5 MYTHS about Bike Touring _ Bikepacking vs. Reality _ Cycling Around the World

Hey everyone and welcome to our newest tips and tricks video, 5 myths about bicycle traveling. We are 4,400 meters above sea level in the Peruvian Andes, so please excuse if we sometimes sound a little bit out of breath, it's just the altitude. We have been cycling around the world for the past 15 months, over 19,000 kilometers now, and in that time picked up quite a few things and really experienced how it is to actually travel by bicycle. Before we embarked on this journey, we had certain myths, certain stereotypes, cliches in our head of what it might be like, and many of them have turned out to be completely different or only partially true, and therefore we want to tell you what it's actually like and how, yeah, debunk these myths. Myth number one, you have to be an athlete to travel by bicycle. We definitely weren't the fittest before we embarked on this journey. We commuted by bicycle and we did some weekend tours, but we never trained for this because fact is you just get fit along the way. And also everyone can do it, basically every age group, every fitness level, because as I said, once you get fit on the way and also you can just go your own pace and your own distance, so you don't have to exhaust yourself too much. And to be honest, the most exhausting thing is often not the physical part, but it's the mental part, to just push yourself to go along further when the weather is bad, when the road conditions are terrible, when it's very steep. So that's the hardest part and it's actually really hard to train for that beforehand. Myth number two, you need high-end and expensive bikes and gear and a lightweight setup to go bicycle travel. And that is simply not true. The honest answer is there is no one simple correct answer. You can go bicycle traveling on any kind of bike with any amount of gear. The only difference being that depending on your setup, you might enable or limit yourself to certain routes and trails. We are traveling with a rather heavy classical bike touring setup, which has kind of gotten a bad reputation in recent years with the emergence of lightweight bikepacking setups. We're not going to go into details of the advantages and disadvantages of each setup as most of them are kind of obvious, but the reason we are touring with a heavy bicycle touring setup is because it enables us to comfortably travel in any kind of climate at any kind of altitude at any time of the year, which is often not possible with a lightweight setup. Of course, the limitations are we might not be able to cycle every kind of trail, but to be honest, we can go to pretty remote and crazy places with this heavy setup. Also, because we are traveling for such a long time, two or three or even more years, we need comfort. If you're only traveling for a few months, you might be able to be in harsher conditions with less setup, with less comforts around you, with less gear that will give you comforts because you know it's going to be over soon. But traveling for such a long time, it's nice to have a chair, for example, when we're camping or to have a sleeping bag that really keeps you warm when you're sleeping above 4000 meters for a week in a row, for example. If you're only doing this one night, it might not be so bad to be a bit cold for one night. Also, we are making these videos, so we have a drone with us, several cameras, a laptop for editing, and so on. There is, as I mentioned, no one correct answer. Everybody has to tour the way they want to tour, but it is possible to tour in absolutely any way. Myth number three, you have to like every single day of bicycle traveling. That is just not true because it's just not realistic. You are going to have bad days, you are going to have good days, you are going to have a amazing days, and you are going to have absolutely horrible days. And it's perfectly okay to accept this. Influenced a lot by social media, by amazing YouTube videos, amazing photos, you think most of the time that bicycle, and we also thought this before we left, that you always have great days when bicycle traveling. Every landscape is amazing, everything is sunshine, or even when it rains, it's a cool experience. And the truth is, yeah, you just have really, really bad days, which is totally fine. You just have to accept that, and then not be put off or fall into a bad mood when you see social media posts of everything from other people going perfectly. Social media always exaggerates, and therefore it is, yeah, you just have to see that there's a reality behind this. Myth number four, bicycle traveling is dangerous. Well, we can't deny that there are certain dangers associated with this way of traveling. People have warned us about almost everything, from busy roads to remote, dangerous areas, dangerous countries, dangerous people, wild animals, and much more. And from our experience, nothing and no one has ever been as bad as we have been warned before. In fact, many experiences in countries have been much better than we could have ever imagined. So people and the media often exaggerate and only tell you the bad stuff. Keep that in mind. In the end, you just got to listen to the locals often. They tell you where it is actually really dangerous, and most importantly, listen to your gut. Myth number five, the last one, bicycle traveling and life on the road is unhygienic. It is definitely true that we don't shower as much as we did back at home. But we haven't had any problems in our health that could be associated with a lack of hygiene. We brush our teeth every morning, every evening, and also in the evening before getting into our tent, we clean ourselves a little bit. Most importantly, you got to get used to not showering every day. And sometimes you do feel a little bit disgusting, especially when you've been sweating a lot and you don't have a shower available. But yeah, it's often just a mental part and it doesn't cause any health problems to go to bed a bit sweaty. Before this journey, we did worry a bit about going to the toilet in nature. This is a topic that doesn't get discussed a lot. But to be honest, it's not as bad as it sounds. And it's often much nicer to just go into the forest than, for example, go to a disgusting toilet at a gas station. And speaking about topics that don't get discussed a lot, women on the road have the problem of getting the period on the road and managing the hygiene. I have to say, right now I don't get my period anymore because I'm using the hormone spiral and that causes for some women the loss of period for this time. But in the beginning, I still did get it and I have a menstruation cup with me. And with that, it worked pretty well. You can just wash it with water and also just boil it to get it clean again after using it. So that wasn't a problem for me and I could stay hygienic during my period. So to sum it up, you don't have to worry too much about the hygiene on the road. It actually works pretty well. You just got to get used to it mentally. Thank you for watching our tips and tricks video. We really hope you learned something from it. Please remember, like always, we based this video on our personal opinions and experiences and it might be different for you. If you have any other experiences or any other opinions about these myths, please comment below. We'd love to hear from you. And please remember to like this video and subscribe if you liked what you saw. Alright, see you in the next video.