Project VELAIA

When do you start?

There are two starting dates. First, I’ll start in Germany at the Special Bikes Show 2007 in Germersheim April 28 + 29. This will mark my kilometer -700 or so. Then I’ll cycle to Paris where I will have my official start of my Paris to Peking trip right under the Eifel tower at 10 May. I’ve chosen this date because it’s in the middle of the dates of the other starters of the great Beijing to Paris 2007 Carfree rallye and because this seemed to give me enough time for both preparation and maybe even reaching Chine before winter.

How did you get involved with Beijing to Paris?

By pure fate! I happend to donate a one year subscription of the Carbusters Magazine to my sister when she got 18 and by that the drivers license. I thought that was a good compensation for her not to get too much into the motorists way of thinking and to open up far better alternatives for her. As we come from an car manufacturing area it’s normal for parents to pay the drivers license to their kids when they get 18 and many even bind their children to their first car by giving it to them to top it all of.

Are you riding solo?

I hope not! There’s one other rider doing the tour in the same direction but starting from Istanbul, as he cycled the Paris-Istanbul trip last year. He wants to start in Istanbul May 15th or so. We wanted to cycle together but don’t know whether the large time lag can be compensated some way.

Besides that I’m alway happy to cycle with others and with locals. So if you want to cycle with me (and are quite fit) or want me to participate in a local race or cycling tour/event that can in some way be combined with my tour, please please get in contact! I want to get to know (cycling) culture and that is cyclists and locals from all around the world!

How long do you plan to take for the whole trip?

I am planning with 100km / day and therefore about 220 days, so about 7 to 8 months. If I get problems with the weather (winter in Himalaya) or with bureaucracy it could take somewhat longer and I would even consider a more southern or northern route.

What do you want to do after the tour?

I’ve thought about continuing with physics at the university even though I’m tending to change to a more environmental study. It would also be great to get involved in environmental or bicycle activism through the tour and continue therewith after the tour. I’m also planing to learn at least French but maybe also some other languages. And of course I will continue touring (hiking, cycling, whatever!) around the planet as long as I can afford – I don’t want to work too much – Henry David Thoreau worked only for 60 days a year in 1850 – so why sould I work more with a tremendously increased productivity and therewith even destroy our beautiful planet further?

How do you finance the tour?

I primarily try to live with less. That is 5-10€ per day in Europe and in developed countries for food, internet, insurance, repair parts and 3-7€ per day in Asia for the same + visa. Many relatives and friends have offered me their help and I will use it if I need to – thanks! Especially my father, mother and sister support me. Thank you very much!

What about the toilets since Turkey?

No big deal!

When have you decided to continue?

The idea of continuing was already in my head before I actually started – it’s just the perfect time to do that kind of adventure, very likely a ‘once in my life’ chance. And during the tour it got more and more likely that I want to see more of this beautiful planet, this jewel that has been given to us.

Why have you changed to mountainbike?

First: I regret that I have changed! I will change back again. And here the reasons why I have changed:

• the publicity and curiosity of people since Central Asia and all through till Beijing was so big I often felt uncomfortable and annoyed alone on the recumbent – they were touching sensitive parts of the electronics, jumping on the bike while I was away … it was easier when I cycled with someone else
• the StreetMachine GT I had was too heavy – an estimated 20kg is not what an ultralight cyclist traveling at an average of over 100km/day even in bad terrain wants to invest too big proportions of his energy in to get it over steep and high mountains
• city cycling was not as much fun with the recumbent as with a normal bike – but only because of too many cars in the city! So it’s more like a problem with modern cities and the traffic planing in the same ones
• while riding you can’t “stand” like on the normal bike, e.g. when cycling uphill – just a bit less agility
• I planed to go more off-road, leave the main roads and start cycling trails – therefore a mountain bike with 26″ wheels

How many kilometers do you average per day?

That’s in fact a very frequent question. I used to average almost exactly 110km per day of riding with my recumbent, including the long and hard ride through Tibet. But on the new bike I take things a bit more relaxed and average maybe 50 to 70km per day of riding. Contributing to this recent laziness increase is also the new tent I got since New Zealand and the more exhausting position on the upright bicycle.

Do you use a wide angle lens or a wide angle converter lens?

