Here’s a short list of the most common touring bikes we’ve come across on our world cycle tour.   You’ll also find links to reviews of expedition touring bicycles and the low-down on who rides what in the world of long-distance bicycle touring.

Thorn Touring Bikes

If you meet a cycle tourist from the U.K., 90% of the time he or she will be riding a Thorn.  These bikes have got a solid track record and Brits swear by them.

Check Bike Radar’s excellent review of the Thorn Raven for complete information on the Thorn’s components and handling.

Below are reviews of Thorn Touring Bicycles written by experienced cycle tourists:

• Helen Lloyd’s review of the Thorn Raven after 16,300 kilometers cycling through Africa.
• The team from A Bike Journey’s review of the Thorn Raven Tour after cycling 18,000 kilometers from the U.K. to Australia.
• Peter Gostelows’s review of the Thorn Raven Tour after pedaling 30,000 kilometers through Africa.
• The team from Pedalling About’s review of the Thorn Nomad after cycling through South America.

Other notable cyclists who ride Thorn Touring Bikes include Loretta Henderson of Skalatitude and Julian Bloomer of The Slow Way Home.

Surly Touring Bikes

North American cyclists favor the Surly.  One reason is the attractive price tag.   For a little over $1,000, you can get outfitted with a basic Surly Long Haul Trucker.  A Koga or a Thorn could run you more than twice as much.

You can find several  honest reviews of the Long Haul Trucker on the REI website.

On Road Bike Review, the Surly Long Haul Trucker received an average rating of 4.56/5 in 32 reviews.

Notable cyclists who ride Surlys include Harriet and Neil of Pikes on Bikes, Tara and Tyler of Going Slowly, Chris Roach of the Cycling Strongman (who has been riding a Surly Troll for the past 45,000 kilometers as he circumnavigates the planet) and the three Berg Brothers from Bound South who rode most of the way from Alaska to Argentina on Surly Trolls.

Koga Touring Bikes

The Koga World Traveller tends to be favored by Northern Europeans and the Dutch (naturally) since these quality touring bikes are hand built in the Netherlands.

Bike Radar gave the new Signature World Traveller a stellar review with Cycling Plus magazine’s product editor Simon Withers awarding the Koga  a 9/10 rating for the frame, handling and equipment and an 8/10 for the wheels.

Nicolai Bangsgaard cycled more than 62,000 kilometers around the world on a Koga, Mark Beaumont rode a Koga on his world record breaking ride around the world and Grace Johnson and Paul Jeurissen of Bicycling Around the World are riding Kogas as they cycle the world in search of inspiring bicycle touring images.

My reliable Koga World Traveller has been with me for more than 110,000 kilometers on five continents.

Santos Touring Bikes

Santos touring bikes have been gaining popularity in recent years.  In a review of the Santos Travel Master, Bike Radar described it as, “an extremely capable tourer, with superb attention to detail and a wealth of build options.”

Steve Fabes of Cycling the Six is bucking the trend for British cyclists and riding a Santos Travelmaster2.6 Cromo Rohloff.

Fellow Brit Sarah Outen is also riding a Santos on her London2London via the World bike and boat adventure, Ollie Broom rode a Santos on his 14 month, 25,000 kilometer ride from London to Brisbane and Friedel and Andrew of Travelling Two are now riding on Santos Bikes.

One man who’s taken them all out for a spin

Cass Gilbert of While out Riding has toured on a Santos Travel Master, a Thorn Sterling and most recently a Surly Troll.  He discusses the pros and cons of each touring bike here.

And this one’s a real ride around the world.

Julian Bloomer set off from Ireland in July 2008 to cycle to Cape Town.  Somewhere between Benin and Botswana, he became captivated with the idea of cycling each of the continents.  After his ride through Africa, Julian set off cycling through South America and he still hasn’t stopped spinning his wheels.

In 2010, his tour changed dramatically when he met Ellie Beck who was backpacking through Bolivia at the time.  Ellie traded in her backpack for a bicycle and the two have been cycle touring together ever since.

The duo is currently riding through Southeast Asia.

Julian’s blog posts  give you great insight into the daily life of a cycle tourist and often focus on broader social and political issues in the countries in which he is travelling.

