As of this moment, I’d stack them up against any men in the Army.
The Dirty Dozen (1967)
I had planned to keep my blog alive this summer with the occasional guest post from some friends and cyclists I follow but instead went for an easy option for them (and therefore got some co-operations).
I’ve asked a dozen( more of a baker’s dozen or even a Shane’s dozen) of the cyclists I’ve followed or met in recent years to share their favorite blog post from their own website/blog. The irony and amusing part is the posts they’ve chosen are different to the ones I’d expected or the ones I would have chosen. Therefore its an interesting mix.
- Johann Rissik Johann is special, not strawberry flavoured school bus window special but a nice guy and great friend since I met him in South Africa via warmshowers.org. His favorite is Gamkaskloof and Die Leer
- Ken McCallum One of those nice guys in life. He recently spent a couple of years cycling through Africa and helping out at various projects along the way. I was fortunate enough to cycle for a week with him through Zambia. His favorite is 2nd Jerusalem, Mount Sinai & New Flower
- Friedel of Travellingtwo: a popular cycle touring site built up during and since their round the world trip, Friedel shares an important Karma lesson in The day we almost died
- Peter Gostelow I’ve followed most of Pete’s 80,000km of cycle touring in recent years and was also lucky enough to meet up with him in Africa for a few days on the banks of the Zanbezi in his blog post Hold ups : Entering DRC he shares a very steriotypical African border crossing, lucky all of mine went alot smoother.
- Helen Lloyd : I’ve followed Helen since she took on Africa and recently cycled 3 weeks with her in wintery Lapland, her favorite is Poetic Procrastination
- Sjirk Meijer I followed Sjirks 22,000km trip from The Netherlands to SE Asia in 2010 with great interest, his favorite post from that trip is Xining – Hotan -> Chargilik Luckily 30% of my readers are Dutch so some will be able to read this story 🙂
- Mirjam Wouters Is a Dutch cycle nomad that has now been on the road for years, warming up with a ride from The Netherlands to Australia before zig zagging across oz for a couple of years and is now heading North to Asia via New Zealand. (Mirjam is actually cycling right now so hasn’t got back to me yet with a favorite)
- Paul Morris : After a couple of decades trauma from his part in the Angola war and a couple of years bureaucracy Paul was finally able to cycle in Angola to confront and put to rest his demons. His favorite update from his 1500km cycling through Angola is The kind and the curious
- Eleanor Moseman : Love her, hate her, she usually manages to hit the nail on the head with her no bullshit, knocking heads together approach to life. So…you’re considering becoming a selfish jerk?
- Steven Primrose-Smith Steven is in the finishing stages of a three year project to cycle to all 50 captial cities in Europe while doing 2 open university degrees. He too has a blunt an amusing outlook on life Baptise Me, Lord, And See My Nipples
- Fearghal O’Nuallain I’ve followed Ferg since watching his RTW highlights video on Vimeo, apart from cycling around the world, walking across Rwanda and other non-sense, he’s a quiet boy. Walking Rwanda
- Lars Bengtsson Sadly (Swedish) Lars ( I follow a Dutch Lars and a Swedish Lars, I give them both a prefix for obvious reasons, in the future I could go short hand and call them Lars 2 and Lars 1.5 for reasons that become apparent later in this post) Lars is too lazy to write in English and doesn’t really blog. Instead he chooses a post trip write up. Though in Swedish with a combination of google translate and photos his trips are an interesting read. His favorite cycle trip was with 50 days worth of food and 3 first ascents in remote China is impressive to say the least…. A winter in Asia
- Amaya Williams of World Biking Anyone googling cycle touring won’t miss their website, on a mission to cycle every country on the planet, here is one of their favourites : Humbled by the Andes
(Dutch)Lars de Wit: Lars is in my eyes one of those people that is a true traveller and adventurer. He has done some amazing trips, and each time goes back to work just long enough to gather cash for his next trip, while at home living a frugal and quiet life. He refuses to have a blog and hates facebook, but luckily since 2003 has been talked into giving updates on his trips via messages on the popular Dutch cycling forum De wereldfietser. His amusing and always positive look on life is always a pleasure to read, as is his dodgy English 🙂 ……His most recent trips include Lars Goes Australia’s in 2007 , Lars goes Latin (America) 2009, Yes I am, cycling to Cape Town 2010
Sadly during his recent trip : Lars’ Revanche in the Andes he faced his ultimate challenge. With his permission I’ve copied his text 1. As it is a truly heroic story, 2. As a warning to other cyclists and campers not to make the same stupid mistake. In theory it is common knowledge and common sense that you don’t camp in a dry river bed. But we’ve all done it……
BE WARNED!!!
