This post starts with part I
Like all seasoned cyclists, nervous about setting up my tent somewhere is not an issue anymore. We have done this so often that I look at every spot in nature as a potential place to camp, even when I do not need to camp.
Days roll into weeks and being absorbed into our own little bulb where silence, peace and no-nonsense makes for a supporting base to create, grow and admire, I find it difficult to leave. Yet I know that out in nature all that I don’t have in my own quiet green cocoon is present. I call it the magic of plant life; a strange realization for the traveler I was.
Part 1. Kickbiking. Why and how?
Part 2. Kickbiking. Can I do this too?
Part 3. How is the set-up? From an illogical set-up to one that works.
A write-up from 2020 unearthed:
After 50.000 kilometer cycling in roughly 5 years, through West Africa, Europe, Middle East, Indian continent and South America I thought it’ll be peanuts to kickbike a relative little loop somewhere through USA. Wrong. Yes, I needed a challenge. But I sort of forgot, or took out of the equation, that every new endeavor needs practice.
Days of kicking: 9. Total distance: 275 kilometer. Average on a day: 30 kilometer while average speed is about 11 km/per hour. Nights of camping: 10. Average a day spend: € 5,60 (exclusive the new tick tweezer and the food I brought along ).
Clothes laundered in a creek, wet stinky shoes and a damp sleeping bag drying in a fishy corner surrounded by overflowing containers with unwanted-clothing, far removed from the main entrance of Tesco supermarket. I feel too old for it. Like I felt too old, or outgrown, for hostels and bunk beds. The last bunked I shared was in Malaysia; a room without a window, dark as a cell, except when the only female roommate stumbled in at night and left the light on. I must have been 35 years of age. Always been a loner, I disliked these dorms.
From Ecuador to the USA. From a motorbike to something very different. Geo and I each make a concession: Geo goes kickbiking with me and I am okay with starting our tour in Georgia. Back in Ecuador I spend lots of time connecting off-road routes to tracks with small town roads towards hidden gems in Carolina and on to the Appalachians.
The Kickbike was bought online while we were in Ecuador. We arranged it to be shipped to an address in Atlanta, USA. That was March 2020 and I am liking this way of transport, especially for shorter tours. Yet Geo and I tried to kick through several states in east of USA.
Cycling Cindy