Cycle Touring Videos

Cycle Touring Videos

 

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

  1. France
  2. Italy
  3. The first 5000km (France to Iran)
  4. Iran
  5. Turkmenistan & Uzbekistan
  6. Kyrgyzstan & Kazakhstan
  7. Kazakhstan & China
  8. A Day in the Life of a Cycle Tourist

Other Cycle Touring Videos

  1. Canada
  2. Snapshot Canada: every 100km across Canada
  3. Farewell Canada
  4. Cycling the USA
  5. Cycling Nicaragua

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 FranceItalyCroatiaMontenegroAlbaniaMacedoniaGreeceTurkey 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.

 

Cycling Macedonia

Cycling Macedonia

What can I say about cycling Macedonia? Well, Macedonia is probably is my favourite country that we’ve cycled through, so far. The roads are good, the drivers are courteous, the scenery is amazing and it’s super cheap.

We arrived in Macedonia on the beautiful Lake Ohrid.

Exhausted, wet and dehydrated. It was quite late in the evening and it was still raining. So we decided to treat ourselves to a hostel, instead of camping. We stayed not too far from Ohrid Town, which is a bit of a tourist trap, but still beautiful. It is also cheap and yummy ice cream can be bought everywhere. Since starting this cycle tour my life has started to revolve even more around food, so the ice cream point is very important. As is discovering yummy cheap bureks for 50c each and the cheapest supermarket I’ve entered since Latin America. Michael is struggling to keep on weight (I’m unfortunately not having the same problem). So I’ve been trying to fatten Michael up again – on a small budget. So Macedonia is perfect!

In total we spent 4 nights on Lake Ohrid. It wasn’t quite hot enough to get in the water. We’ve been followed by shitty, wet, stormy weather since we left the Alps, and this continued into Macedonia. Fortunately, there were a couple of clear, blue-sky days, and got to witness an amazing sunset from Ohrid’s Old Town.

Michael treated me to a spa package at a hotel on the lake, for my birthday. So, after relaxing for the day/night, we woke up early, made the most of the breakfast buffet, and hit the road again.

Cycling Macedonia
Lake Ohrid from the pass

Taking the road less traveled

Most people would try and take the most direct route to the next destination – not us. We decided, very last minute (even though it was forecasted to rain, again), to take the longer and more mountainous route, through Galichica National Park. The route included a 2000m pass from Lake Ohrid to Lake Prespa. It was going to be a tough day.

The roads were quiet and the views were amazing. For once, we were also blessed with perfect weather, and managed to make it to our “official” wild camping spot before the rain started. The detour added about 30km and 2000m onto the trip, but it was well worth. We arrived into Bitola the following day, knackered but feeling accomplished.

Cycling Macedonia
Loving the hills on the way up the pass

Onwards to Greece

Bitola was our last stop in Macedonia before crossing the border into Greece. We checked into a hostel, as it’s usually difficult to find wild camping spots in cities. Then chilled out for the rest of the day. Just as the rain caught up with us.

The following day we attempted to get an early start. We had decided to take an 300km detour to visit Meteora, because we were told by a few people that it was cool. Our early start, turned into a late start. Sometimes things just don’t go the way you plan! We did however, eventually make it out of Macedonia and into our 7th country, Greece.

Cycling Macedonia
Switch back (just part of the climb)

A few stats from cycling Macedonia:

Accommodation: 4 nights in a hostel, 1 night in a hotel (for my birthday), 1 night wild camping in the National Park

Kilometers cycled in Macedonia: 140km

Total kilometers: 1800km

Days in Macedonia: 7 days (6 nights)

Total days cycling: 42 days

Average spendings per day: 10 Euros

Beautiful Sunsets: 3

Puncture tally: 4 (Michael) – 0 (Kelly)