Montenegro - Cycle Trekkers

Welcome to our Cycle Touring Videos from our France to China cycle trip, Canada trip and other cycle trips. I hope you enjoy them. The photos and videos are shot on a GoPro Hero 2, a Lumix GF1 camera and an iphone SE.

Safe travels!

Kelly & Michael x

France to China by bike Cycle Touring Videos

Other Cycle Touring Videos

The Cycle Touring Videos

France to China by bike Cycle Touring Videos

France

This is where the journey began at Sty Foy ski station in the Alps! We were working a ski season in the French Alps, when Kelly was in a ski accident, and was no longer able to ski, run, walk, or do anything, except cook and eat. The doctor advised her, that cycling would be good rehab for the knee… and so, with that, the idea of cycling to China was born. With absolutely no experience, next to no planning, and several injuries, we headed off – feeling… confident! Lucky for us the first few days were all down hill, followed by the rest of the week conquering 2 mountains passes. Read more about our cycle trip through France.

Italy

When we made it to Italy, we knew that we would be able to make it the whole way to China – despite what others thought. This was the first country we cycle the whole way across. Read more about our cycle across Italy.

The first 5000km from France to China

Unfortunately, we lost all our original video footage from the first half of our trip. This happened at some point during the trip, but we didn’t realise until we got home, and by this time it was too late to do much about it. We did however manage to retrieve this video about the first 5000km cycling through France, Italy, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Greece, Turkey and Iran. Click on the country name to read more about our cycle trip through those countries.

Iran

We didn’t know what to expect when cycling through Iran, but as soon as we crossed the border from Turkey, we were welcomed by friendly and extremely generous people. A day didn’t go by where we weren’t given gifts of fresh fruit, water, smiles and waves. One of the hottest, but also one of my favourite countries on the cycle trip.

Turkmenistan & Uzbekistan

We were only able to get a 5 day transit visa for Turkmenistan, which meant 5 days to cycle 600km across a very hot desert on a very bad road. Luckily, we made it to the border in time. After Turkmenistan was Uzbekistan. The most challenging country during our cycle trip. Bad roads, injured dogs, boring scenery, a killer headwind, but some amazing people. Read more about our adventures in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

Kyrgyzstan & Kazakhstan

When we arrived into Kyrgyzstan we were greeted with smooth highways, beautiful scenery and lots of cows, oh and mountains. We made it to Bishkek, and then from there cycled into the last Stan of the trip, Kazakhstan. Read more about our adventures in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan & China

The last few days cycling in Kazakhstan were cold! We were looking forward to getting to China and exchanging our bikes for backpacks. The cycle into China was easy, however the bad pollution lead us to hitchhike to Urumqi. Once in Urumqi we sold the bikes, and made our way to Beijing as backpackers. Read more about our China experience.

A Day in the Life of a Cycle Tourist

Ever wonder what it’s like to be a cycling nomad? This video gives a glimpse into the life of a cycle tourist, while we cycled through the Kazakh desert, during our France to China cycle trip.

Other Cycle Touring Videos

Canada

The cycle journey started on 27th June 2016 in Vancouver, British Columbia. We then spent the next 3.5 months cycling 7000km across Canada to Halifax. The cycle trip took us through the Rocky Mountains, the Prairie lands, the lake lands of Ontario, French Canada and finally the Maritimes.

Click here to read about our cycle trip across Canada.

Snapshot Canada: every 100km across Canada

We decided to take a photo every 100km that we cycled across Canada. The idea was to put the photos together as a slide show in the hope that it will give a perspective of how the Canadian landscape changes coast to coast. I think it definitely puts the prairies and also Ontario into perspective in terms of distance. The road quality also changes drastically. In total we cycled 7000km across the country.

Farewell Canada: Cycling Canada to the USA

After spending the winter in Halifax, we were ready to start the next leg of our cycle trip, cycling to the US! This video is about our last week in Canada, cycling from Halifax to the US border.

Cycling the USA

Michael and I, entered the USA in Maine, then headed down the coast to Boston. We spent about 3 weeks cycling in New England, before heading West to New York state. From there we had a ‘slight’ change in plan!

Cycling Nicaragua

We spent 6 weeks cycling around Nicaragua in Central America, during the wet season. Friendly people, awesome beaches and some surprisingly cycle-friendly paths and roads.

We left Dubrovnik with the aim to reach Herceg Novi in Montenegro. We were excited to be cycling Montenegro, assuming we would be leaving the tourists and their buses behind. It turns out that Montenegro is just as touristy as Croatia. So we still had to share the roads with a hundred tour buses.

Once arriving in Herceg Novi, we decided it was time to find a wild camping spot. Unfortunately the bay area was a lot more developed than we anticipated and the further we got towards Kotor Bay, the less likely it seemed we were going to find a suitable wild camping spot. We asked to camp at one gas station, they neither agreed or disagreed. We decided they didn’t seem to happy about our presence, and ventured on. Eventurally we came across a camping site, and decided, with the dark stormy clouds closing in, instead of pushing on, it was best to stop for the night.

Kotor Bay and the Old City

The following day was supposed to be an easy day of cycling around the breathtaking, Kotor Bay to the Old City of Kotor. It was something we had both being looking forward to. We wanted to take it slow and enjoy the scenry. After about 5km we got the first puncture of the trip… or rather the first 3 punctures of the trip.

1 hour 20 minutes later we had fixed the puncture, the sun had gone, the rain had started, and we were soaked, but we were back on the road… for about 30 minutes, then the tyre started to deflate again! Wet and frustrated, we stopped at a very souviet looking café bar for a coffee, to rethink a new plan. There was a particularly cheap guesthouse only 10km away, we decided to reinflate the tyre and head there for the night…. making the day the shortest cycle day of the trip so far, covering a total of about 25km.

The guesthouse didn’t have the most central location, with no nearby supermarkets or restaurants, but it did have an amazing view of the Bay.

The following day was sunny

We continued around the bay, and finally made it to the old town in Kotor (along with the hundred tourist buses with hundreds of tourists). Kotor is probably one of my favorite ancient towns of the trip so far, unfortunately we had our bikes and all our gear with us, so we couldn’t walk the old town walls, but we did push our bikes around the town, and enjoyed some cheap coffee.

We had a few hours in the town before it was time to set off for Budva, where we were staying with the first couchsurfer of the trip, Justine. We spent a few days chilling out in beautiful Budva, with beautiful weather, yummy pizza and great company, before continuing on cycling Montenegro.

From Budva we headed further south along the coast to Bar.

It was unexpectedly hilly, and very hot compared to our other cycle days (late 20’s – I’m sure my Aussie friends will laugh at that). We heard about a “short-cut” inland to the Albania border crossing from Bar, and though the road was a bit narrower, and started off with a steep incline, the cycle along the road was amazing. Minimal traffic, good views, relatively good road. After a couple of days cycling Montenegro on good roads, we eventually made it to the Albanian border. From then onwards, “hello roads with pot holes and mud“.

Cycling Montenegro stats:

Accommodation: 1 night in an “official” campsite, 1 night in a guesthouse, 2 nights couchsurfing, 1 night wild-camping

Kilometers cycled in Montenegro: 130km (“mas o menos”)

Total kilometers: will have to double check… around 1500km (maybe)

Total days in Montenegro: 7 days (5 nights)

Total days cycling: 30 days

Average spendings per day: 14 euros (“mas or menos”)

Puncture tally: 3 (Michael) – 0 (Kelly)

Category: Montenegro

Cycle Touring Videos