I’m using a 18-200mm lens from Sigma and am so far really happy with it. It’s a really nice lens for traveling as you get a big range including wide angle. I got the tip from a book called “Digital Photography Vol. 2″ by Scott Kelby.

How do you do panorama photos…do use a special software….?

I have a software for Windows called Autopano PRO which automates a lot of processes in stitching a panorama image. I bet you can find a listing of the features online.

Additionally I had been using another free (of price) software called autostitch that also does a pretty good job.

These days I’m using a dirt slow iBook 600MHz with 640 MB of RAM and the stitching software that came with my Canon Digital Rebel XSi camera – the results are not what I’m hoping for and it takes ages to stitch a panorama – a really hard job! That’s probably why I”m not putting a lot of panos online any more, a fast notebook with decent processor would help a lot.

I’ve also read that the professional Adobe Photoshop software stitches panoramas but I’d call it an overkill to buy such a big and mighty software just for stitching panos.

And what camera are u using currently….?

Since San Diego I’ve been using a Canon Digital Rebel XSi. It’s a wonderful camera and allows me to set the theories and the knowledge about digital photography that I acquired through a lot of reading and testing as well as tips from other photographers I’ve met on my tour into practice.

My old 12x optical zoom Sony DSC-H5 is also a great camera but definitely came to its limits. My father is shooting with it these days (since South America).

The lens is the Sigma 18-200 mm with OS (image stabilization) for Canon EOS cameras.

Additionally I’m currently using a circular polarizer filter, a remote control, a pretty cheap travel tripod – that’s about it.

I want to use this possibility to say thanks to many individuals and organizations (from around the world) who’ve helped me a lot and who I have to credit good parts of my personal developement to. Sorry in advance for all the others I’ve forgotten – please forbear with me! Again the list is in no particular order:

• Personal
  • my family Verena, Martina and Elmar – you’ve withstood all my oddities (and survived ) – you can find my mother’s homepage under www.bpstherapie.de
  • my sister’s friend Andi for many rich in content conversations
  • my cycling and training fellow cyclist Adrian for thousands of shared kilometers and ideas
  • Simon and Paul and many other fellow physics students – have a great time and success in your studies
  • Rudi and Inge Vasek, they have been friends ever since I was a little boy and covered at least all my internet costs since the beginning of my tour – Inge prepares the best “Schwäbisch” food!
• People I met and know
  • Rob Thomson who has cycled a similar route and inspired me a lot
  • Olly Powell, the chief disorganizer of the great Beijing to Paris 2007 Carfree event
  • David Nestle and team from the ISET e.V. institute – I got many worthy insights during the time in Kassel
  • the very companionable team of the deZem GmbH in Berlin (Georg, Hanno, Sebastian)
  • Carl Georg Rasmussen, the inventor and builder of the Leitra velomobil, and Jürgen Eick
    
  • Simon, Maxi and Mathias for the great days we shared in Norway
  • Geir Ellingsen and the team and people of the VikingTour – one of the most beautiful cycling tours in the world!
  • Arne and Martin who I cycled with at the Viking Tour
  • many Norwegians who can’t wait to donate their maps to poor unoriented cyclists and who have often welcomed us warm-heartedly
  • Ulrich Lamm and other cyclists who have made radweit.de possible
• Important Organizations (and the people behind them)
  • Free Software Foundation
  • Robert Jungk Library
  • NABU, BUND, Greenpeace and all environmental organizations for raising awareness
  • the many open source developers and maintainers of countless projects (Linux kernel, Debian, Gentoo, (k)ubuntu, Gnome, KDE, Firefox, Thunderbird, gaim, …)
  • the developers of WordPress (core, themes, plugins)
  • the phenomenal team of WorldChanging.org
  • FoeBuD e.V. and the socially engaged people of the CCC e.V. for their great work in the area of civil rights
  • CouchSurfing.com project and the astounding community behind it
  • the great SomaFM.com internet radio station – spreading love and peace through music!
  • English as a second language podcast – the best English lessons ever!