“50 km before San Pedro de Atacama I pitched my tent in a dry riverbed.
I didn´t think further, simple as that.
( later I heard there’s only 20 mm of rainfall a year, normally )
This night was going to be far beyond normal …..
When I was reading, after dinner, in my tent, I heard noise, a rumbling noise and I felt the ground moving a little bit, like with an earthquake.
I was thinking at first maybe a truck passing by but the sound stayed.
So I looked out of my tent and was shocked at what I saw, the right side of the former dry river, there was a very strong and fast movement of water, mud and stones.
Oh boy, no good I thought, I have to get out of here and started like crazy to pack my bags. But halfway the water was already under my tent so I left my tent, first saved my bike by bringing it to a higher part in the riverbed ( later it was found there, if only I would have stayed there too but no …. ) got back to my tent for my bags, grabbed 4 of them, waded through ankle deep water to the higher parts where my bike lay down safe and then tried to cross the enormous stream, with my bags, to the other side ( only 6 meters ) but you already guessed, I guess, The water / mud grabbed me…
So I was dragged down the river and looked death into his eyes.
I tried to stay flat and breathe but sometimes was dragged under for several seconds, spinning around.
At one point I thought, ok, maybe I will not survive this and die. Fine…..But if I have something to say NOT by drowning.
That seemed such a bad way to go.
So I fought and fought, mud in my eyes, ears, mouth, even lungs ( later I coughed some little stones up ) and managed to keep above.
After 2 or 3 horrible kilometers like that I finally managed to crawl to the land and lay down.
Now, in the water I allready had seen my right leg in a strange angle.
Heavily broken.
In the water I lost my glasses so I could´t see.
Dark.
Raining a little.
So cold.
Not knowing where to go ( and how, I couldn´t walk ! )
Some lights around me, far far away …
So I just lay there and wanted to die, I didn´t see other solutions anymore …
But it was so cold and I thought of my family.
I thought, no Lars, you cannot do that to them, maybe they will never find you here and that uncertainty, I just couldn´t do that to them.
I guess my love for my family saved me…
So I started to crawl , sort of following the river.
500m crawling and then lay down for a while.
500m more
and so on, and so on.
With a severely broken leg, on bare hands and bare knees, through a sandy, rocky area.
Oh it was so painful.
Later I found out I crawled for 7 hours until finally police found me ( well, I was crawling to their patrol car lights ) and I was saved.
But unfortunately they cannot save my leg.
Greetings Lars”
Lars spent the coming months in a hospital in Chili having several operations to try and fix the multiple fractures in his ankle and to clean out all the wounds. Sadly he ended up with a nasty bacterial infection that resulted in the removal of a couple of toes, later amputation just below the knee then another one at the knee.
Now back in the Netherlands he’s on the road to recovery and still his amazing positive self, now working on walking again and with plans to cycle again as soon as possible. As an insight to his frame of mind he recently posted an update of ” my release date from hospital is getting closer, as is the end of my leg (they took another 6″ off yesterday).”
Lars I take my sweat stained, dust filled hat off to your courage and determination……..
For those interested, this is how a flash flood goes…..
Update 2016:
I’ve once again met up with Lars for a few beers and he’s doing amazing. He’s now walking normally and without a walking stick on his newest bionic leg. Does a full time voluntary job at an animal shelter. Last year cycled in America and plans to head to Spain soon to cycle in the mountains. The crazy thing is, despite only having 1 and 1/4 leg, and hardly travelling light he still aims to cycle around 100km a day, just like the old days…
MY HERO!!!
The human body is an amazing thing when backed up by an amazing mind.
Exalted company !
Wow I didn’t know this about Lars.. I cycled with him for a couple of weeks through the Western Sahara & Mauritania.. So sad to hear this…
Other than that, nice blogpost. Got some new blogs to discover !
WOW… What a story from Lars. Jedi Bicycle Warrior!
Thanks Shane for the new Bicycle Warriors I to can follow.
What a story and what an assertiveness…impressive! You might want to share with Lars the website http://www.freeandunlimited.be from Ludo Linden, a Belgium cyclist who I met in Cambodia and has cycled more than 33.000 km in the last 2.5 years with 1 artificial leg. Truly amazing!
Johan
You might also like to take a peek at Phil’s travels. I’d met him in New Zealand after his cycle from the UK.
Now he’s up through Latin America – http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/11513
I’m really sad to know about Lar’s… We meet together just almost 2 years ago and he was very impressive and we share some wine and stories 🙂
Good luck and our best wishes !!!
Davi Marski – Brasil
alguem saber alguma novidade sobre LARS
I met lars in Namibia, on horrible gravel road. He is really amazing