Here’s a recent snippet from Thailand:

We arrived groggily back to the mainland on the night boat to Surat Thani, stumbling onto a deserted pier at 4.30 a.m. and setting off through the city while the monks collected their alms. In a couple of days we crossed the peninsula to the west side and the Andaman Sea. Through tropical cash crop plantations of rubber, coconut and palm oil. The sweaty grind being rewarded with friendly locals and fiery curries. Sitting outside the market in the village of Thap Put, our German friend Patrick rolled up and we camped together in a nearby temple where the monks gave us a couple of wooden cabins for the evening to lay down as well as presents from their morning’s alms including mineral water and soya milk. We chatted in the dark while the rain fell and woke up at 5 am with the morning’s prayers being broadcast on loudspeaker. As we handed over a small donation, we were given rice desserts, sandwiches and tea to take with us. And south we went. Patrick said goodbye for the third time in a few weeks as a rain cloud burst overhead as he headed to the climbing mecca of Railey and Ellie and I rode past the forested limestone outcrops into Krabi for day’s rest before continuing on over the Malaysian border in a few days time.

There’s still much more to come as Julian and Ellie take on Central Asia before riding back to Europe.  Follow along at:  theslowwayhome.blogspot.com/

Tom and Matt’s Road Less Travelled website goes far beyond your average run-of-the-mill bicycle touring blog.  These creative geniuses have truly taken the art of documenting a journey by bicycle to the next level.  The photography is stunning and inventive and the team’s videos truly capture the essence of cycle touring.

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The writing is both reflective and insightful as well as humorous and even downright hilarious at times.   Here’s a snippet from their bike touring days in Ethiopia:

I get smiles and screams from small children who run streaming from their homes into the road, a tip of the hat from an old man sitting in the shade, shy smiles from a group of girls on the way home from school, pumping thumbs up into the air from young shepherd boys, gossiping cackles from older women laden with plastic containers of water who respond gleefully to my bumbling attempts at Ahmaric (Ethiopia’s unique language with its own alphabet).

These events are precious to me because they are sudden and spontaneous, unique moments in time which I share with someone I will most likely never see again and who’s understanding of the world may be completely different to my own. We, who know nothing about each other, create, for a fleeting moment, a mini-bond that we both understand and appreciate. What an amazing prospect: that people from completely different cultures, races, societies, lifestyles, everything, can still genuinely share a moment together. Without wanting to ideologically extrapolate too much, consider what this means about a common humanity or global social contract. What a nice warm sixties feeling!

If that’s not enough to satiate your appetite for bike touring inspiration, pop on over to their Spices and Spandex section for some ideas on how to give your camp stove cooking some flare.

I just can’t say enough about this site’s many merits.

You’d better pop over there yourself and join in the fun as Tom and Matt spin their wheels towards South Africa.

The couple plunged into cycle touring by riding the infamously challenging ACA Great Divide Mountain Bike Route.  By the time they reached the Mexico border, Tom and Sarah had begun toying with the idea of pedaling all the way to Patagonia.

Sarah explores how their bicycle meanderings somehow morphed into a quest to ride to the tip of South America in her post the Cycling Work Ethic.

Destinations and time limits aside, we seem to have developed a rather ridiculous cycling work ethic. After a while it ceases to be something you are doing for fun and becomes more like a full time job. We feel guilty if we start late, finish early, take too long for lunch, ride a shorter distance or time than usual, take too many rest days. We’ve set ourselves a standard and a whole bunch of rules – about cycling! How daft is that! It’s only coming from ourselves – no-one else really knows or cares about these details of our day to day lives. I don’t know why this has crept in. Maybe even here, living the ultimately free and simple life of the cycle tourist, it is hard to throw off our cultural tendencies. Where there is no externally imposed structure or routine, we create our own.

Be sure to delve into the Bicycle Nomad archives because the rest of the writing is just as observant and reflective.

While Tom and Sarah’s travel tales are sure to engage and inspire you, what’s best about the Bicycle Nomad site is the Route Notes.

Here you will find detailed information about planning your own bicycle tour through Latin America.

Follow the links below for detailed maps and information about routes, roads,  and high passes in much of Latin America:

Mexico Bicycle Route Information

Guatemala Bicycle Route information

Honduras Bicycle Route Information

Nicaragua Bicycle Route Information

Colombia Bicycle Route Information

Ecuador Bicycle Route Information

Peru Bicycle Route Information

Bolivia Bicycle Route Information

Chile Bicycle Route Information

Argentina Bicycle Route Information

This is one of the very best resources I’ve come across for planning a bicycle tour through Central and South America.

After 20 months on the road, Tom and Sarah’s bicycle tour has just recently come to a close and the couple is now back at home in Sydney.

Check out Bicycle Nomad and starting planning your own bicycle ride all the way down to Patagonia.

Their plan?   Cycle 30,000 kilometers around the world, in search of the ultimate musical experience, raising money for the charity War Child along the way.

With a shared love of music, they will be exploring its different forms in the various cultural surroundings through which they travel.

