troubles. Even the next morning at 6am he even waited at the junction where we originally met to see me off and say goodbye. People just want to help. With a few more steep climbs on day two you can’t help but keep your mouth wide open looking at the scenery hundreds of metres below. Manicured Farms, Homesteads, Schools all resting precariously on these round mounds, and of course the Lake in the distance certainly matched the ‘unrivaled’ scenery comment. There’s even a surprise when the road turns back to Tar and it’s smooth riding downhill and then uphill, and then downhill, and then of course uphill into Kibuye. Seriously, there’s barely a flat street in this entire country.

Click to download the full sized PDF Brochure detailing theCongo Nile Trail

Click to download the full sized printed PDF Map of the Congo Nile Trail

Lake Kivu is mostly always in the distance as you climb and descend on rocky crag.

 

I’m not sure what I put in my body, drank, or picked up over that weekend, but it really knocked me down mentally and physically. Impossible to keep anything in from both ends I found myself irritated and unable to tolerate communicating with anyone for a few days, the social experience on the trail and in that area of the country was nothing more than intense. Hundreds of kids running after you each day, people crowding around when stopping for no more than 10 seconds, the cat calls, some funny man saying something that you can’t understood followed by laughter by the entire crowd, that sort of thing drove me a bit nuts. I had to retract and put everything and everyone (in person and phone/computer etc!) on ignore mode to focus on making it through my days, struggling up the hills, gripping the brake levers carefully weaving in and out of the rocky path, trying to avoid getting stuck in the ruts on the many bridges, and not fall over. I didn’t succeed in any of those by the way,  I found my front wheel stuck so deep in a rut I thought it was going to bend my forks sideways, the brakes; while they “work” certainly don’t have the same stopping power as when I had my old front rim in place, and I certainly took a few tumbles, lying on the ground with my bicycle on top of me as the dirt stuck to my sweaty body. Of course when you look around you then realize there is a group of people staring at you, with no offer of assistance to help you up. Even when stopped in a city it seemed that time froze when you were walking as the people stopped what they were doing and turned to stare at this foreigner that was walking the roads. I don’t remember other areas of Africa being quite so intense.

Road Conditions vary, to hard packed dirt with minimal rocks..

 

To puddles with rocks that one should take care to avoid.

 

Eventually turning into a slip and slide…

 

Even the busses get stuck on the roads

 

Upon the first day leaving Kibuye as well I felt an odd feeling when pedaling, the chain seemed to slip upon reaching a summit or during descents. I rode with it for the next 120km into Cyangugu,  which marked the end of the Congo Nile Trail and is also situated at the bottom of the Lake wondering what I should do. The bike was rideable, but I found it quite annoying on flat’ish spots with it slipping randomly during revolutions; a real momentum killer. I hadn’t intended on changing my chain, and rings until I had safely reached Lusaka, Zambia where I knew I had a safe place to disassemble the bicycle and had time to repair it if things went wrong. This was still 1300km away. Even though I had all the spare parts, the special tools, I’d been putting it off for months after reading one too many horror stories of other cyclists not being able to remove the rear cog. Knowing that the days after Cyangugu were going to be a race on a time limited transit Visa through Burundi I made the decision to fix it one morning before pedaling off.

A potential reason why the slipping was occurring. Here’s the new cog on the left, compared to the 25,000km used one. They are supposed to be reversible, but all this old one is good for is perhaps a throwing star.

