Ryan Wilson and I nearly Died in Colombia. World bike travellers talk

Ryan Wilson and I nearly Died in Colombia. World bike travellers talk

Do I have tart in my teeth? tart? Yeah, there’s a white, I don’t know, It’s a tissue. This is a new episode of a podcast that I haven’t released, so we don’t know. I don’t even know the name, maybe Alaska2Patagonia show, but you never know. And I’m always hosted by so many people, WarmShowers, Couch Surfing, people I’m in contact with. And here in Istanbul, it was my privilege to be able to host someone as well, because my friend gave me this apartment for a little while. And here we are, our guest, Ryan Wilson, no? Yep. Famous on everywhere. He’s an author, he’s not just a bike traveler, he’s also an author on the Radavist So many people probably read his articles, his photos, his photos on Instagram as well. And maybe now also, by the time I publish this, maybe also a YouTube channel. Maybe, we’ll see. I’m trying to get him to launch his YouTube channel, and I think today he’s going to record maybe the first episode, going through his rig and show us a little bit his equipment. And hopefully, by the time this is published, you can also go and check out his channel. Maybe I’ll put… But if you look up his name, he’ll pop up at some point. And let’s start. More or less, we started to travel at the same time. I started in 2015. When did you start? 2016. And you were in South America when I was there. Yeah, yeah. And we never met, but I think we were in Bolivia at the very same time. But let’s start, because a lot of people that they watch these videos, they are gear geeks. They want to know the bike you use, how many kilometers you did, or miles. Let’s start. What bike do you use? I have a Tumbleweed Prospector with a Rohloff So, internal… Internal gear hub. Are you happy about the Rohloff? Yeah, I’ve been really happy with it. It’s nice to not really have to mess with tweaking a derailleur. How many kilometers did you do with the Rohloff? I don’t know. I’ve been using it since 2019. After South America, I went to Central Asia. And when I came back home, I switched to the Tumbleweed. And then, yeah, so I had the Rohloff since then. I couldn’t really say specific kilometers. But since 2019, there was, because of COVID, long story, like a year and a half or so that I didn’t have that bike. So I was using another bike. But yeah, I’ve maybe been three, four years, pretty solid. So let’s say over 20,000 kilometers. For sure over 20,000, yeah. All right. And you use the belt or the chain? I use a chain, yeah. The Tumbleweed doesn’t have, like, you can’t take the frame apart. So I use a chain. I think some people, they modify the frame and they cut it. Yeah, you might be able to. It always feels wrong to have a cut in your frame. Yeah, I don’t really mind the chain. I know there’s ease of cleaning stuff that would be nice for sure. But usually because you’re not shifting, the cleanliness of the chain is not such a big deal. Yeah, because it’s always straight. Yeah. But sometimes maybe when there is mud, I saw some. Yeah, I had some mud. Yeah, I also had a similar experience on the Moonsack Bikeacking Loop. And also when I was in Andalusia, when I was getting into Gorafe. There was mud sticking to everywhere. It’s hell. Yeah, so it’s kind of the trade-off of you want this thing that’s easier to clean the mud a bit. Or, you know, the chain I can buy wherever I’m at. Yeah, because you can buy a seven-gear chain everywhere. Yeah, so it’s kind of, yeah. Yeah. It might be weird because you’ve been here like eight or nine days. And I feel we talk like four or five hours every day about gear, about stories of our traveling, about sponsorship, about different things, social media. And now we will have to… say it again But let’s maybe some other gear. What saddle do you use? Brooks Cambium. I hate them. I hate them with all my heart and my ass. I love them. My ass hate them. Yeah, yeah, that’s fair. And you use 3-inch tires? 2.6 Ah, 2.6 Yeah. But can you fit larger tires? Yeah, on the Tumbleweed you can fit. The newest frame, which mine is like the… I think there’s three iterations. Mine’s the second one. And the newest one I think can fit like a 27.5 by like 3.5 or 3.6 I don’t even know if that makes them. Or maybe even 4-inch. There’s like one company. And I looked at it because like, ah, maybe one day. Because it’s nice to just swap the tires to a… And I could maybe… You’re almost into fat bike territory with like a 3.5 So I thought, ah, that could be interesting. Because I used the Schwalbe Nobby Nic. And I think they were making 3.0 Yeah. And then now I think they stopped and they just make 2.8 Yeah. And I feel like a lot of companies, I think even Vittoria, stopped making 2.8 for 27.5 I don’t know what’s the reason. Yeah, it seems like they’ve kind of gone away from… I used to use Maxxis Chronicles, which are 27.5 by 3.0 And they stopped making those. And what tires do you use? I use, right now I’m using Victoria Mescals. Yeah, I like them. I really like the speed on the road combined with, you know, they have a suppleness to them without… I haven’t, you know, easily destroyed them. So I’m happy with that. And you use tubeless, right? Yeah, tubeless, yeah. I think we geek out. And you have a Jones bar like mine. Yeah. And I think we geek out a lot already on the bike. Camping gear, what tent do you use? I’m using… Right now I’m using a Hyperlite Ultimate 2 with half insert. It’s like a Dyneema. Yeah. Very fancy tent. I fucking hate it. I don’t hate it. I never tried it. But for me, a tent for bike travel, it has to be freestanding. If it’s not freestanding, I would never consider it. Yeah, I think, well, because I think you do more camping in like a structured, like things like that. Yeah. So for me, it’s not the end of the world. I’d say I do maybe 5% of my camping is in a structured thing or less probably actually. And so it does quite well in the weather. So I’m more like I’ll just put it out in the wind or whatever. It’s not a big deal. But I’m actually switching now to a freestanding tent. Yeah. As soon as I get home here in two days, I’ll get a Durst. A Durst is the way to go. Durst and X-Dome is what I’ll be using. It’s like a new… They just came out with it this last We’ll have a look at your reviews. Yeah, I’ll do a review both eventually. Sleeping pad? Right now I’m using Sea to Summit. It’s like it was like an old… Is it inflatable? Oh, sleeping pad. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. No, I’m using right now a Big Agnes Repeat SL. Inflatable? Yeah. R-Rating? You don’t know? It’s like I think it’s around 4… I’m making this up kind of. It’s 4-something, I think. It feels to me, it feels… Is it mummy-shaped? No, it’s rectangle. It’s a big one. It’s because it’s long. It’s the long wide. The comfy one. So I’m like, just go comfy. After like nine years, I’ve slowly… Because I used to have like a two-inch thick that was like too short for me. Two inches is five centimeters. Yeah, it’s okay. Yeah, I know. But this one’s like four-inch. It’s like double. This year I used to… I used Thermarest NeoAir X-Therm. I think it’s six-point something. Yeah, those are really good. And I had the regular one, mummy-shaped. Yeah. But this year I switched to the regular wide. Oh man, it’s so much… So much. Like the weight, yeah, it’s a little bit bulkier. And I don’t know, maybe 50 grams more. But like, man, the comfort is… The other one, basically my arms were falling off. This one, I stay comfortable. I can twist. Yeah, this is the one thing in my bag that I think has gone like… It’s getting bigger and bigger. Do you use a pillow? I do. I have a… It’s like a Sea to Summit. Yeah, the Ultralight. Premium Aeros. I’m not using the Ultralight. I’ve switched to the Premium. Yeah. Which is really not much bigger, but to me it’s much more comfortable. Yeah, I have it. Yeah. I have two. So I have the Ultralight that I use between my legs. Because otherwise I have some problems with my knees. And if I don’t use a pillow, then it gets inflamed. Ah, okay. But I use the… I think it’s Aeros Premium. Yeah. On my head. That’s probably what I have. But yeah, it tends to… Like, I already replaced. This is the second one. Ah. And they’re getting expensive. Are they? I was able to manage to get a replacement under warranty, but they were like, yeah, we shouldn’t replace it, but we’ll send you one. Okay. Yeah. Because I didn’t have a receipt or anything. I bought it somewhere in Sweden, but I don’t remember where. Yeah, okay. And, yeah, and sleeping bag or quilt? I’m using a sleeping bag now, but I’m switching to a quilt when I get home. And do you use a liner? Yeah, I use a liner always. What liner do you use? It’s one I bought in Chile. It’s like, I think it’s Sea to Summit. It’s too small. Because it doesn’t really go. It’s not long enough for me, really. You should, yeah, you should get a tailor and extend it. Yeah, but it’s good. I mean, I’ve used it since that first trip. But is it the silk one or one of these? No, it’s like reactor, but like not one of the high ones. Yeah, I use the Thermal Reactor Extreme. It’s probably the same one. And, but I changed it recently. It was the last piece of gear that I had since 2015. But when I did the Wolf’s Lair Bikepacking route in Italy, there was a friend of mine that was coming. And it was a bit chilly at night. It wasn’t super cold, but getting close to zero. And I gave him that liner. I was like, soon I’ll have to replace it anyway. So just you keep it. And I bought the new one, but the new one, I hate the design. So they made like a hole with a string at the bottom. You can open. Ah, the feet? Yeah, and then it’s very, it’s much more narrow. Because then they made a thing that you can put your arm outside. But there are two clips and obviously after a few years, they just, yeah, I don’t know. There’s always some work designer that has to improve these things. It’s a fucking liner. It’s very simple. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don’t know. Yeah, mine’s fine. I haven’t replaced it because it’s like, it’s pretty, it’s good. But yeah, it’s just I need the longer one. But other than that, it’s fine. I think you can get it modified. Yeah. So what else about camping? Yeah, I think it’s fine. What stove do you use? Esbit, alcohol burner. Yeah, yeah. I have no patience. I’ve gone through kind of the, I mean, in the U. S. I used like a cartridge. Usually just a burner. Yeah, the canister. Yeah, the canister. And then when I first started in South America, I was using Edelrid Hexon, which is like, it’s like a climbing company. But they made this multi-fuel stove which could take canisters on the same thing with other. And it packed like really small, which I liked. I liked the feet, everything folded up. It’s like the MSR Whisperlight International that has the lid for the canisters. Yeah, but it’s more compact. It was way more compact. But eventually they stopped making them. And mine kind of over time needed to be replaced. So I have also an MSR because like if I’ve gone, like when I was in Mongolia, I needed something that wasn’t an alcohol stove because they just don’t have. Was it one of the canister ones or a multi-fuel? It was a multi-fuel. It was like the MSR International, I think is what I ended up getting. Yeah, I used the Dragonfly because I like the signaling thing. It’s a bit more sturdy, I don’t know. Yeah. They’re all good. All the MSR ones are pretty good. Yeah, they’re all good. Yeah. So you started in 2016. Yeah. And you take flights. So for me, I try to do like continue. Yeah. You can change continents, it doesn’t matter. Yeah. You’re not trying to. Yeah, I’m not necessarily. Do you have a goal with this? Not really. For me, it was like, okay, at the beginning I was like I traveled the Americas. Yeah. I crossed the Americas from Prudhoe Bay to Ushuaia on the northmost point to the southmost point. And then I was like, okay, I want to cross all the continents. And I was like, I cross all the continents in a meaningful way. Because I remember following some people that they cycle around the world and they’re like, oh, I did Africa. We fly to Dakar and go to Morocco. It’s like, okay, you crossed Africa. For me, it was like that. But I do envy the people that they’re like, oh, fuck it. I’m going to, you know, the weather is getting bad here. I can go to, I can change continent from Bolivia, go to India. Yeah. And have fun and go around. