Conclusions on My Journey

I am now back in Miami where I am reflecting on the past six months. I spent these months in the countries of Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. I biked most of Colombia and Ecuador. I bused mostly in Peru. I hit two bucket list items(Galapagos and Machu Picchu). I am in much better shape today than when I left. I am pretty happy that I did this trip, but I learned a lot that would cause me to do this differently in the future.  I also did not reach my original goal of biking to Ushuaia, Argentina.

What I learned about biking long distances?

1. Colombia and Ecuador are very good for biking. In both countries, roads are good. In Ecuador, roads are very good; most of them being new with adequate shoulders for separating bicycles from cars. There are lodging options close enough that a biker will have options available. In Colombia, I struggled only one time with a distance that was too great. Similarly in Ecuador, I struggled on only one leg to reach a city due to the distance. Distances are greater in Ecuador between cities, but still reasonably close.
2. Peru is not meant for bicycling in my opinion. Distances between towns are often too great to reach in one days biking. There is a lot of desert. Some of the mountain passes are at an elevations in excess of 4,500 meters. Roads often do not have adequate shoulder for biking along side Peruvian drivers. Finally, bicyclists have been robbed a number of times around the cities of northern Peru. In my opinion, Peru would be very good for motorcycling. A motorcycle could handle all of the issues above, plus there were a number of locations where it looked like you could just take off up the side of a mountain on a motorcycle.
3. I cannot understate the importance of riding light. I carried too much stuff with me; even as I paired things down. I brought a full size computer thinking I would do some work on the road (I didn't). Even my last ride when I left many of my things in the hotel, I wished I was just a bit lighter on the bike.
4. Travel/biking are sometimes competing goals. I believe I could have made it to Ushuaia, Argentina, if I had simply focused on the biking and cut out a number of tourist destinations. I am satisfied that I made good choices for me. I can think of a few places that I could have cut out or at least shortened, but not enough for me to have made up three countries in distance. Additionally, if I left these places out, I would have been left wondering if I made the right decision.

So, how will I bike in the future?

1. I will pick shorter bike distances. I think it must be very difficult to find good bike routes across entire continents. Although, I did talk with one biker who went from Amsterdam to Rome. He said that there were pretty good routes the entire distance. So, I may need to do that ride sometime. So, I think future rides will be anywhere from two to six weeks.
2. I will pick rides where the ride coincides almost directly with some places that I want to see from a tourist perspective; thus, I will not plan to do much beyond riding to destinations and visiting the destinations themselves.
3. I will ride with a minimalist gear perspective. This includes not carrying spare gear and choosing equipment that can readily be replaced in the locale where I am biking. I will probably also use just a phone instead of carrying a larger device like a laptop or tablet.
4. I will consider doing supported bike rides to further reduce the carrying weight on the bike.

So where will I bike?

1. I still need to bike Bolivia, Southern Chile and Southern Argentina.
2. I would like to do the Amsterdam to Rome ride.
3. I have heard the Camino de Santiago from Spain to France is a great bike ride.
4. I would like to check out southeast Europe; from Austria to Greece.
5. Actually, there are a lot of other places I would like to ride; just need the time.