 

It didn’t take long to find a Bicycle “Fundi” (repairman).  Usually you’ll see a shack on the side of the road with bicycle parts hanging outside, but I wasn’t in the mood to hunt around in this city. Instead I approached a group of motorcyclist taxi drivers who instead called someone to come down with his bag of tools, and we all headed headed over to the petrol station across the street. I speak limited Kiswahili, which is close, but not the same as the local language Kinyarwandan, so mixing English, French and Kiswahili together I went through the charades of showing off my new parts, pointing at my front chain ring that I wanted to reverse it, followed  by showing off a new chain. I showed the special Rohloff tool to remove the rear cog and my chain whip that was gifted to me way back in 2010, which I previously never had a use for. By this point In time a large crowd (50+ ?) had appeared and were quite interested in watching the mechanical work take place. As per the instructions I shifted the Rohloff hub into Gear 14, removed the rear wheel, placed the tool into the grooves on the hub to hold it in and used my tire levers to secure it into place before putting the wrench on the removal tool and preparing to push it clockwise. The Chain whip goes counterclockwise, and based on the instructions and videos I read, it requires a similar force be placed on both the tools at once in a pulsing motion. The video made it look far too easy, as after a few tries this way there was no movement. So we applied pressure, brought a few burly men in to add more force until large snapping sound was heard, and a few men fell over in the process. With a cheer we looked at the handiwork and eager to head to the next step.

Nightmare begins now.

The special tool that goes in the slots broke into two pieces, while the rear cog lost some of its teeth. I think the nearby town of Bukavu in DRC heard the four letter words I started yelling when it set in that I was completely screwed, the worst possible scenario unfolding. With a broken tool, I couldn’t get the cog off and since I had damaged the teeth I couldn’t just put a chain on and ride away. Too many people crowding around me making it difficult to breathe and think I stood up and retreated to behind the petrol station for a few minutes – head between my hands trying to think of a solution. The crowd became larger due to my roars and it seemed everyone had an idea on how to get this cog off. The bicycle repairman was trying to tell me that we should be trying in reverse, and I had to stop them from another attempt trying to pry the cog off with pliers and a hammer. A steel hammer on a $1700 hub is not what I wanted to see at 8am or ever.

Closeup of Rohloff Cog remover tool split into pieces

Chunks taken out of Rohloff Speedhub 500/14

 

Even though the tool was damaged we gently placed it back in the grooves, found a larger pole to use as leverage for the chain whip, and I weaved a brake cable through the cog holes with the end wrapped a wrench to also provide support and pressure to make the cog loosen. This time, it moved. I was able to get the cog off, replacing it with a new one (this time 16 teeth instead of 17), before removing the tool and assessing the damage. Definitely I’ll need to get some service by Rohloff, and will need a aquire a new cog removal tool. I managed to ride nearly 25,000km on the cog but don’t expect to ride that same amount on this replacement. They cogs are designed to be reversible when light wear occurs on one side, yet the way that I rode it the teeth were so sharp they drew blood to the touch. A new weapon? Maybe. We flipped the front chain ring, replaced with a new chain followed by chatter and cheers from the onlookers and I was ready to move forward.  I gave $20 each to two of the men that were a real help and waved as they pointed me in the direction of Burundi. Sometimes I really get myself into some sticky situations that seem like the end has come, but patience prevails and one makes it out of it.

If it wasn’t for these two men I’d be still in Rwanda.

 

Sadly, it wasn’t a kilometre down the road where I found the slipping issue to not have been resolved. The problem it seems lies in the hub itself. With not much else I could do I rode a small 50km to the border of DRC, Burundi, and Rwanda, stopping in the early afternoon opting to give the bicycle a thorough cleaning, while use my last resort of troubleshooting by changing the hub’s gear oil. Still, the problem persists as I woke up before dawn and headed towards the Burundian border. Crossing the border was a simple affair – this time all that was required was to appear at the newly built combination Rwandese/Burundian post, hand over $40 USD and explain I simply wished for the 3 day transit pass. I’m certain if I appeared at the border that I entered back in June I would have been turned away, as it was nothing more than a 1 person shack. By 7am I was back in Burundi, climbing light hills while a group of motorcycle taxi drivers followed along for 10km. One even hung around for 25km, resting his foot on my panniers and pushing me up the hill with the assistance of his motor. It was appreciated, but I found the experience a bit too close for comfort as there was no room to turn of dodge any problems in the road.

Last resort Rohloff Gear Oil replacement, bicycle wash, and beer tasting session.