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I try to fly as least as possible just because it’s, I mean, yeah, it’s a pain to pack everything. You don’t want to like, yeah, carbon footprint, all this stuff too. But the, but yeah. So basically how it started was I did in 2015, I did a trip to Peru for three weeks. Just like while I was riding my bicycle. Yeah. By bicycle using, during my old job, using all my vacation time. What did you do in your past life? I was an audio engineer. So yeah, for movies, TV and that kind of thing. So yeah, I did a trip to Peru and I got really sick, really sick on this trip. And it kind of ruined like a solid half of it. Like food poisoning? Yeah. Like really, really bad. They had to send a doctor to the hotel. Like it was really bad. I could not move. I was in the town. I was at, I was going up, I was camping at like halfway up to Punta Olimpica. The switchbacks, like, you know, the big valley before the switchbacks. I think I went up a couple switchbacks and then I was camping and I just got like so, it was one of those where you wake up in the, like throughout the night you’re sick. And then in the morning you’re like, you have no energy, just energy to where it took me, I think like four hours to pack my tent just to get it into my stuff. And then I went straight down to Caruaz, I think is the name of the town. I never, I didn’t do that bit. Ah, okay. So yeah, I came down to Caruaz, stayed in this, I just like first hotel I could find. I’m like, I must’ve looked insane. Just had a double Soles. This was an expensive, I was, it was literally like, I was like, this place is so nice. But I ended up staying there, yeah, for like 10 days. They brought a doctor to the room. I couldn’t eat anything. But then towards the end I started to get a little better and I was able to do the Huascarán circuit, which was kind of like the main goal. I had some other places I wanted to ride, but I was able to do that. And then I just remember being on my flight. I was in the Lima airport, like heading back to LA. And I remember like looking at the map and I’m like, oh, I need to come back and do like all this other stuff. And so it kind of just snowballed from there. And that was, that was like, it was also the rainy season when I went that time. So it was just like snow and rain. It was like November. But it was like in that area of the Andes, especially with Huascarán. Yeah, because they also have like a little rainy season that is like November, December. Let’s try a little bit and then the longer rainy season. Yeah. So, so I, yeah, basically was looking at the map and I was like, I need to go back. So, so really my trip started with, okay, I just want to go from like that area to, to the south. Yeah. And I was originally not, I didn’t have like grand scheme of I’m going to go around the world and go somewhere else. It was just like, I thought it was going to take one year, ride this, go home and go back to my normal life. And you were immediately writing, writing for the Radavist? I was, yeah, I was writing for the Radavist before any of that, actually. It was part of, part of that talking with the owner about how, yeah, how I could make it happen. This like longer trip, because I hadn’t like saved up money or, you know, it was kind of like, okay, how, how much money would you need to, to, if I’m writing articles as I go, could that help me fund it? Yeah. So yeah, that’s, that’s basically, but yeah, I was already writing for the Radavist for three years, more just like for fun. Just I would do like mostly like road riding trips and stuff. I’d go to Death Valley or these kinds of things and take some photos and publish it on the, on the site. But then it got more like a job almost. Yeah. Yeah, one site. So that’s how you, the way you, you found your, your journey. Because everybody wants to know how, you know. Yeah. I went out the other night and there was this one guy and he asked me, but how can you afford this? I was like, I’m like, you’d be so, my family is filthy rich, if I have to be honest. And I was like, and then at some point there was a, his neighbor. Yeah. He’s like, he’s fucking with you, he’s not rich. But everybody always has his own life. Yeah. Yeah, no, that’s, that’s like for, for most of the trip, it’s been, that’s been the like, I don’t know, 80%. And then it’s a little side, like sometimes a company wants to use my photo in an advertisement or on their website and I’ll get some money from that. I’ve also sold prints. Yeah. Which, which yeah, here and there adds up a bit. Yeah. You have, you have a, you have a website where people can purchase these things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s good. And so you were in Peru, you managed to went back. Where did you go? When I, when I got back to Peru. Yeah. And that was 2016. Well, 2015 is when I went to Peru the first time. It was like, yeah, November, 2015. And then by April I had quit my job by April 2016. resigned Yeah. So, so I had, after that I actually went to Norway with a work trip and I was kind of just like, oh, I’m getting used to this. Cause I hadn’t traveled anywhere before. And it was a work trip, but you brought a bike. But I brought my bike. Yeah. I brought like a fat bike cause it was January at that point. And yeah, so it was pretty much like I was in Peru in, in November, January and part of February I was in Norway. And then by April I had quit my job. I was like, okay, I’m done with this. So I, and yeah, I was heading, heading to South America. But then by, by the time I got maybe halfway, I was like, I was in Chile already like, okay, I’m going to Kyrgyzstan next. Like these, and for me, yeah, I’m not, I’m not really. And why, why did you decide Kyrgyzstan? You saw some pictures on Instagram. It’s just like the place that looks so interesting. And so, yeah. There’s a, there’s a guy that hosted me in Helsinki He’s obsessed about, about Kyrgyzstan. So he’s been there like three, four times bikeparking and he has all these Russian military maps. And then I think he mapped out so much, so many routes and stuff. It was crazy about that. And he would, and then he was showing me some YouTube channels of like Russians doing bike, bik packing or bike, even just with a normal bike, touring bike. And they cross these passes where basically there is no trail and they have to bring up their, their panniers, come back down, bring the bike up. And you see them like. We did a bit of that in Kyrgyzstan. Yeah, we did a bit of that. Yeah. Yeah. It’s such an, yeah, it’s really amazing area. You were alone or you were with someone? No, I was, I was with someone. Yeah. We had met in South America and I was like, oh, are we both had kind of talked wanting to go to Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan. And so I was like, oh yeah, we’ll just go meet up there. And then we spent the whole, the whole basically summer season riding Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, a little bit Uzbekistan. It’s not as mountainous, not as like. But we rode into, into Uzbekistan and then, yeah, we went to Kazakhstan and back to Kyrgyzstan. So. And then this was, this was, when was it? This was 2019. And then we, we, we flew to Nepal because it was at that point it was winter. There’s not really anywhere to go. Winter is pretty, pretty rough in Kazakhstan. And so we, yeah, we flew into Nepal, Kathmandu, and then we snuck in the like Annapurna circuit before like COVID and stuff kind of. But there was snow. Yeah, Annapurna circuit, there was snow, but there is actually like, it’s that is the dry period of the year. Also, it’s cold. It was very cold. But there, there is kind of generally dry period. But then if you get that one snow, like you get. So we got it maybe two day, two, three days before we were getting to, to the pass, the big, the high Tormla Pass, which is like 5,400 something meters. And we have a couple of days, we were like 3,000 meters below the pass and we got snow. And we’re like, oh no. But we ended up waiting it out. And once some like yaks like packed down the trail, we were able to, with crampons on our, on our shoes, just like hike over the pass. And with the bikes. Yeah, we’re just like, yeah. The good thing there is you can, you can pair down your setup a lot. So we didn’t bring any cooking gear, any tents. We brought sleeping bags and stuff because you just want those tent room. Those, the, like they have tea houses basically everywhere. Even at 5,200 meters, there’s like tea house. You can go for cheap, get a room, get food. And yeah, so we basically did that, left our, left our stuff there. We rode from Kathmandu also to the start. So you left the majority of the gear in Kathmandu. Yeah, well in Pokhara, which is like the town that’s right, right nearest to Annapurna. But we did, we did actually ride from Kathmandu to Pokhara. And that was actually really nice. I thought, because that area is really nice because it’s not so touristic and local people. You have more of a local vibe in the Annapurna. It’s kind of everyone’s just, everyone’s used to tourists. You’re just like, it’s more transactional thing. But we had a lot of nice interactions in, in, in like this, they call it the mid hills. I think. Yeah, I’ve never been to Asia. Yeah, it’s nice. Yeah, it’s nice. And after that? After that, well, COVID happened. So I had, I had planned to come back and ride what I’m going to do this year, hopefully, finally. Yeah, so I had booked a flight to visit home for one month or maybe five weeks or something. And yeah, during that, everything got locked down. I had left all of my gear in Nepal and those borders were closed. Yeah, almost two years, I think, before I was able to go back. But yeah, it kind of, I, I ended up going to Turkey at some point after, after the first period of COVID. And stuff started to open a bit more. Went to Turkey was like the only place that would, that would allow me. Yeah, the only place it was open. I stayed here for a while, riding all in the south. But you were kind of limited because I couldn’t cross any borders. Yeah, dealing with like visas and stuff. I think your, your border situation in, in, in Turkey is limited anyway. Because you cannot go to Iran because you have an American passport. And I think also Syria was a no-go at the time. Yeah, Syria, no. Yeah, I, yeah, they were, they were all closed. Like Georgia and Greece are the obvious options. I could also go to like Iraqi Kurdistan, but they were all closed at the time. So can you go into Iraqi Kurdistan with a visa on arrival or do you need a visa? I think you’d have to get an e-visa and then you can show up and get it. Yeah, but I’m not 100% sure. And I think that can change any day. But, but yeah, it’s a… Turkey is a big country. Yeah, there’s a ton of stuff to do. Yeah, you could be here like two years. Easily, yeah. And there, yeah, I was here partially in winter, you know, so, so, so it was… But in the South, like you get more windows of good weather. And I was kind of near Antalya. And I spent the high mountains like from August to, you know, maybe November. And then I got the first big snow and I kind of came back to Antalya and was able to still ride. You could still ride. Yeah, the problem is that as soon as you leave the coast, you’re already at high elevation. Because sometimes, even when you leave Antalya, you go already at 1000 meters. Yeah, yeah. And I remember even when you go down to Alanya, you’re like at maybe 1500 and it’s all the way down. And you arrive there and there is like a few kilometers from the coast to where the hill starts. The climb starts and it’s a tropical climate because they grow bananas for like 20, 30 kilometers. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It’s insane. Yeah. So I was able to string together enough interesting stuff around the Antalya area. The snow line at the time was generally not going much below like 1200 to 1500 meters. So I still was riding. I would, you know, I would just plan my route like basically on the snow line. Yeah. And you probably stayed a lot in hotels. Yeah, a fair amount. I mean, yeah, I was camping a lot, but also, yeah, like sometimes in hotels. And the hotels were, because there were not many tourists at the time, the hotels were pretty cheap. And it was a much cheaper time in Turkey because now the hotels are expensive. Yeah, when I was here in 2019, the country was so cheap. Yeah. Now that I came back, I was like, because I was thinking, oh, I’ll be in Istanbul. Yeah. Ah, yes. Now it’s like, can I afford to buy this? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The economy really changed. The prices changed for sure. Yeah, yeah. I remember you could get kebab plate for like three bucks in Antalya. That was good. And now that same will cost you nine, ten. Yeah, it definitely changed a lot in the last few years. Yeah. I think a little bit everywhere. Yeah. But especially in Turkey because they had a kind of hyperinflation, like 20, 25 percent inflation. Yeah. It’s a lot. Yeah, it’s tough. Even worse for local people because it’s. Yeah, I don’t know how they get by. But there are certain items that they, it doesn’t make any sense. You know, like, you know, if some oranges cost 50 cents, these other thing cannot cost like 30 dollars. Yeah. It doesn’t make sense. But yeah, I don’t know. It’s weird sometimes when you go to the supermarket. Yeah. Yeah. So then you stayed in Turkey for a while for the pandemic. And you were alone? Yeah. OK. And then where did you go? Then I couldn’t. Basically, I was forced out of the country. I tried to get a long, I tried to get a one year permit to stay, but they didn’t, they didn’t accept it. So, but it bought me a few more months in Turkey beyond my 90 day visa. And so, yeah, I went, I went back home for a few months. Yeah, because a lot of countries you can renew the 90 days visa. Usually you get 90 days visa everywhere, but you can renew them. But for some reason you can’t in Turkey. And he just told me and my 90 days. So I need to, I need to come up with a solution. Yeah. At the time, at least the only option was, was, was to get a one year. And I had met some other Americans who were. But that’s not a visa, it’s a local, it’s a permanent. Yeah. But it looks like they’ve changed it. Yeah. Now that there’s maybe there’s a month to month, which is better because one year, I don’t. They wanted me to have a one year apartment. And I was like, I can’t. Yeah, but because they have loads of people coming from the Middle East, Iran and stuff. And they told me that it was easier before because I talked to some friends. And now they also want you to usually before you had to go to a notary and just say, OK, I rented this place. But now they want also a bill in your name. Yeah. So it’s a little bit more complicated. Yeah. So, so I went back to the US and I was there for a little bit and stuff was still kind of closed. A lot of places were closed. And I thought about doing doing like a US something in the US. Yeah. But then Peru was calling my name again. So I went to Peru and then went up to Colombia. So you went to Colombia. Yeah. From Peru. So which I do. I this area I’m in a lot. If you will come back to this. Because I just love Peru is like probably my favorite for riding. It’s probably my favorite country. Yeah. For riding. And the food is good as well. Food’s good. Yeah. The country is cheap. It’s cheap. Yeah. You can stay there. That’s a place where I can. It’s not super safe. It’s relatively safe. I mean, I think it’s safe. Shit happens. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, shit happens everywhere. But I feel relatively safe there compared to as long as you’re not doing something stupid or through some dodgy neighborhoods at night. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes you’re just in the wrong time. You know, the wrong place at the wrong time. Yeah. Yeah. It’s not. I feel safer in like Kyrgyzstan or Turkey. Yeah. These like wild camping and stuff. There in Peru I’m more careful. I felt safer in Africa. Much safer in Africa than in Latin America. Nothing really happened. I mean, I was assaulted once in Colombia. Me too. We have that in common. But I definitely felt safer in Africa. So you flew to Lima and then you went Yeah. Well, I went to Arequipa. And I was like, OK, I want because last time I had gone through Arequipa, but not for very long. And I thought that was probably my favorite city in all of South America. I didn’t go. Yeah. I kind of know that, but I didn’t go. I was in Lima. Yeah, I was meeting up with the players for places. He was already in Cusco. And I was like, no, we need to go. We need to go. Yeah. And I kind of skipped. I went to Abancay. Well, it’s a good reason to go back. That’s how I see it. But the the yeah. So I had gone through there. And it’s better for that later in the year time because when the Cordillera Blanca and the Huascaran area is getting a lot of rain and thunderstorms, it’s a lot of And you get a lot of sun still in Arequipa. Yeah, they are very far. They’re probably like 2000 kilometers apart. Yeah. You’re further south and you’re closer to the coast. And it’s just like you have this more deserted desert kind of terrain there. Because the coastal area of Peru and especially the south of Peru is super dry. It’s a desert. Yeah. So I came and I was going late in the year. It was like September. Like if I was going to stay a while, I was like, OK, I’ll go to the desert. And then I had to go to the south and then it will be a little bit better timing for that. And then after that, I had to go. Yeah, this is me crossing over back. So you did the Peru divide. I did. No, I did. I did a whole thing from the south to the Bolivia border. I basically did like three different big loops on Arequipa. And so and then I went to went to Colombia, spent three months there. I didn’t went to Ecuador. No, that was I did that the last this last trip. Then I went from Colombia down to Santiago. That was another trip. So you flew to Colombia. Where did you fly to? Bogota. And where did you go there? Just all around. It was your first time in the country? First time. Yeah, I got robbed day two in Bogota. Fuck. Yeah. But you were walking around? No, I was on my bike. I like put my bike together. And for some reason I was looking on like, I was looking on Strava, I think at like some climbs in the city. Yeah, I know. But sometimes it’s like, oh, what are the popular climbs in the city? I just wanted to try, you know, there’s a lot of cyclists. So I thought, oh, and I saw one kind of from near my the place I was staying. Let me let me just go up to do a little just test first ride. You know, put the bike together and go went up and then coming down. I decided very stupidly. I’m going to go off of the main road and cut through this neighborhood because it goes straight to like some more touristy area with coffee shops and stuff. I’ll go through there. Let’s take some videos for the gram in the barrio. No, it wasn’t even that. Sadly, it wasn’t. It was it was literally like I thought because there was like a bike lane if I connected there and this road was kind of chaotic with cars and stuff. So I was like, OK, I can get off. It’ll just shoot straight down this. It looked a little dodgy. I’m not. Yeah. But I thought, OK, it’s like a 12 percent, you know, descent and then I’m on the main road. It’s just skipping. And then they must have planned it something. But yeah, a guy kind of pulls a car. One of these carts you see in Bogota and Columbia, a lot of the big cities, they’re taking the trash around. They kind of he kind of crossed the road right in front of me just by chance and and said something to me. And I was like slamming on my brakes and I like he’s blocking the whole road. Slamming on the brakes. I kind of just before I stop like guys coming from the sides and just like, you know, what did they take from you? Camera. They took the jacket off my back, the bag. They were just grabbing at everything. My phone ripped my phone. Yeah. You know. That kind of stuff, camera was the killer to lose because, yeah, that’s my job. I think in when you are in the big cities in South America, you have to be careful. Because they they call it even I think they have an expression, especially when it’s young kids. They call it the piranha. They assault someone and they were like older guys or like, you know, yeah, but they could be even like kids of like seven or eight years old. But it’s like 20 of them. They surround you and then they take whatever they can and they call them the piranha. But yeah, like in definitely in big cities like, you know, like Bogota, Medellin, Lima. Yeah. Quito is a little safer. I feel. But maybe not. Guayaquil. Probably some parts. Yeah. I think I had in Araquipa I had probably a false sense of because it feels quite safe. And I was riding out of there a lot like in because I stayed to work for a few weeks and there are things up in the touristy parts of Peru in the mountains. Also, there are you need to be a little careful. Yeah, for sure. Especially you hear stories of people going to see these ruined sunset Yeah. Like two or three guys. Huaraz is kind of known for that. Yeah. It’s just you need to I feel it’s safe. If you’re street smart, it’s safe. Then you’re not there. It could happen even in the US. Oh, in the US it’s probably. Yeah, I would say similar likelihood in many places. But usually if you if you’re street smart, even South America, it’s quite safe. Then out of so many because there are like thousands and thousands of people cycling through Colombia. Yeah. From Europe, from North America every year. Yeah. Out of hundreds of thousands, one or two, they might have some misfortune. But yeah, relatively everybody. I met people that they’ve been years and years in South America. Nothing happened. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, for me, it was I had literally been there years and years. Eventually something happened. But, you know, I was there for another three months and then I since came back and I was like basically living in Colombia for for six months after that. So I spent nine months basically in Colombia since then and I had no problem. So, yeah, I just more more smart about, OK, if I’m if I’m in a city, really the entry points into the city are important because you don’t you you don’t want to take like this. Usually I would say, OK, I’m going to try to take the least traffic way into a place as possible. But in some cases you might want to just take the main road because you have the most people around. It’s quicker, it’s safer, I think, in a certain situation. And there are cities that you want to take the main road. Yeah. Especially Buenos Aires, Lima. You know, if you if you end up in the wrong neighborhood in Lima and you enter from Callao or these places. I mean, the chances of getting robbed are very, very, very high. Yeah. Especially because they see you alone. Yeah. I also went cycling in a group. Yeah. With like 15, 20 people in this neighborhood. But you look after each other and it’s a big group. They’re not going to fuck with you. But like if you are alone, then it’s a different story. Yeah. Yeah. When it happened to me, I talked to people, a lot of Colombians after and especially people who know the city. And I told them it was like I was like, oh, yeah, because I didn’t know the name of the area. I went through it. But but afterwards and I was like, look at that. They were like, they were like El Hijito. You enter El Hijito. And they were like, why would you do that? But it’s like, yeah, you have like this very this kind of nice touristy area. This main road. It’s literally like. Yeah. There’s lots of inner cities in this place. It’s just one little pocket of like a really bad kind of neighborhood. But yeah, I mean, it happens. But it’s it’s not. Yeah, it’s not something so common. If you’re smart. But, you know, and from Bogotá. Then if you had to put your I think I remember reading that you were in Instagram and you were looking for a camera or something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I ended up my buddy Roy was flying down. Happened to be a couple of weeks later. So I arranged that and I sold a bunch of prints. That’s when I launched my print store and a lot of people chipped in, chipped in buying buying prints. So I’m basically able to cover the camera and stuff on that. So which was nice because, yeah, that’s a that’s a big hit. Yeah. To the wallet. To buy a new camera. What camera do you have? I’m using a Sony a7 IV and I use a Tamron 28 to 200 lens. That’s a big lens. It’s a big lens. Yeah. But I want one lens. I’m sick of having like a bunch of lenses. For when I was in when I was in Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia, I had a 24 to 72. 8. Like the G Master. And I had a 70 to 300. So I had these two monster lenses. I was just like, yeah, I was just like, do you really need like all that zoom? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. To me, that’s I do more in the long zoom than I do in the wide by far. That’s why I traded the 28. Is it wide? For landscape. It’s good. But certain places like you. You really want that zoom because especially more wide open. When I was in Chile and Argentina and the Atacama, stuff gets a little more wide open. You can really get like the perspective. Yeah. You got that. You you can get the compression. Yeah. And that to me, that makes a huge difference. Yeah, I know. But I’m thinking, yeah, for sure. It’s worth it. Like one kilo more of that. Yeah. But but this setup is not that big to me. Yeah, I haven’t. I haven’t. So the Tamron, is it’s. It’s not fixed. It’s not constant aperture. Is it what’s the focal length again? It’s 28 to 200. 28 to 200. So I don’t get the 300 that I had before, but I mean, 200 to 300 isn’t as huge. Yeah, my main camera in comparison, it’s a little toy But the other thing I like about the lens is I’m at 28 millimeters. You still have f2.8 So that’s the main thing, because you still have that one you can have in low light. That’s pretty good. Or if I’m taking astrophotography or something occasionally, it’s I still have that 2.8 and it looks good. You know, it’s not it’s not a it’s not a bad. Sometimes you could also bring like a wide lens or not that heavy. Yeah. Yeah. No, there’s definitely smaller than a long lens. But yeah, I had for a long time carried like a 21 millimeter. Yeah, I mean, I was like, I have an APS-C, so it’s a it’s a toy compared to the full frame. But I have two lenses. I have the zoom lens. Yeah. And then I have a wide lens that is one point. I don’t know if it’s 1.4 4 or 1.8 Yeah. That I also thought is for astrophotography. But usually at night I just want to sleep. So I really, realistically, I never use it. I should just give it up. Yeah, I just found myself I carried out just a set wide angle lens to for that kind of thing, and I just found myself not using it enough to warn. I was switching the thing and then you’re always afraid there’s some dust. Or something. I always had like dust on my phone, like that. I’m having to like delete manually. So annoying. Yeah. Every now and then I clean the sensor. Yeah, I do too. I don’t like I have carried the swab, the sensor swabs. Yeah, I carry the swab. But I try to do that as little as possible. I’ll do the blower. I have the dust blower and stuff. But yeah, maybe once every six months I use the swabs. I think I’ve maybe. I don’t know if I’ve ever done it on this camera. I mean, if it’s a bit of dust, it shouldn’t ruin the sensor anyway. Yeah, no. And if you’re gentle and you use it only once. Yeah, yeah. If you use it only once, then you throw it away. And on the other side, use another one. Yeah. One with a little bit of with a drop. A little. Yeah. And one. Yeah, I think it’s OK. I’ve never noticed a problem when I’ve done it, but I’m always that feel. That first feeling of touching the sensor is always one you don’t like to do. But so at some point you left Bogota. Where did you go? Well, that was again Ecuador. You couldn’t cross into Ecuador still at that time by land. I think you could go by flight. But I was like, I’m not going to go to I’m not going to fly there. So I went home again. And this by this time, so Nepal was open. You didn’t ride a lot in. No, I rode a lot. Yeah, I rode. Yeah. So I I rode. I was just kind of doing a random random loops. First, I started on this. I think it’s called like the coffee route or something. You went to the Eje Cafetero. Yeah, towards that direction. But I kind of took other routes a lot. Took other roads. Did you the Nievado? I went around Ruiz. Yeah. Did you go to the cliché places? Salento? Yeah, Salento. That’s a great climb. I love that climb from what’s the town? Salento. There’s a E. It starts with an I. Going to Salento. There’s a climb before it that as you descend into Salento, it starts with an I. Ipiales? No, Ipiales is close to Ecuador. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know. There’s a town there. I think it starts with an I. Could be something totally different. You climb up through. And yeah, it’s really nice. Your first time with the tall palm trees. Palmas de Sera, I think they’re called. I forgot. But yeah, it’s unique. The only grows there. Yeah. So I did that road to Manizales, crossed over and then I went to Medellin. I crisscrossed that range. I did it on the other way around. I was coming to Medellin. Yeah. And then I so then I crossed over, went to Santander. Through Santander and like from Bucaramanga. This is an area I really like in Colombia. It’s like different. The terrain is very different. It’s more arid. Yeah, it’s a little more arid. You have rocks. Lots of rocks. Yeah. You’re not in like canyons. There’s Chica Mocha Canyon and stuff. This area I like. When I was there, I’ve been there six months. Yeah. I did my fair bit of riding, but at the time I was I had a classic Surly Disc Trucker. Yeah. And I was doing only robots basically. Yeah. It was like, no. Yeah. It was Jaryd @playersgoplaces that slowly got me into thinking you need to do more off-road. I was like, this is stupid. So much suffering. Yeah. You have too much shit and you have to change. You need a frame bag and you need this. But yeah, I loved Colombia. Yeah. I love Colombia. So did you learn the cost? No, no, no, no. Did you? I did. Yeah. I stayed, you know, because from Alaska, then I was going very fast. I was going very fast. I stayed at my friends in San Francisco maybe like four weeks. And also I was in San Diego for a while. I had a friend of a friend because I was waiting for some Schwalbe Marathon because I was like, I need a couple of spare tires and they got lost in the post or whatever. And but then the rest of the trip was going quite fast. And I was coming from a road bike mentality. It’s like as many kilometers. You want to see the line. You want to see the progress. How many kilometers I did today? 180. Tomorrow I have to do at least 190. Yeah. And I was like this, going very fast. So when I, in Central America, it’s like an idiot between the Caribbean and the Pacific. OK. And then once I, and crossing from Panama to Colombia was very draining because there’s no road. I didn’t have money to to pay for a sailing boat. And yeah, it was a very draining experience. And once I got to Cartagena, I was a bit burned out. And I remember there was a couple of a French couple that I met a few times. I met them in Mexico. Then I met them again in Nicaragua. And then I met them again in Colombia. Yeah. And they were like, just try to find a workaway and chill for a few weeks. Yeah. Because we were talking and they’re like, you need to, you need to rest. And then I found a workaway there and I stayed there in Getsemani in Cartagena for like a month. And it was really nice. Then I, there I met Jaryd, @Players Go Places. And it’s a long story, but he was in, he had to renovate like a new fell down houses, a house in Palomino and make out something out of it. So he was recruiting loads of bike travelers. So I stayed like two, three weeks there, like doing this construction. Nobody knew anything. And it was like, we were doing something and then redo it and then redo it again. But it was so fun. We were sleeping on a hammock. It was really nice. Eating loads of mango because the house had a big mango tree. And that was, so we were having mango ice cream, mango sauce as a side sauce for everything. Mango juice. And yeah, but yeah, then I, then I, yeah, I went to La Guajira. I was assaulted. And I also went to Valledupr Bucaramanga. And then I got to to Bogotá, then I went to Medellín. OK, so you went down there, Medellín. Then eventually I got to Mocoa, from there I crossed into, yeah, I also stayed with an indigenous community in the Amazon, there in Mocoa. That’s probably now it’s been destroyed. There was a big landslide and Mocoa was, most of the people died. And then, and then I went to Ecuador from there. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I really liked Colombia. I stayed six months and my visa was running out. It was 90 plus 90. Yeah. I met some incredible people. I met even an Italian guy that was like, oh, I thought I was an adventurer. But this guy like, had so many stories. He was chased by the guerrilla in Choco. And yeah, he has so many stories. But he’s been living there like maybe 50, 60 years. Yeah. And yeah, I met incredible people in Colombia. Yeah. Yeah, it’s good. It’s a great country to go to. Did you like the food? Yeah. It’s my, to me, it’s my favorite of South America. Oh yeah, we talked about this. Yeah. To me, it’s my favorite. I just like the, the platano, everything has platano, everything has beans, everything has… Do you prefer the green platano or the mature one that is sweet? Either is good. Yeah. Yeah. I like either. Yeah. I like, I prefer the green one. Yeah. Patacones. Patacones. Yeah. Patacones are good too. I like both. And so it’s better than Peruvian food. Yeah. That’s my take, but I’m also not a big ceviche. I’m not, I’m not super into ceviche. I have it sometimes when I’m there, but it’s not my favorite type. So usually I’m in Peru. It’s like… Did you eat alpaca? Oh yeah. Many times. I’ve been to Peru so much that… Of course. Yeah. I’ve had pretty much the whole… And Cuy as well. Cuy, yeah. Only one. How do you call Cuy in English? Guinea pig. Guinea pig. Yeah. I had one when I was a kid, like a pet. Yeah. Also in Italy. So when I was eating it, there was a moment of like… But someone offered it and I was like, okay, now is the time I eat the Cuy. And yeah, it was fine. Yeah. It tastes like chicken. For me, the country South America with the best food is Venezuela. Very similar to Colombia, but to me, it’s slightly better. And they have the… Red bass. Yeah, they have the red bass. They have the pabellón criollo. They have the pastelitos. And I think the… What do you call it? The empanadas. The empanadas, for me, the best empanadas are the Venezuelan. Because they make… The Argentinians think it’s the best, but it’s not. Because they make it with… Everyone thinks theirs is the best. Exactly. At least to me, they make them in Argentina or in Chile, they make them with normal flour, with wheat flour. Yeah. But in Venezuela, they make them with With the arepa, with the maize. Corn flour. Yeah. And also, they fry this. It’s not very healthy. I don’t like the fried ones usually. No? Unless they’re like very fresh. Because so many times, they like sit in that little fucking… Actually, yeah. So yeah, if you get that, but it’s I found so many times in Colombia, you go, oh, they have empanadas. And you look, I’m like, how long has that been there? And I’m like, I’m not getting that. But I like the ones in Peru, I think the best, the empanadas. Or Peru, Bolivia. I like Salteñas, the baked. To me, the baked is my favorite. And yeah, they have different taste, yeah. And paparellena. Paparellena, good. Although I think on my last trip, I had had that. Yeah, it was like, okay, I can’t have these paparellenas anymore. It’s like… Yeah, but in Colombia, especially the Medellín. And they have the… How do you call it? The bandeja paisa. Yeah, that’s really good with the beans, avocado, everything. I just like that they’re having avocado. I think it comes down to avocado, beans and the platano for me. Because it’s like, these are things I like and they have them in such abundance that they are just putting them with everything. So I think that, yeah, and they have rice and stuff. I like all this, so yeah. In Bucaramanga, did you eat the ants? No. You know, they have the hormiga culona. They’re like big ants with like a big butt and they call them the hormiga culona. I never saw them. It’s a thing I think only in Bucaramanga they eat it. Oh, okay. Yeah, I didn’t see it. Maybe next time I’ll have to look for it. So after Colombia, where did you go? Then I had to go get my bike. I had to go finally pick up my bike and I was like, okay, I’m going to go and do… I’m going to do this India, Nepal, Pakistan route. But the issue was still there. Yeah, so I went back, got the bike, had some problems with the roll-off. Okay. You had a problem with it. Yeah, I had one big problem. But it was kind of a freak situation because the… It sat there and probably picked up some rust. Yeah, yeah. We think that basically when I was in Kyrgyzstan and stuff, we were doing many like river crossings, like some quite deep and probably the hubs occasionally getting dunked into the water. And that some amount of water got into the hub. And then when it sat in Nepal, I didn’t clean it before because I was like going home, thinking I was going home and coming back a few weeks later with like my cleaning kit and stuff. Okay, I can do it fresh and then do all my maintenance and then head to India. And so that didn’t happen. It sat in a shed for like two years in Nepal. Also like a very humid area. So it was like not the best situation for it to just sit there. And yeah, some of the gears were just freewheel. Maybe out of the 14 gears, I think there were four or five that would pedal. There were 14 gears. Yeah, it’s 14 gears and only four or five would actually function randomly. So there would be like three gears at a time where you just freewheel in either direction. So yeah, I basically decided then to change it. But there was also problems because they were still… They had closed the border from Nepal to India for the land border since I flew there. And I was like, okay, they closed it again for seemingly no reason. And it’s actually still a problem today. I was looking it up before. And so I ended up going to Mongolia. Fixed the hub, got a whole new internal gear unit, they call it. They just sent like this big thing, plopped it in, replaced it. Then it’s good to go. Haven’t really touched it since. And then I went to Mongolia. Because of the complicated borders with India, I decided, okay, I want to do Mongolia. I’ll spend the whole summer in Mongolia. Spend the whole three months in Mongolia. Mongolia, I think. Amazing, yeah. It’s one of the most… It’s better to get a summer in Mongolia. Ooh. They’re both really nice. It would be hard to pick one. I think Kyrgyzstan has… Mongolia, I think, is maybe more The experience is probably more unique. Kyrgyzstan has more epic mountains and stuff, I think. More like the passes are kind of like scenery, I think, wise is probably towards Kyrgyzstan. But they both have kind of the nomadic culture and stuff. Mongolians are like… The Mongolians on the steppe are… It’s a unique interaction. A really cool place to go. Can’t wait to go back sometime. There was a lot of really friendly people. Really in both places, I guess. I don’t think I can distinguish them. You said that you are crossing rivers. Do you have only one pair of shoes? I carry sandals. So when you do the river crossing, you put on the sandals? Yeah, or I’m wearing them. I also wear the sandals to ride a lot. You don’t clip in. You have flat pedals. Yeah, flat pedals. I have Hope mountain bike pedals that are just flat pedals. I prefer… If it’s going to be a lot of river crossings, there’s some places you go. Okay, I know in the day I’m going to be crossing tons of rivers. In the summer, especially, I’ll be wearing the sandals the whole day for sure. But often, there are even times where I go three, four months, all sandals. I hate them. Now I did maybe a year and a half, maybe more in South America. Now I just want everything covered. Legs, arms, everything. Especially if you do a lot of dirt roads, I sweat a lot. Me too. The feet, hands, feet, legs, I sweat a lot. I start, especially if it’s a bit dusty, I get this dust that attaches in my legs. It sticks there and between the hair. Then it gets itchy and I’m scratching and I’m like, fuck this. That’s why I wear legs, kind of warmer, but they’re more light for the sun. It’s the same, I remember when I was in South America, I was always like, I had to wash my feet at night because it was gross. It’s another trade-off because then you have dirty socks. All that stuff gets dirty, it’s harder to clean. Shoes and stuff are harder to clean. Sandals, I like that I can dip them into the river and they’re clean now. It’s good to go. Yeah, I don’t know. I use these Shimano boots and I never have to clean. If you have the long, I don’t like riding. I’ve tried the slightly high ankle, which were the last ones of these that I had. I like the support also when I’m doing hike a bike. I like the support, I can push a little bit more. I don’t think it’s for everybody, especially in the summer. For me, I have a high tolerance to heat. Cold, no. I’m a wussy. But heat, no problem. For me, even 45 degrees, I can deal with it. 48, 49. For me, it gets to mid-30s. For me, I always say in the videos, it’s not summer below 30 degrees. This summer, it was like, what happened? It was no summer for me. It got warm a little bit. You weren’t here in Turkey, bro. You should have come to Turkey. It was like end of June in Barcelona, it was freezing. I had a lot of 30 days. It got a bit warm in the middle of July when I was in France. But then even in Italy, it was very humid, but lots of summer storm. It was never warm, really. So I felt I was cheated one summer. I felt like I had summer for like seven months. Because when I was in Greece, by May, I think I had days in early May that were like, it was like 39. I was just like, get me out of here. As soon as that started happening, I was literally like, I’m beelining to the Turkish Anatolia plateau. Get me to 1000 meters and above. It gets warm even in Turkey. Oh yeah. It’s usually dry, a little bit of humidity in some valleys, but it’s usually pretty dry. So it’s not that uncomfortable. The Black Sea, though, a lot more humidity. Yeah, on the other side. And it was cold this time when I did it. So it’s not a pleasant humidity. Humidity is never pleasant. Yeah, and everything just so iced over in the morning. Just all my camping gear. Thick sheet of ice. The bike is soaked of ice and then the sun hits it. That’s why I prefer the freestanding. For example, when I was coming now from Greece, then I would always try to approach a village or a city. And in the outskirts, there is always some empty buildings, an old warehouse, or even like a showroom of interiors. At seven o’clock, they go home. And I put the tent. But I don’t even need to put the flysheet. Once you have a roof and you’re dry and you’re on concrete. That’s why I really like the freestanding. Yeah, yeah. This place would be epic to camp, take a few pictures. Like, no, fuck no. I go to the warehouse. I need those pictures. To a warehouse. I’m generally lured out by the photos. I’m like, okay. And just having a nice place. But yeah, especially in the winter, I would have definitely camped in this. It’s like when people camp next to a large body of water to take the pictures. I prefer to sleep comfortable. I’m like, fuck the pictures. Yeah. I can’t say that I haven’t forced my tent in some slightly uncomfortable place. Because it was like, well, this is such an awesome spot to wake up. I’m going to risk. This is something I can do. I like to be comfortable. For me, practicality. Then if I can take a nice picture, I will. Usually it’s like I’m comfortable. Like in the sleeping bag and stuff, I’m comfortable. It’s more than in the morning. It’s annoying because the tent is wet. Yeah. And then you’re just like, okay, it’s just another chore. But even at night, you feel the humidity. Yeah. But if you have a sleeping bag, if your sleeping bag is fine and you’re set up, it depends. Yeah. If it was like really, really, really cold and I’m going to have this humidity, then yeah, I might be doing that. Or I might be like asking the village Muhtar in Turkey and they can find me some room to set my sleeping pad or something and just sleep inside. So can you explain what’s Muhtar? Yeah, Muhtar, which I didn’t know until this trip. It’s basically like in Turkey, they have, I think it’s like a government, they’re kind of a government employee to some degree. I don’t know if it’s, maybe it’s a community. It’s a community thing, but they get some sort of money, I think, from the government. Maybe. As the Muhtar. To be like the head of the village. To like, if someone comes, you should have a place. Someone, my friends near Albistan taught me this. They’re like, oh, if you ever have a problem, come to the village and ask for the Muhtar. And it’s like kind of their duty to help. But oftentimes you come into the town and someone will like try to introduce you without even saying anything. So many cases they would say, oh yeah, you can come camp in this place. They’ll just tell you a safe place. There are also like a lot of villages in Turkey. They have some rooms, like a very small apartment or like a room with a little bathroom or something where travelers can stay. Yeah, this is kind of… I think it’s also like part of the Muslim hospitality. Yeah. I think. And I feel also like in Muslim countries, you can always go to a mosque and ask. You can camp somewhere around there. And usually the imam, they give you a space around the mosque. And sometimes they bring food as well. Yeah, I mean, I think that always comes in Turkey. They’re coming with food. But not just in Turkey. I’m thinking also Sudan or Algeria or Morocco. Yeah, yeah. These places. Yeah. And also it’s good. The mosque has always water. Yeah, that’s a… Whenever you need water, you can… And you see the mosque in the distance. If there is a mosque, there is water. Oh, okay. Because even when they are in the middle of nowhere, especially in Turkey, they are usually next to a spring or like a fountain or something. Yeah. There’s usually water. Even like those mosques that they put in the middle of nowhere for travelers. And yeah, usually there is some water around there if you look. If it’s not like in the… Like around the building, but maybe like 50 meters away. If you have a look, usually there is some water. Yeah, yeah. It’s nice in Turkey because even though it can be quite dry in many places, they’re getting like groundwater. And they’re frequently on roads. Even roads in the middle of nowhere, a little dirt road. You go and you see like, oh, they have a little spout. Yeah, they use also for the sheep and stuff. Cattle. Do you filter it? I never filtered it. I never treated it in Turkey. I filter it. Yeah, I probably don’t need to, but it’s more of like a… Just in case. I don’t want to generalize, but I found Americans to be very careful. Over filterers? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the filtering thing, a bit food as well. Maybe, yeah, maybe. I remember there was a couple that actually I have an interview on my YouTube channel. They were called Portland to Penguins, I think on Instagram. Yeah, I recognize the name. It’s Aiden and Tara. Yeah. And I remember that Tara was a little bit more careful with the food. Yeah. But Aiden was like, I need to try everything. And he was probably sick once a week. Perfect. But usually I try stuff and rarely, maybe a little, a touch of diarrhea here and there. Very rarely. I had like in one day in Algeria that I wasn’t feeling well. But in South America, I remember one night I had a little accident in Panama. But other than, yeah, sometimes a little bit of diarrhea, but not to feel sick. Yeah, I had maybe a different experience in South America. I think I had quite a few times where I got sick. Although every time I go… Americans are weak. I think, well, I think it is. It’s probably is like what is in our water or whatever, what they’ve taken out or something’s different that maybe you’re more used to or something. No, but I mean, you know, I think, I don’t know. Because I think the, oh, you’re used to is a bit of bullshit. Because if you drink water that has Giardia on it, it’s not getting used. Yeah. It’s a fucking parasite. Either you get it or not. But can there be some degree that your body is able to fight off that someone who hasn’t had as much reaction to that wouldn’t be able to? Yeah, maybe it’s a certain degree. But I remember when I was in a place, when I was crossing a Cordillera to go from Bogota to Medellin. I remember I crossed this valley and yeah, it was getting dark and there was this woman that had like a juice. She was making fresh juice on the side of the road. And I asked her if I could come there. Then she gave me some water and I was passing the steripen and she asked me, what’s that? And I was like, no, it’s a UV light. It kills bacteria and viruses in the water. And then we had a discussion about it. And she told me that in that village, they were drinking like the water of the river. And she told me that it’s basically diarrhea. It’s so endemic that if they have diarrhea for five, six days, they don’t even go to the doctor. They start to go to the doctor. If they’re still sick after one week, then they go to the doctor. And she told me like, oh, we should look into this. And maybe the community could buy something like a big UV light to treat them. So even local people that they’ve been exposed since they were kids, but they’re still getting sick. So I think there must be some truth about that. But yeah, I don’t think I know everything that’s going on inside the water. And how do you treat the water? I have an MSR, I think it’s MSR auto flow gravity filter. It’s like you hang the bag and it goes through. And it doesn’t filter the virus. It doesn’t quite. I think some of them maybe. I don’t have the purifier. There’s the purifier and then the filter. The purifier didn’t even exist when I started. And I think it’s only the last few years that it came out. I think a lot of people don’t know this. But 99. 99% of the filters, they don’t filter viruses and very small bacteria. So that’s why you should use the filter and something like the steady pen or maybe like some chlorine tablets or something. Yeah. But the only one that I’m aware of is the MSR purifier. Yeah, there’s a few now. It’s a military grade thing, but it’s maybe like 250 grams and it comes in a case like this. They have one that you can pump. They have the hanging one. It’s just a little bit bigger. It’s not that much bigger. To be honest, it’s a lot more expensive though. It’s like five times the price, I think. I think it’s 250 euro or 300. It’s $300 in the US for the purifier. Whereas to replace the cartridge on mine, you can usually on sale find them $50. The problem is that if the cartridge gets wet, then it has to stay wet. I don’t think you have to let it dry. Definitely, it cannot freeze. Otherwise, it’s compromised. Yeah. So you have to be careful. I’m always, I’m very often, I mean, if it’s near freezing, I’ve got my, in my sleeping bag, I’m sleeping with my filter just to be safe. Yeah. I just use the, I only had a filter in, when I did Africa, I was like, I carry a Sawyer Mini just in case. But if the water is clear, I just use the steady pan and that’s it. Yeah. Which is, yeah, it’s different from a filter because you need like, it needs to be charged, but it lasts a long time. Yeah. And there’s only one model that you can really use is the one that you recharge with the USB because the one that has batteries, when you’re like in Africa or something, you don’t find the batteries are not powerful enough to power this thing. So many people that had it. Yeah. It might goes for 30 seconds and then it switches off. Oh no. But the USB one, you can recharge it and then it has enough power. Yeah. But if the water is clear and you kind of always find clear water and maybe there is a little bit of sediment and I pass it through like a bath or something. Yeah. Instead of doing 90 seconds, I do it twice just to be safe. Even if it’s not super, super crystal clear. Yeah. Usually don’t. And now I don’t even carry anymore. I don’t know. I think I left it underneath. The soil. And now that I go to Middle East and Asia, I will probably, because now I think almost also my steady pan is end of life. How long do those last? Yeah, I think it’s 80,000 liters. It’s a long time. Yeah, 80,000 liters. But I think now my steady pan fell and I think the light sometimes it goes. So I will need to replace. I need to remind myself to replace it. Yeah. But I do like it. And I saw that it wasn’t working very well before I was going to Algeria. I took some tablets in an outdoor shop in Barcelona, but then I never used it. Yeah. Sometimes I’m always, I’m also like this. It’s like, yeah, if it’s good enough for local people, it’s good enough for me. Yeah. But you should. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I met some people on the road who didn’t carry a filter. I remember in Kyrgyzstan I met a big group of, I don’t remember where they’re from. They’re from Europe somewhere. And they were just like, I think they were French. And they were riding through young guys, like maybe 20 years old or something. And they were like just taking from any river, just water straight. I was like, dude. Yeah, I mean, you know, in places like Kyrgyzstan. We’re like, there’s cattle. There’s, yeah, yaks everywhere. There’s sheep and, you know. Yeah. You could get some organic contamination, but yeah, you’ll have diarrhea for like 30 minutes. Yeah. It’s cowshit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on. Yeah. But I don’t think, do they have mines that do like informal mining? Well, they never have mining. Yeah. That’s in this. But also if you have a filter, it doesn’t do it. Like if the water is contaminated by chemicals or metals, even the filter you carry doesn’t do anything. Yeah. You still have to be careful. I’m, especially the more and more I’ve traveled, more in like Peru, you have these mines everywhere in the mountains and places you want to ride. Like, you know, so I’m like looking at the maps to make sure, okay, there’s no mining activity. We’re asking locals like more often if I’m not sure if water is going to be good, like ask a local. Like, is this coming from, not, they don’t always know either, but. And they never, they never tell you, I don’t know. They’re like, you know, they said it’s concretely an answer. Yes or no. It’s like when you ask the direction, maybe they don’t know, but they will give you the direction. Yeah. How do I get to, or how, yeah, you say how many kilometers to, uh, this place. 30 minutes. They’ll be like, my favorite is when they’re like, yeah, by car, 30 minutes, by bike, maybe 35. And you’re like, no, I don’t think that’s how this works. I’m going up a mountain. Like, so you’re saying four in four hours. When you ask, is that a bit, is that more climb or? Yeah. And they’re like, Pura bajada nomas. Plano. You’re like climbing for a day and a half and it’s like, pura bajada nomas. Yeah. Yeah. It’s hard. It’s harder, I guess, when you’re in the car to sense the, sense the climb. Some people, they really have no idea. It’s always like, uh, how far is the next village? It’s 30 minutes. Everything is 30 minutes. Or if you ask a direction in a city, it’s at the corner. Yeah. It’s always at the esquina. It’s a classic. They’re like, you’ll find it at the corner. Which corner? But yeah, interesting. And so you were in, um, from Nepal, you went to Mongolia. Mongolia. Uh, and then I, I was, I came back to Turkey. I’ve been to Turkey. Yeah. Turkey, Greece. No, no. Turkey. Then I did, uh, then I did Columbia to Santiago. Ah, yeah, yeah. I had to go home for, for a bit. These are all kind of generally like every one year or two years, one or two years, I will go home and, and, uh, and stay for a little bit. And then. Do you have any plans to do Africa? Definitely some places in Africa I really want to go to. Um, I, I keep thinking, okay, I should do it all in one shot. Like one big trip. You know, it’s getting difficult. Yeah. But the east route, uh, you can’t really do it. Yeah. Because I really like to do, especially South Africa and then maybe, uh, Morocco. This, these areas are, you know, the, the scenery that I like, uh, mostly. So you should do Spain and Morocco, you know? Yeah. I pretty much have to start in Spain with a three month. If, if you really, cause I really like to go to a place in. But can you not apply for a visa instead of getting a new visa? Instead of getting a visa on arrival for Europe, can you not apply for a visa and get like six months? But I think, no, I think it’s, I think it’s three months or a year, but the year you have to have like these like financial, you have to show some income that’s quite high. Like you’re like, you’re doing a normal job and not living in your tent, you know? Just start a meal reach and get a few friends to put like $50,000. Put a