I’m Daniel, I’m 21 years old (at the beginning of my tour), 1,83m high an weigh about 70kg. These are my interests, hobbies, habits and so on in the order of crossing my mind:

• cycling (mountainbiking, recumbents and velomobiles, cycling culture, cycling physics, commuting, …) – bicycle enthusiast
• hiking (in the Alps and the German Black Forest) and jogging
• reading (online and real books) and searching (the internet)
• renewable energies (mainly photovoltaics, solar thermal) and sustainability
• vegetarianism, alcohol-free and non-smoking advocate, of course CARFREE, mass media free with few exceptions
• environmentalism and creative and constructive solutions to environmental problems
• efficiency and sufficiency in everyday life and efficiency techniques
• philosophy (ancient Greek and Roman philosophers, transcendentalism, Thoreauvian, skeptics, discordianism), pacifism and physics, mathematics
• computers, open source and interactive models and modern tools, especially their social and societal implications
• cooking and baking (cakes)

Here’s a not biometrically suitable picture showing me on a downhill on the Rallarvejen, Norway

Daniel on HighWay 50, USA, by Randy Jorgen, Moab, UT

This is the website and travelogue of The Project VELAIA. 23 year old thinker, velosopher, environmentalist, photographer and outdoor adventurer Daniel N. Lang has decided to go around the world by recumbent and upright bicycle after finishing an epic journey of more than 17.000km from Paris to Beijing as a rider of the Beijing to Paris 2007 Carfree Rallye, following coastlines for hundreds of kilometers, crossing deserts during mid summer in the Middle East, Central Asia and China and climbing some of the highest passes of the world under extreme conditions in the starting Tibetan winter.Check the summary of the journey through Europe and Asia to see what happened so far.

You can follow Daniel on his tour and stay updated on the latest adventures on the travelogue and receive latest updates per e-mail (right sidebar). Every posting includes a selection of pictures and some include small video clips. For all the pictures check out the flickr-account and go to YouTube for the clips.

Additional to the latest travelogue entries you can get general information about the tour on this website – just browse around a bit. You will find subpages in the “Page Menu” on the right side of the page – more information to the category you´re browsing at the moment can be found there!

Walking the recumbent bike in Tibet

To stay in touch with friends and to make the journey more interesting for readers links to the homepage of other travelers met on the way will be provided in the sidebar.

I left Tashkent in the noon with some3 remaining diarrhea but the way to Angere was mainly flat and I rested for some time in the cooling shadow of a tree after having Tashkent left behind.

When I entered into the valley of Angere I saw this gigantic coal power station and it has not been the only one as another followed directly after the city of Angere, located next to a big coal mine under a dam which kept the water away. The air in the valley should therefore not be called air any more; the congestion was way too strong!

I spent the night under apple trees and found a way to hide my bicycle by putting the green biwak sack over it.

In Angere I changed another 10$ to SUm and began the long ascend to a 2400m pass where I was stopped by the military and have shown a card of Georg Gotzler, Schorsch, who had passed here just a few weeks earlier on his recumbent. The mountains on the uphill from Angere looked really bad as there were streets and even more streets in the building phase everywhere.

The downhill that followed endured for 70km but I stopped in between to get a meal which they wanted to get 4000 SUM for; I told them that I was willing to pay 2000 and gave them this sum – after 2 minutes of discussion they accepted and apologized for trying to cheat on me.

The remaining 200km to Osh were mostly flat and so I camped in the evening only 10km away from the border.

Crossing the border the next day was nearly hassle free and on the Kyrgyzs site I only got a stamp into the passport – I think the Uzbeks can learn quite a lot from the Kyrgyz

After changing some money I visited an internet cafe but realizing that the connection was too slow I didn’t upload the pictures I had taken but left for finding a place where I could get some sun cream. In a pharmacy thez sold me something that made my skin yellow but I didn’t want to risk a sun burn and used it only once. Instead I got sun cream from my friends, Goska and Herve from www.develotour.fr. I met them at the beginning of the uphill to a smaller 2406m pass just before Golcha and together we continued through the magnificent valleys.

In the evening just before it got dark we arrived at the pass and because of them speaking Russian we could spend the night in a yurt where we could even put our bikes inside! We had much fun and interesting conversations: Goska (28) is a environmental journalist and Herve (33) a teacher and studied glacierologist; both have already traveled a lot and Goska speaks 6 languages.

The next morning we continued together first on the downhill to Golcha and then along a river bed towards Taldyk pass. The street changed from pretty good to miserable and back from time to time. In the noon we met Nicola, a French guy who goes from KZ to Afghanistan by horse and we had a pretty long chat.