The reasons they mention for wanting to take time out for a long-distance bicycle tour will resonate with many dreaming of a ride around the world:

• Escaping the 9-5 rat race
• Leaving ‘society’ for a while
• Fulfilling my urge to travel before any serious commitments
• Wanting to ‘find myself’
• Seeing the world at ‘bike pace’
• Raising money for a fantastic charity
• Experiencing different cultures and religions
• Completing a great adventure

To get a better feel for what’s in store from the Daring Dynamos, check out this video:

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Here’s a snippet from their very first blog posting, a recap of their ride to Amsterdam:

Our alarm went off at a refreshing 5.30am, and our tyres touched tarmac by 6am. The cycle to Dover was a quick one, despite heavy legs and freezing temperatures. Things were real for us now; the realisation of leaving the country was sinking in.

After an overpriced Burger King, we boarded the ferry and waved goodbye to the Motherland. The perfect blue sun and the disappearing White cliffs provided us both with the symbolism and the epic moment we were craving. With no real plans ahead of us, the world truly was our oyster, and only now is that fact starting to sink in.

Our extreme tiredness was illustrated by my bemusement when red lines didn’t appear under misspelt words in my handwritten journal.

Eventually, the boat docked, we disembarked and headed out on a NE bearing. Our aim was to get to Bruges, however, we soon realised that we had lost an hour and were 10km further south than anticipated. This meant we had 86km ahead of us, and about 4 hours of light left.

Just like the light, our confidence was fading and we started to think of where we could camp. After much debating we decided to ‘man up’ and cycle until we got to the most famous Belgium city. Baring in mind our furthest practise cycle was 60km, some might have considered this foolish, and come 4 o’clock, we thought the same. Our legs were heavy; we were exhausted and still had a long way to go.

We stopped for a revitalizing lunch in the picturesque Vernes. Belgium is made for cycling. We started to eat away at the kilometres, and before too long we were on the outskirts of Bruges. The city is unbelievably beautiful, with medieval spires and iconic cobble roads; unfortunately, I spent the most of our three days there in bed with a chest infection and fever.

Not a good start to our two-year journey!

This round the world bicycle tour may be off to a rocky start, but I’m certain  this determined pair will soon get the swing of things.

A little help from kind-hearted strangers and the support of loyal blog followers will make their tour even easier.

Follow along:  www.daringdynamos.com

“A tribute to the bicycle and its ability to take us far away.”

That’s the tagline on Ron Wheeler’s popular website featuring stunning photos of fully-loaded touring bikes.

The Loaded Touring Bikes website is a continuation of Ron’s original Fully Loaded Touring Bike – Photo Gallery website.

Three brand- new features on the Loaded Touring Bikes website:

Epic Tours

Super Tours

and Expeditions

give you three more reasons to spend some time browsing this amazing collection of bicycle photos.

In the new sections,  you’ll find not just photos of fully-loaded touring bicycles, but also the stories of the people behind the bikes.

If your tour fits into the Epic, Super or Expedition category, get in touch with Ron and make sure it gets featured.

Ron is also accepting photos of loaded touring bikes, just be sure to check out the submission guidelines before sending your photo.

Visit the Loaded Touring Bikes Facebook page to get updates when new bikes and articles are added.

Check out the Loaded Touring Bike Website for hundreds of inspiring photos of fully-loaded touring bikes AND stories of the people behind the bikes.

Amie Thảo and Olli Tumelius are cycling 15,000 miles across Europe and Asia to document real people, real stories, and real food.

Their International Supper Club project grew out of Amie’s 2011 solo cycling trip across Europe.

“My love of food and cooking led me to spend a lot of time in kitchens. I shared meals with people in 15 countries, from the Netherlands to Italy.  After 5,000 miles, I was inspired to create a project that collected stories in an intentional way and share them with a wider audience.”

The Finish-American couple is kicking off their Eurasia tour in Spain, detouring to Portugal, and then cycling east towards Vietnam. The adventurers/story-tellers/foodies plan to wind up their tour of the world’s largest landmass in Japan in about 12 month’s time.

Naturally, their route is flexible and subject to weather and politics.

While the majority of Amie and Olli’s project is self-funded, they have created a Kickstarter fundraising page to help with the costs of realizing such a large-scale multi-media project.  I’m sure they’d appreciate your support and there are some great gifts for giving.

The best way to get a vision of what The International Supper Club project aims to achieve is to check out this fun and creative video:

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The riding doesn’t get underway for another month, but there are already plenty of photos and stories on this beautifully-designed site, so go ahead and hop on over to The International Supper Club now.

Visit the site: InternationalSupperClub.org

South Africans Richard and Thamar Clark are cycling beyond the Great Wall of China through Tibet, Nepal and on to India where they’ll bring their tour to a close in Mumbai.

