Tag Archives: equipment

Bicycle Touring

Day 74: R.I.P. Ipod

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Distance: 108,58 km Time: 5:32 Total distance: 3759 km

The last few cycling days I had some problems with my music. I thought that my headphones were broken because the music was not working all the time, so I changed the headphones (yes I brought 2 pairs,  in case one breaks). I thought it solved the problem, as it was better but then it happened with these too,  so I checked both headphones with my phone and they were alright. So my Ipod has problems with the jack-connector. For those who don’t know my relation to my music: it’s really bad when I don’t have my music. I always take my headphones everywhere and listen everywhere,  even when it is just a one minute walk, I take my music with me,  I even listen to music while I shower (I have a speaker with me). My love to music is also the reason why I brought two headphones. This morning then I was unable to ride some meters without the music going out… So I was without music. But I still have my smart phone. I downloaded the Google Music App, they offered me two month of free music. So I try it out and am downloading lots of music to have it offline while riding. Hopefully my battery will survive with my power bank.

So that happened all before I even git to breakfast. At breakfast I switched then my music to Google Music.

As I wrote some days ago that the climb back then would have been my last climb PROBABLY,  it is proven to be wrong. Right after Đà Nẵng is a 7 km tunnel,  which one I didn’t want to pass with the bicycle. The alternative was a pass which is at over 400 meters of altitude (Đà Nẵng is at sea level). So I had again a nice climb and afterwards a nice descent. On top there was even a UNESCO world heritage site,  where all the tourist buses stopped. As it was the top,  I stopped there too and had a coffee😀

Somewhere there in the mountains there is the pass

view down on Đà Nẵng

my coffee

Because the wind was blowing strong on the other side and I was wet from the climbing,  I decided to pack myself good in

The view on the other side

And then there was mainly just straight road till Hue mixed with some Drizzle.

The Ipod was not the only thing which nad problems today. My rear gear shifter was making problems. My gears were jumping around sometimes,  which makes it really hard to ride… After multiple adjustments it went better again. In Hue then I fixed it adjusted it correctly (hopefully).

I found a cyclist hotel. The owners are cyclists themself and the name of the hotel is “Hotel Cyclist” 😂

Tomorrow I will spend one day to visit some of the stuff here at Hue

Some more equipment of mine: My notebook. It was a gift from SAP XM where I wrote my bachelor thesis. I mostly just write down as log: my distance,  time,  total distance and total time of my road computer. Also some phone numbers of people are written down here who I met on the road and they wanted to write down their number. Or I use it to compare prices of hostels/hotels or flight tickets. Something I did in the beginning was writing down some kind of “golden rules” for my travel, but i don’t add any more after rule 6. Some of them I ignore completely now some I respect,  but I never think of them.

A page out of my logs. Sadly some water git into it today so on top there is a little place where water is…

Bicycle Touring

Day 64: close to raining

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Distance: 70,43 km Time: 4:21 Total distance: 3049 km

Today was a shorter route. I decided not to do the trip to Đă Lat,  as I was told Hue would be better to visit. Todays route was not only shorter but also cloudy, windy and therefore colder. I even changed my T-shirt to a long shirt as it was too cold. I always thought it would start to rain,  but it never did. For the rest I was just climbing to 900 meters to get down again to 700 meters. But it’s never a constant climb,  always up and down and up and down.







When the road gets steeper and there is a fully loaded truck,  then they sometimes roll slower than me 😀


I arrived early in Đăk Mil. I got a room,  packed my luggage out and then was told that I had to leave as the hotel was already full… But they showed me another hotel at the end of the town, not in front of the lake, but the same price.

I walked up and down the main street,  ate an ice cream and waved back to people who waved to me. I found a place where they had fried noodles. Eventually some people from another table joined me to improve a little bit their english. When they left, the girl from the restaurant joined me and invited me on a milk tea😀 We made some funny pictures together☺️


Tomorrow I will continue again on the highway. The highway splits into two roads. One of them passes the Cambodian border really close, that close that it is marked on the other side. I checked in the Internet  and found out in forum posts from 2015 that foreigners are not allowed on that road and send back from military. So I will take the other road.