We continued and took a bath a few kilometers further where the horseman met us again and the two cyclists gave their water filter to him because his one had broken due to overusage in dirty Uzbek water.

The discussion with Nicola was really interesting and opened my eyes to another way of sustainable traveling and the logistical differences to my choice (and to the way Samuel from samu.cat is traveling) – he rides the horses for 35-45km a day and always has to provide enough water and food (grass mainly).

On the way up to the pass we had a one hour lasting race with 2 harvesters that were in our opinion in the completely wrong place as we couldn’t make out any fields that could be harvested.

The night was spent 200 meters away from a small restaurant over a river with a bridge that was not really latest bridge building technology but more like stone age coupled with old Soviet metal. In the restaurant we could get warm tea in the morning and evening and even toilet paper and bread were available.

On the next day we set the target to the 3615m high Taldyk pass and because I wanted to write my travelogue in an inspiring environment we agreed on me going my own speed.

The way up became steeper and steeper and I met some shephers and cowboys who brought down their animals for the winter that was not too far away any more.

Up on the pass it was too cold and windy to type anything on the keyboard and so I took out my Thermarest and sleeping bag and slept for an hour or two until the two French cyclists arrived.

Together we went down 200m and found a nice yurt to sleep in for the night.

The next morning should bring us to Sary Tash, but first I had my first puncture after more than 11000 km! But the hole was only small and so I only pumped up and we continued to Sary Tash.

There we met Claude and Nathalie from YakSite.org who got stolen during the night (the cycling shoes). Together we exchanged information and stories, had chai, cola and cookies and from Claude I got a replacement for my Marathon Plus (with more than 21000km lifetime), a Marathon XR.

We left Sary Tash and I decided to leave Goska and Herve and continue a bit faster towards the Chinese border. I pitched up my tent on 3500m that night and got some problems because the down sleeping bag touched the walls of the tent and lost some of its insulation function. So I got up early in the morning to get moving and therefore warm and took these wonderful pictures of the Pamirs and even managed to get me on the picture somehow (remember I only have a 10second timer!?).

After a Kyrgyz army post in the mountains the road got phenomenally good and so I arrived at the border during noon and had to wait 2,5 hours for the personel to come back – I changed my tire during that time and got my stuff dried.

The way out of Sydney was a long one: it took about 30km through the city to get to Manly. In between I stopped at a cycling shop to get a new handlebar bag for my camera – the old Ortlieb one was perfect to put around the headrest on the recumbent, but not really compatible with my new bike. I took a ferry from Palm Beach Wharf to Ettalong and made my way to The Entrance – a very touristic town with a big lake.

There were many pelicans there, probably because of the pelican feeding which is every day at 3:30pm in the harbor.

The next day started as the previous had ended: with rain. I cycled when the rain was not too heavy but in heavy showers I always tried to get a roof over my head and use the time for eating or reading my Lonely Planet Cycling Australia. Along the coast I was mostly following the “East Coast Explorer” route from the book which starts in Melbourne and ends at the Goldcoast – it often helps to avoid the – during summer holidays extremely filled – Pacific Highway and shows you some of the most beautiful places along the coast.

I passed the 6th biggest city of Australia, Newcastle, on the highway which I left in the evening for Karuah, a small and quiet village just a few kilometers beside. There I saw my first free kangaroos on a golf course but as I wanted to get closer they decided to jump away at an enormous speed.

And the night that followed was filled with a real annoyance: mossies (as many Australians call the mosquitos). I had to get into the long cloths as fast as possible, put an additional protection layer over so that they couldn’t penetrate, spray myself with mosquito spray and pitch the tent up while finding myself in a swarm of mossies! After jumping in the tent I had to kill dozens before I could record the events of the day on my mobile and try to sleep – all of this while being wet from 120km of cycling and the high humidity.

The mossies were gone in the morning and after creaming with SPF 30+ sunscreen I could start my day. Near Rosenthal I left the HWY and took a route closer to the beach that brought me to Booti Booti National Park and later in the afternoon to Forster – after 2 hours of cold and heavy showers.

Domino’s Pizza was the right thing to do to refuel and afterwards I went to a campsite which was already closed at that time. But with 3 surfers from Sydney I had a good time (first BBQ, later bread with nutella ) before leaving for a place to stay near the surfers live safe club just a few meters next to the campers.