Despite uncomfortable conditions, they’ve survived their very first day on the bikes in China, where the Beijing winter is in full force.

Here’s a taste of what was in store for the pair after they touched down at the international airport and set off cycling in one of the world’s busiest cities:

Beijing: Icy Fingers and Hot Milk Tea

With minimal Chinese language at our disposal we landed at Beijing International and found ourselves fumbling for train tickets and trying to get two oversized boxes with our bicycles in onto the express train headed for Dongzhimen near to the Hutong Inn which we’d booked at.

Once we arrived at the train station we put the bikes together as quickly as we could with some very official looking security peering at us curiously. Thankfully they were only helpful. In the subway it felt cold but by the time we eventually got out of the subway and up onto the street the sun had gone down and the temperature had plummeted to minus 10, which neither of us were quite ready for.

The traffic in the city was manic! There might have been some sort of order to it but to us it was as if we were caught in the middle of a video game trying to dodge people, bicycles, buses and scooters from all directions.

It was dark, we were freezing, and we had no bearings. After a few back and forths, speaking to people in broken English or in Tham’s case broken Chinese, we got the general gist of where we needed to go. Looking back what might have confused people was that the name of the hotel we were looking for was the same as the district’s old-style alleyways called Hutongs – and so there could have been dozens. And even though Tham had the English map and address on her phone nobody could read it.

Things will surely look up once the duo hits the countryside.

This beautifully-designed blog promises to be fun to follow.  Get on board now and take a trip Beyond the Wall with Richard and Thamar and find out what adventures come their way as they cycle to India.

Visit the blog:  Beyond the Wall

Australian James Williams, who’s now based in Bangkok where he operates Grasshopper Adventures, is behind the site.

The most useful section of this site is the short Laos Cycling Guide.  Laos is James’s favorite Southeast Asia cycle touring destination and here’s why:

What makes Laos a cycle touring heaven:

• It is quiet.  Unlike Laos’ more busy neighbours there are few people, little traffic and you can rediscover what quiet means.

• It is a beautiful country with high mountains, jungles, and huge meandering rivers.

• There are not a lot of road choices so it makes navigation easy.  Just get on the lightly trafficked highways and ride.

• The people are very friendly without being pushy.  In other countries everyone will be fiddling with your bike and flipping your gears.  Lao people are more likely to stand back and watch.

• Guesthouses are nicely spaced and cheap, there is no real need to camp unless you really want to.

James has also included detailed information about cycling from Luang Prabang to Vientiane.

I hope the Laos cycling guide will be expanded and that more cycling guides are in the works for China, Thailand and Cambodia.

2Tyred keeps readers up-to-date about travel news in the region.  A recent blog post announced a forthcoming joint Cambodia-Thailand visa .

2Tyred is a well-designed site, but a little short on content at the moment.  Keep checking back as the resources for cycling Southeast Asia grow.

Visit the website: 2Tyred

Finding practical information about bicycle touring can be surprisingly tough.  Sure, there are lots of blogs showcasing inspiring photos and well-told touring tales, but the nuts and bolts of bicycle touring are harder to track down.

Andes by Bike, the brand-new site from Pikes on Bikes, is the South America cycle touring resource we’ve all been waiting for.  This site, the brainchild of Harriet and Neil Pike, will make planning a tour through the backroads and over the high passes of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile or Peru a snap.

The best part of Andes by Bike is that it’s comprehensive, well-organized and easy to use.  You’ll find information on everything from the state of the road, to where to find supplies to detailed maps with altitude statistics and route suggestions.

The best place to start is on the overview section of the country you’re interested in biking.  This will whet your appetite for the adventure that lies ahead and get you inspired about your destination.

Here’s what Neil and Harriet have to say about Argentina:

Argentina is a fantastic place for a cycle tour. We planned on staying a couple of months, but only managed to drag ourselves away after 10 months and over 10,000km in this wonderful land. The variety of landscape this huge country has to offer is simply astounding. If you’re looking for a challenge, the Puna in the north-west or the Patagonian steppe on Ruta 40 will test you. If you prefer to cycle in more populated areas, the well established camping culture, great food and wine and gregarious locals will all make for an enjoyable trip.

Next you can move on to the advice in the Preparations Section where you’ll find tips on border crossings, weather conditions and suggestions on which maps to use.

Finally, you can lay out firm plans for your next Andean bike tour using the Routes and Passes Sections as your guide,

Andes by Bike is the best resource I’ve come across for planning a tour through the mountains of South America.

Thanks to this site, there are no more excuses for sticking to the Pan American Highway.  Break out on to the backroads of South America and find out what real adventure is all about.

Visit the website: Andes by Bike