So here is again some little bit of my equipment. Today I will present the stuff around my head:

  1. Of course my helmet,  I always wear it on my bicycle.
  2. This little funny thing on the upper left side of my face is a mirror attached to my helmet to look behind me. I am so used to it,  that when I am walking in the street,  where I don’t wear the helmet, I sometimes want to look behind me with the mirror, which isn’t there😂
  3. My glasses. Either the normal once or my sunglasses 😎
  4. On can not see them, but they are always there while riding,  my earplugs. For those underneath you who want to shout up and say it’s too dangerous: Shut up,  I hear everything around me,  I even hear people saying “hi” to me😂 So everything is save.
  5. Today because it was so cold,  I started to wear my Buff again around my throat.

Bicycle Touring

Day 55: Along the ocean

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Distance: 108,59 km Time: 5:40 Total distance: 2279 km

Again I begin my post with yesterday, as I went into a bar yesterday evening to enjoy one or two beer and then it happened,  a local family was invited me to drink some of their beers with them from the happy hour. The guys presented them self as Rom, Diamond and Lucky. They were all tuk tuk drivers 😂 (on the left side one can identify the reflections of the wheels of my bicycle😁)

They also had some food on them,  like chicken and this one:

These fried insects tasted really good (salty) and I didn’t have the feeling like I had one time on the road when one insect landed in my mouth while riding😂 These were very soft.

Today I started normally. At the beginning it was a little bit hilly but nothing really steep. After 20 km it got flat again for the rest of the day. The flat part began with rice fields which then got replaced by little fisher villages.

At the road I then thought: yeahh great a hill

But the road went over the hill in Cambodian style: going around😂

The first wreak I saw on the road

Finally one good shot of a water buff

20 km before I arrived I met 2 cyclists from Poland. First they were just interested in my bicycle and equipment and then the topic changed to where to find a good restaurant on the road. We separated quickly as they still had to do 60 km to Sihanoukville.

Now I am in Kampot,  another touristic city at the ocean of Cambodia.

Tomorrow I will cross the border to Vietnam😀

I once (pretty often) told myself on the bicycle to talk a little bit about my equipment. I still don’t know why I took this shot today of my handle bar,  but now I can talk about it. So from left to right: 

  1. A red buff,  I take it off to clean my face from sweat.
  2. My bell,  it’s useless here,  because they don’t know the sound,  and it’s not loud enough for them.
  3. My GPS,  telling me (most of the time)  where to go and how many kilometers remaining. It’s not always good to know how far you still have to go,  but I think otherwise I would never go so far. It’s fixed with a red cord in case it fells of because it’s not correctly fixed. It happened once to me on the road bike at 30 km/h back at home. It’s still working fine but I think it’s not really healthy for the GPS😂
  4. In the front: my handlebar bag (yeah it’s still there,  although I said it was broken,  it doesn’t look perfect,  bended to the front, but it’s okay, I think). It contains: My camera, notebook (not a laptop, but paper),  my sunglasses (when they are not on my nose), my phone,  power bank. On top there are paper cards of Nepal  (completely useless with GPS and smart phone). On the right side there is my little horn,  actually that one is really useful as bell because people and some animals are used to the sound and it’s louder. It also amuses people when I park my bike somewhere,  so I always know that somebody is looking after it☺️. The orange thing hanging down from the bag next to the fixation of the bag is from the juggling convention in Herxheim.  It was a frog with 4 legs,  now it only has 1 left😂 (hang in there froggy)
  5. My road computer,  telling speed,  distance, time on the road, average and total distance. Normally it’s set to maximum speed so that I don’t always see how less I went since I last checked,  which would be every few seconds,  if it would show the distance.
  6. A black sweat band. It hard to see on the handle but it’s the one I use the most on the road, because the buff is hard to get of and doesn’t really absorb that much sweat but it’s good when I want to clean my head when I don’t have my helmet on.