And the day after I had seen my first kangaroos I got to see my first kangaroo roadkills – 2 of them actually Even though it was peak holiday season I found most of the beaches I went to completely empty, not a single human for kilometers! That was probably at least in parts due to the bad weather.

Riding on the highway or on mostly straight roads was boring and extremely exhausting due to the muscles that had been built back during the months on the recumbent bike. But also the hands are not used yet to carry big parts of the weight of the upper body for 6 to 8 hours a day. But the funny thing is that when I came into a national park with all the interesting animals, trees, smells and sounds (which can get extremely loud at some times) and sometimes nice dirt roads or tracks I totally forgot about the pain in the arms and hands and just flew through nature!

Whenever possible I tried to spend the night near the beach, so I could have dinner and breakfast in a breathtaking environment and enjoy the nightly sky whenever there were no clouds. Additionally the beach was often free of mosquito and you could meet people there.

In Port Macquarie there was a rock festival taking place and the town was really full of people. I took a ferry over the river and went on extremely dirty roads and tracks to Port Plomer.

Sometimes I had to go through small ponds filled with brown water and you couldn’t see the ground. So at my arrival in Crescent Head everything below my knees had been in the dirty brown water at least a dozen times and I had to get off the bike to push and/or pull it through deep sand several times.

In Port Plomer I met many friendly people, some of them very religious, others very relaxed surfers who invited me to near Point Plomer for the evening. But the show had to go on and therefore in the evening I continued to Gladstone and Smithtown where I slept just 2m away from the road on a just mowed lawn.

At 5:30am I started my day together with the sunrise. I arrived in Macksville at noon, had a small fruit lunch and continued to Nambucca Heads where I explored the town, cycled along the sand beach and met Debbie and Tracy in the evening, just a day after Debbies birthday party (should have cycled a bit faster .

The time with them and their funny dog was really pleasant and after an evening filled with interesting conversations I set out late in the morning at 9am. Early in the day I learned a new term: “waterwise” – waterwisdom will be very important not only for Australias future but for most parts of the world, a thing I have seen clearly in nearly every region I have visited so far!

In the noon I saw a newspaper headline in a news agency stating that scientists are expecting even higher water levels than before – a big deal for so many real estate owners along the Pacific coast in Australia I guess.

But with the scarcity of water comes the problem of bush fires which threatens many homes and people. Nature on the other side has gotten used to that over millions of years and I could spot black, burned trees which were still alive and wearing green leaves, recovering from the last fire!

An old man let me sleep in his garden for a night 10 km away from Grafton. Whenever I moved during the night the two quite shy but friendly dogs started to bark but never came close to the biwak

After passing Grafton the next morning I played for half an hour with two friendly dogs and wondered about a few extremely bird crowded trees in the middle of nowhere.

After catching a ferry to the other side of the river I cycled into Maclean, a small town with a long history and quite a Aboriginal population, and had to decide in the afternoon whether I could make it to Evans Head (still 50km away, but 50km progress) or make a detour of 30km to get to the beach for the night.

I decided to go for the progress option and arrived just in time for the sunset in the holiday village Evens Head even though I lost the 1l milk I head bought in Woodburn and had to cycle back 3km (6km more alltogether). In the night I cycled along the beach in the moonlight, testing whether I could do all the way to Ballina on sand. But after 7 to 8km the sand stopped and rocks destroyed my plan. So I got back 2km and pitched up the tent.

Arriving in Evans Head again I sat at the beach for some time, watching dolphins playing and surfing in the waves. In the village center I had breakfast.

I was really motivated to get to Byron Bay, the most eastern point of the Australian mainland, by afternoon to explore the town a bit and have some fun in the evening. I only had to cycle for about 3 hours and I was there.

First I went to the main beach, from there up to the highlight with its magnificent outlook and later down to the beach again where I had much fun with a few drummers from Italy (Milano) and a dancer from Morocco

In the night I went through the not so crowded parts of BB to find a place to sleep and fell down tiredly in my tent after I had built it up in a small park.

And on the 20th of December there were not many kilometers left to the Goldcoast. I arrived there in the noon and explored the coast a bit, meeting Zarko, an immigrant from Kroatia, watching the surfers and finally meeting Isa and Alfred again!

BTW: I did about 1050km mostly with tailwinds but not all flat. Longest distance was 136km, shortest about 70.