bunch of money in my bank account. I think once they see that you have like 15,000 should be enough. Yeah. Oh, that, I mean that, that could happen. But the, the, I think they want like, I think it’s more like a hundred thousand is like, it was like what they’re looking for. Yeah. But I, I don’t know. Yeah. It’s, I can do probably what I would do is, is go, go to Spain, spend three months across the Morocco when that, when that time hits. So it’d be probably like fall. Yeah. But you can’t stay in Morocco more than 19. You, you could stay six months in Morocco. You can renew your visa. Well, I do. Don’t leave it to the last minute. Yeah. It’s possible to renew the visa. Yeah. I do. I do. Yeah. Spain, Morocco. Yeah. I’m sure I could do a full trip, like a full, you know, season or whatever. You could also go to Dakar. So you have another, you do a little bit in Mauritania, then you go and go in Dakar. Dakar is a nice place. Yeah. For me, the like cross, the like cross continent thing is, is almost difficult because I want to spend so much time in one place. Yeah. Like when I went to Peru, I, cause I, when I did my first South America trip, I broke, it got broken into basically two years over that, over from, from Peru to Ushuaia. And I stayed at a full winter in, in Patagonia. And yeah, cause it’s like, all right, there’s so many places. I don’t want to go past like all these places that I want to go and just be like, well, I have to make it to the end. I’m like, I’m here. I want to ride it. Yeah. It’s definitely two different philosophies because you can go around a little bit when you’re crossing a continent, but you also need to make some progress. So yeah, it’s a conflicting thing. And also at some times you just want to get going because, because your goal is to cross the continent and you want to feel like you’re making a progress. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t, I don’t really have that necessarily. That’s not really my, I’m just like, okay, I want to go to the coolest places I can possibly go to. And that, yeah, that’s, that’s the general gist of it. Yeah. How do you find the cool places? It’s just like, I like digging into the map. I mean, I’m in the maps a lot. Like I can spend, I lose hours just like at night going through random topographical maps or just scrolling around like Google earth and finding some places. That’s how I first came to Turkey was there was a, there was a mountain range called, uh, it’s like, um, there’s a mountain called Ciloda, which is one of the highest in, in Turkey. I think Ari or Ararat is like the highest. And then this one is the one close to Kapadagac, you know? No, that’s Erciyes. Ah, yeah. Yeah. So this, um, this time I was finally able to go to Ciloda, but that was the first that caught my eye. It’s in the very Southeast. So you’re like, it’s maybe 10 kilometers from the Iraqi Kurdistan border. And, uh, and you are not too far from Iran. You are maybe two days riding from Iran from when you’re at Ciloda. And, uh, but I really wanted to go there. It’s a little bit conflicted area. Um, but so the first time I wasn’t able to go, the military straight up told me you can’t, you can’t continue, uh, going to the East. And so that’s when I, I just looped back and went back towards Antalya. But this time it’s, it’s, the situation’s got a little bit improved. So I was able to finally go now and I was very happy. And you went around the mountain? What did you do? Yeah, you, well, you, I mean, it’s the whole area is quite nice. Um, it’s a very mountainous area. It kind of has like a Tajik stand. Like there’s big canyons and stuff like that. But the, the, I, you can kind of go up, you’re, you’re going through and you can go up to, to Jiloda. It’s like, you have to kind of go out and back for, to, to get the best view of the mountain. But you can go up there, camp. There’s like a… To the top? No, no, no, not to the top, but to the, really to like the very, the best views of it. You can see it from the other side or whatever, from a higher vantage point in some, some places. But here you can, I was like, okay, I’ll go all the way up and, and, uh, camp by the foot. And it was, is really nice area. And mostly though, the, yeah, the scenery is very nice, but the people in that area are like so friendly. Because they don’t see a ton of tourists. Yeah. Because in the recent past, they just like wouldn’t let tourists come there. Um, but this time I was able to, I got, you know, either lucky or whatever. It is the Kurdish, uh… Yes, it’s Kurdish, Kurdish area. But because, especially as you’re very close to the border, I mean, there’s military checkpoints everywhere. And I, I had to do some, I got turned around in one place. They, they forced me to like come all the way back. Or if I wanted to go to here, I was like maybe 10 kilometers of a climb. They’re like, no, you have to go around up here. They wouldn’t let you, because there’s also like military outposts, like all over this area. And there’s, you’d hear helicopters. One, at one point I was, uh, going over this road and, and, you know, all of it, you’re in areas, especially on dirt roads and stuff. It’s all areas that tourists are just not really going. And I remember I had crossed over this pass and I stopped and I, and I had walked over to this area to take a photo. And out of nowhere, just this helicopter comes. It’s one of those where they’re behind the hill and then they go over. And it was like right here, like right on top of me. And I thought for a second, because I’m not near my bike. I was like, oh, hopefully, because they’re like, oh, they, they’re always doing operations and stuff in these areas. I was like, hopefully they don’t think I’m someone bad, but they, yeah, they’re, uh, basically, um, yeah, you, you have this aspect to it. There’s, you hear the drone going on pretty often in the day, but the place is beautiful and the people are so, so friendly. Like really, I’m the nicest people I’ve met. Yeah, generally Muslim countries, they’re all, uh. Yeah, they’re just so. Very welcoming. It’s even in a city like you’re sometimes, you know, a village people are maybe more, uh, give more attention there. They, they’re at, but even in the bigger towns and cities, I would have so often people wanting to like, oh, come to my house. Come, come, uh, at the restaurant and someone’s just paid or, you know, they, they, it seemed like every time I had, I had food in my pannier. That literally for like a month, because I could never have time to cook it because people were always giving me food or. Invite you for chai, they bring loads of food. Yeah, and to me, that’s like the most interesting part of the trip. I used to be more like, oh yeah, I want to go to the, just the best mountains and see that. But then you, yeah, you realize like, this is, this is like more memorable even. Also the people that you meet. Yeah. That’s why I like also to stay a lot in, uh, obviously I don’t have money to pay for hotels, but also to stay with the locals, couchsurfing, warm showers. For me, it’s also nice because even here I was like at the beginning, I was like, oh, now I have a place for myself. I do whatever I want. I wake up when I want. And then after a few days I’m like, ah, but it would have been nice if I was at a warm shower host because they have friends and we go out and they invite you to. This event and the other events. Yeah. You need to make more of an effort to socialize. Yeah. Maybe like go to some couchsurfing events or connect with some people that I already know in the city. But it’s a little bit more of an effort. Yeah, for sure. It just kind of happens automatically if you’re staying with some people. Do you plan a lot in advance or you’re like just, ah, fuck it, next month I’ll book a ticket to. Sometimes it’s like that, but I do try to go with an idea of like, OK, I want to go here and then maybe into the winter I could go to here. So I try to have an idea like a year out because you don’t really want to end up in Mongolia and it’s December because then you can’t go anywhere unless you’re. Do you have all the freedom to decide or let’s say the Radavis might say, it would be cool if you do a trip in this place or. They’ve never. Yeah. Yeah. It’s just I go wherever I want. Yeah. I still have a mind of like, OK, what’s good? What’s good content? What’s what’s an interesting what are people going to enjoy? There’s some of that like there I could I could ride around Peru for my entire life, I feel like and enjoy. But I OK, at some point I should change to switch it up. For me, Spain. I also like in South America, but in South America, I didn’t I didn’t have the right setup for certain routes. I think I was suffering more like. Yeah. Well, for example, I stayed in Spain for so much that most of people are like you’re cycling around the world, but it’s like two years in Spain. Yeah, that’s me for real. You’re still cycling around the world. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I don’t know my my plan this year is to finally do the India, India and Pakistan and hopefully China. Are you are you going to change something on your bike setup? Yeah, I am using right now I’m using a tail fin, but I’m switching to there’s like a prototype rack that I’m going to use for that. Can we? Yeah. And then I’m I’m doing another I have a bags by bird goldback handlebar bag and I’m going to do one on the rear and I’m going to test out some mountain laurel designs. Do you know what’s the weight of your bike? And, you know, it’s yeah, it’s hard to hard to say only based on like weighing at the airport and like, OK, what is that way? But I don’t know what’s in my backpack. You know, it’s like, OK, in my bike box and then maybe if I add up my bike box and my like a duffel bag or something, usually I have to go. OK, that’s maybe close to 50 kilos. If you remove some of the stuff because it’s like, oh, the box weighs some. And, you know, OK, maybe that’s like 40 something kilos. And then my camera, the stuff I have in my bag is like heavy. My laptop, all that stuff is like in my bag. So a lot of the heaviest stuff. So my OK, I don’t know. I think I usually it’s like around 50, 55 kilos. I don’t really know. I’m not. Yeah, to be honest, I think it’s a. It’s probably more or less as mine. It’s just that I have all the weight in the front. But I think at the end of the day, it’s probably similar. Yeah, I think I mean, because I think I definitely have lighter photography gear, but I might. There’s always something. I think I think I have more clothes than you. Maybe you don’t have any mid-layer or something. I do. Yeah, but some of it’s from the last year, like got holes and stuff all over it. So I have yeah, I have a few jackets and I might actually I don’t have a fleece now. I got I got rid of that before it was like so high and I was like, why am I carrying this dumb thing like a fleece jumper? Yeah, I don’t have a fleece. I I used to like kind of soft shell jackets. Yeah. One that I use riding. Yeah. That is from Gore. And it’s like I think actually maybe it’s a running jacket. It’s not a second. I’m not sure. You know, they have the running R line running and the C line is like and it’s like a winter kind of jacket. And then I have one that I don’t even I bought it. It’s like maybe five, six years old from Patagonia. Yeah, it’s very light and it’s kind of wind resistant on some parts, but the back was not any other. I used to like a thing in a house in the winter and I put it on. I have those two. So usually I now because I’ve gone on and off having like some sort of like zip fleece, which is handy to have. But sometimes now I bring like I’ll just bring an extra like long