 

Burundi is no different than western Rwanda with the massive amount of people that swarm you when stopped. I stopped at 9am to make some pasta in what seemed like a desolate space behind a church, but it didn’t take long for 3 children to appear, followed by 10 more, followed by adults, to what seemed like hundreds of people watching and making commentary. I shoo’d some of the people away, pointed my camera and took photos (most of the time this is a sure fire way to make them move), and did my best to stay focused on cooking my food as fast as possible, until finally military and police arrived. After a quick exchange in French they understood what was occurring and forced a large perimeter away from where my bicycle and I were, allowing me to eat in peace without hundreds of eyes watching. It’s such an intense experience when all one is looking for is some quiet downtime to focus on what lies ahead, but instead of relaxation all senses go into overdrive – making sure that nothing gets cherry-picked from the bicycle (I lost my Cache battery for my charging system in the past few days), trying not to look at people in the eye which prompts hand movements over their tummy, an open hand, and pointing into their mouths. along with the shrieks and howls of “Mzungu! Mzungu! Giva me the money!” and so on and so on.  But that’s life right? I’m a foreigner (Faranje!), Tourista, and also White Meat in Burundi, and obviously people are curious. Solitude comes, just not at the time that you need it, and patience is more important in these situations.

Give me my money! A common phrase followed by this hand movement. Sometimes the women and children don’t even say anything, just hold out their hands.

Just making a quick stop to the bathroom brings a surprise to find a few dozen people have surrounded your bicycle.

 

Kids being Kids. On Stilts.

 

Seriously, if it wasn’t for the kids I would have ended this trip years ago.

 

All in all I’m glad to have visited the other parts of Rwanda, it was a remarkably different experience this time around, travelling solo I found myself spending more time with locals,  and it changed my viewpoint as it being an economically vibrant and stable country. Even though on the rockiest and poorest of roads you can spy little yellow boxes marking Fibre Optic cable below the way of life in the villages is basic, with limited access to resources. When its time to access them, it’s usually at a very high price compared to other African countries as well. With that being said, Rwanda is still a great country, and I’d recommend it to any cyclist who wants both a physical and mental challenge, while feeling safe every part of the way. The rest of the world needs to watch this country grow with its progressive leadership, order and forward thinking ways of education, trash management, and community building. They seem to be putting an immense amount of effort to distance themselves from their past problems, and so far it seems a success. This time my view of Burundi has changed too, perhaps I was ready for the massive amount of people and hills, and likely traveling solo also adds to the experience as well. This time around I’m noticing the same issues that frustrated me in the past, but instead politely them and focusing on the good– $2 cheese plates, one of the better beers I’ve tasted in my life (Amstel Bock) and great scenery. I fear the end however – I know what is coming, arguably the worst hill in Africa. I’ve ridden it in the past, and it’s safe to say that I’m stalling starting the climb by writing this entry, making up some sort of excuse that I’m waiting for clouds to make it easier. Time is running out though and I really need to get moving, up the hill, and out of this country to avoid any penalties of statements in my passport that can affect entry into others.

Someone emailed me recently and said I wasn’t taking nearly enough photos of myself. Here you go.

Lake Tanganyika in Burundi

 

 

Rohloff caught wind of the problems I was having and provided some information on how to resolve the slipping problem, one being tighten the wheel properly (it’s tight), and f use a rubber mallet to hit each side of the axle. Since I’ve got the hills to deal with today the slipping issue will be minimized, and I’ll wait until I get back into Tanzania  where I have a few days to rest and deal with any new problems if hitting it with a hammer doesn’t work.  After that, it’s on a boat back to Zambia for my 3rd time, riding the final 1100km to Lusaka where friends, family and the majority of my replacement parts are waiting (new wheel, new tires, new tent, etc. etc.). I should arrive sometime around the 2nd week of November, if things roll smoothly. From here on in the website is going to be silent until then as I’ll be losing my laptop for service once I cross the border (for real this time), so again Twitter and Facebook is where it’s at if you want the micro updates.

Elevation Chart

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