sleeve merino as and then just layer it if I have to. If it’s like if I want to, I’ll just layer. But usually I feel like that I use that more often like because right now I think I have three long sleeve merinos and then I have this long sleeve some hoodie. So you have four. So I have four long sleeves and I have one like shirt like they’re like a day off t-shirt kind of thing. Yeah, I definitely bring a little bit more stuff. Yeah, I have two t-shirts. Sometimes in the summer it could be also three. It depends. It’s usually two, but at some point sometimes if I know that I’m going to stay a long time in a place where I have three. And yeah, sometimes some people give you a t-shirt or yeah. Yeah, I just usually wear the long sleeves all year. To be honest, I yeah, you and before I only carried the merino. I only added the t-shirt just like in the last year as a thing that I brought. But before I only had smart wool long sleeve. I just have like a bunch of those. Yeah, for example, then I cycle with the Shimano boots, but I have like some minimal shoes for days off. Yeah. I like to have another extra one. I just the first part of Europe the first maybe six, seven months. I only had one shoe. And I was like, oh, maybe I need another one. Yeah. Maybe I go on a date or something. Yeah. But I think that. When the Shimano boots were starting to have cracks and stuff. I cannot go to a date with this. But it’s also like they’re heavy if you walk around a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think generally like people on this type of ride, we all carry kind of somewhat similar. If you’re doing a long trip, you kind of need there’s a certain amount of things you need. It’s like you might have some differences here and there. But I think generally. Do you carry spares like the chain you don’t carry because your chain doesn’t break. I just have like a few links. Yeah. What spares do you bring of the bike? Cables or spokes? Cable, spokes. I have a spare. I have an extra tire. No, I don’t. Currently, I don’t usually, but I like to have one within. Because I’ve just had situations where, you know, in Ecuador, I had a problem with a tire and I wanted to get the same one. I was like, okay, eventually I’m going to get the same one. And I was having something shipped that I was supposed to review. So I was like, okay, cool. Just send a tire with it and I’ll just get to this town and wait for it. And then it took. They have some crazy rules about importing tires. And I sat there for three weeks in this town and Rio Bamba in Ecuador. And I was just like, it’s so annoying to not have one there. Because then I end up having to abandon it. Yeah, I had an extra one. Yeah, in the Americas, then once one guy in a paramo in Colombia, when they, the guerrillero, he was trying to stop me, but he was raining a lot. He had a pole on the rifle and trying to escape from that, I lost. So I had it since San Diego and I fucking lost it in Colombia. Yeah, you carried it the whole time. Only for the effort to carry this shit. And then I lose it. And then in Africa with the new bike, I was carrying one that was not an Obinic. It was a little bit more compact, but it was a 2. 8 tires. And yeah, I arrived in Turkey and back to Europe. I still had the same tire. Yeah, I’m not gonna carry more anymore. But it makes sense. There are times that he saved me in Argentina. But yeah, there are just times when, because sometimes you’re in a place, they don’t have, maybe you can find a tire that will fit, but it’s like, okay, it’s not tubeless, it’s not wide enough. I’m gonna want to replace this immediately and I’m gonna spend like 50 bucks on this tire. And then I’m gonna just be counting down the days until I get a new one. For example, me in Africa, I kind of planned in the middle of Uganda to have two replacement tires. So there was a French girl that was traveling from Europe and she was in the WhatsApp group of Cycling East in Africa. It’s like, anybody needs something? I was like, yeah, can you? And then I arrived like a year and a half later in a hostel and I picked up my, luckily they were still there. Yeah. Picked up my tires. Yeah, if you can. If you can have a place, that’s ideal. Or in South America, a lot of places you can send encomienda, which is nice. I was doing this a lot. I had a tire in South America the whole time, but after from Peru and I would just send it. You could just send encomienda to any city. You could say, hey, they put it on the bus and then they hold it for a month. And so you say, okay, in about a month I’ll be here. So I’ll get there and then you just, I take the package and be like, okay, now send it to me. Or you can give it to someone and when you’re arriving closer to the place, you say, can you do an encomienda? Yeah. Put it on the bus and when you arrive there, it’s just arrived. It doesn’t go lost. Yeah. I did a few times like this. Yeah. If you leave it for a month or something, sometimes it goes lost. Yeah. I didn’t have any problems, but yeah, I’m sure they, I’m sure stuff disappears. It’s always like, okay, maybe this never, I never see this again. I don’t put anything like real, you know. Well, tires get very pricey. The tires is pricey, but it’s like, okay, I don’t, yeah, I’m not, yeah. If I can’t live without it, then yeah, but. For example, I also carry like something like this. These are from Decathlon, two, three euros. Oh yeah. They’re very light, you know. Yeah. My sandals are heavy, but I can ride in them. So that’s the. These are, I just use them. Yeah. It’s more like I’m in someone’s house. I walk in these shoes. And I need to take a shower and the place is all wet. Or if you’re in a, like for me, yeah, some like hotel in Peru or something, you know, the shower sometimes is a little bit, I’m bringing the sandals into the shower, but yeah, it’s like. Yeah. Most people, I’m not getting some, some gnarly foot fungus off of this floor. I’m sure I did get some. Ryan, do you have a name for the bike? No, no name. Just, yeah, it’s just. So the bike is what brand? It’s a Tumbleweed Prospector. Do you want to go through a little bit of the specs? Yeah. You have a Jones bar. Jones bar. Yeah. Brooks cambium, that’s very dirty. I have, it’s the bike’s got a roll off, internal gear hub. 14 speeds, huh? 14 speeds. What else? The wheels are a prototype night composites, carbon and tires. I’m using Vittoria Mascals. Mascals 2. 6. Yeah. 2. 6. 27. 5. Yeah. And then bags. Yeah. We have the same frame bag. Yeah. For design design. Rock guys. Porcelain rocket, rock guys. 52 Hertz, I believe it’s called. And up front, I have a bags by Bird Goldback. This is the large, it’s like the tallest and widest. What do you usually put in this bag? This is usually this bag. Okay. Usually this is packed, it slots kind of right in there. And it’s got, inside of it has my laptop, which kind of sits right on the front. So it has a nice spot where nothing’s going to hit it. It also has my sleeping bag, my sleeping pad, some little odds and ends, hard drives, a couple of things like that. Do you always carry the fanny pack? How do you call it? Yeah, this is for my camera. So I have… The camera is always in there, yeah? Yeah, camera’s always in here. This is like a small video camera. And I have like my… Oh, you don’t need to take it out. My normal camera in here. And you don’t feel the weight, yeah? No, yeah. Yeah, after you get used to it, the first days you’ll be like, oh, this is a pain. And then eventually, I don’t know, something you adjust. And there are times where I literally check to make, because I don’t feel like the camera’s in it. To make sure it’s there. I’m like, oh, it’s a camera, did I leave it? So eventually, the weight just kind of disappears. And so then in the two bags in the front where there is the fork. Yeah, so usually this has my like water filter. And then I usually put some layers and stuff. So I can get through it fast. Like a jacket or something. Yeah, I can unclip jackets. Gloves, beanie. Gloves, beanie. All that stuff ends up here. This one is my tent. And then I can usually fit a couple of other little clothes, things that are on the top. That’s a Hyperlite Ultimate tent. So you have two stem bags with water bottles. Yeah, these are our shell from California. Water bottles. I have a little Jones Bar bag. The little bag, yeah. What do you keep in there? This is usually this small camera. Okay. Goes in here. And I put my, I have my down booties here, which keep it nice and cushioned. And then some other… Then you have two extra bottles, so you can carry two, three, four, five liters? This is like two and a half. Yeah, it’s around five here. And then I can, I have two empty frame bladders in the front. Bladders, yeah. And those let me, one is two and one’s a three liter. What else do you keep in the frame? Usually in the frame bag? In the frame bag, it has my tent poles. It has all my like repair kit. All of my, like any medical kind of supply things. Sometimes I have like my fuel, my alcohol for the alcohol stove is here. And then sometimes it’s like heavier food things. If I get like a can of something, I often just put it in here. I try not to put like all my food pretty much, usually goes in here. On the right pannier? Yeah, in this pannier, because I’m often laying the bike down. I put soft things here. What’s, what do you put in the other one? The other one is my normal clothes. Yeah, clothes and some other layers and stuff. And in this one, what do you put? This has like my pot and like my stove, cutting board, like cooking stuff. Cooking and food. Not so much food in here, but this is the, this is mostly going to be food usually. And then sometimes if there’s bulky or things, it’ll, it’ll go in there. I’m trying to think what else is in there. There’s, yeah, there’s some random. It’s like random. And on the, on this bag, top tube, what do you keep? This is like, I have my multi-tool. I have like a, you know, like a ratchet set. Yeah. Silica ratchet set. And just odds and ends tools, sunscreen. Sunscreen, yeah. Tire lever, some tool things. Do you have a pump? Yeah, the pump goes in the frame bag. Very good. Thank you so much for giving us a rundown of your, of your rig. It has been a long chat. I think we need to wrap it up because nobody in their right mind will stay through listening to two people talking about bike traveling and gear for like two hours. So thank you so much for the chat. We chatted now an hour or something here, but we chatted so, so many hours. The last 10 days you were here and it was a pleasure to have you here. It was a pleasure to meet you and maybe I’ll see you on the road somewhere else. Someday for sure. Hopefully by the time this goes live, you have your YouTube channel. So people go and look at Ryan’s YouTube channel. It’s going to be definitely better photography and more entertainment than my channel. You should, you should maybe unsubscribe to my channel and subscribe to his. If you don’t have enough bandwidth for two channels. But yeah, thank you for the chat and I’ll see you on the road man. Yeah, sounds good. Safe ride. You too. Ciao.

Cycling the world – Interviews / Talk: episode 08
While staying in Istanbul, I hosted fellow world bike traveller and regular Radavist author, Ryan Wilson. Instead of a vlog, we sat down for a casual podcast-style chat, exchanging wild stories from our bike journeys around the world, including some hair-raising moments in Colombia where we both had close calls. We also dive into gear talk, sharing our favourite equipment and setups. Check out Ryan’s adventures on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rmdub/

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