Cycling in Iceland   © Willem Megens

It must have been in 1984 when I was on vacation with my parents in Wallis, Switzerland. In St Maurice we suddenly had to stop the car. At tremendous speed a "peloton" racing cyclists passed us by. That was my introduction to the Tour de France and cycling in the mountains. A love affair was born.

In the coming years I cycled through the Dutch regions of Achterhoek and Twente. The Ardennes and the French Alps followed in the early nineties, after which Marieke and I took the bicycles with us to Switzerland, Italy, and Norway. What a superb feeling to climb a mountain. In 2000 our first, genuine cycling holiday was a fact: our honeymoon in Slovenia.

To suffer yet keep on going, to pitch my tent and live life simply: that gives me a sense of freedom and satisfaction. It also explains my love for cycling vacations, and for cycling over mountains in particular. And the nice thing is: there is still so much left to see. The Andes, Rockies, Pamir and Himalaya are on my wish list, but let's start with Europe!

You can see more of Willem Megens photos at: http://themeeg.nl

Cycling in Mongolia   © Dave Turner

Dave Turner has been riding, photographing and writing about adventure cycling for almost 20 years. He writes; “I live to ride, I'm happiest when riding my bike, usually in the middle of nowhere learning as much as possible about remote cultures and stories.”

You can read more about his cycling adventures at: www.mushypea.net

Biking out of Lake Henry campground, Idaho   © Adam Coppola

Photographer Adam Coppola is specialized in product, outdoor and event photography. In January 2011 Adam, together with his wife Christy took off on a yearlong bicycle tour through all of the fifty states of America. During their trip they are “spreading health and happiness through the gift of a bike” via the charities World Bicycle Relief and Achilles international.  You can follow their trip (and see more of his great photos!) at: www.giveabike.com.

Cycling in Bolivia  © Rick Galezowski

Rick Galezowski and Maggie Bennedsen are architects from Toronto, Canada who have toured extensively through Asia and the Americas. Their travels have been featured in publications throughout Canada, the United States and Europe.

Their website:  http://www.backintheworld.com is full of inspiring photos and stories although you do need a fast internet connection to load it.  (It’s a flash based website.)

On their welcome page they write:

“This website chronicles our ongoing journey around the world by bicycle.  Exploring the world from the seat of a bicycle, the everyday experience is an intimate affair of small wonders and simple pleasures.  The overall experience is an ever widening panorama of people and landscapes, climates and cultures, ways of living, ways of thinking.

So what are you waiting for?  Why not join us, on a round-the-world bike ride?  It sure beats sitting in an office all day…”

© Aaron Teasdale

Aaron Teasdale is an internationally award-winning magazine writer, photographer, and editor focused on adventure travel, natural history, conservation, and wilderness.

His wide-ranging explorations and wanderings, usually involve bikes, skis, backpacks, and remote places with spectacular sunsets.  His work appears in books and a diversity of magazines ranging from Bike, Powder, and Mountain Gazette to Sierra, Audubon, and Adventure Cycling.

If you want to get inspired to go jump on your bike than check out more of his pictures at: www.aaronteasdale.com

© Sebastian Wevers

Out of University Sebastian decided that a life indoors wasn’t his. He quit his job, bought a bicycle, went to Israel, and spends three months in a Kibbutz before cycling back to the Netherlands, his home country.

The urge to go and see more of that interesting part of the world which is called The Road got him on his bicycle time and again. After some years combining work and travel he dedicated himself to a Red Cross project in Vietnam on which he worked for two years.

His love for long distance cycling is maybe best illustrated by the overland cycle journey from the Netherlands to Malaysia and onwards to Australia. Taking the best part of three years this venture changed his life into what it is now, -  a life on the road.

Sebastian writes: (translated from Dutch) No solid ground, always moving, always on the go. A Chinese friend calls me 'Bird without Feet' from a Chinese story about a bird that cannot land. A bird that is trapped in his flight. I was not a prisoner of my travels, I have lived in them. For nearly twenty years I have been on the road. I find comfort in my travels, which I can find nowhere else.

Sebastian’s  website: www.sebastianwevers.com (it might still be under construction) and blog:  www.vogelzondervoeten.wordpress.com

© Rick Gunn

With over 15 years of daily newspaper experience, American photojournalist and writer Rick Gunn has traveled throughout the world, bringing back unique photos and stories from around the planet.

His photos have been published in numerous magazines and newspapers such as: People Magazine, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times and Nevada Magazine.

An avid traveler, adventure-cyclist and ethno-photographer, Gunn has produced countless photo essays during his trips. He has been rescued by Muslim clerics in China, charged by yaks in Nepal, bitten by monkeys in India, attached by leaches in Malaysia and robbed at gunpoint in South America.

Rick regularly gives 90-minute slide presentations titled; “Soulcycler, Words And Images From a 25,811-Mile Bicycle Journey Around-The-World.” “Soulcycler” combines 350 photos from 33 countries, set to music, accompanied by a selection of Rick’s personal adventures from around the globe.  Rick is also currently working on a book about his Soulcycler adventures.

To learn more about Rick, his journals and photography, please visit www.soulcycler.com

Cycling in South America   © Gregg Bleakney

Gregg Bleakney is a photographer and writer who specializes in bicycle touring, cycling and adventure travel. He's based in Seattle, WA.

In July of 2005, Gregg left his career in information technology, sold nearly everything he owned (house, fancy car, furniture, etc.) and rode his bicycle from northern Alaska to the southern tip of South America. He pedaled 18,500 miles over twenty-two months and raised $50,000 for the American Diabetes Association.  Along the way, he was electrocuted by a lightning bolt and attacked by machete bandits. He also discovered a planet and people that demonstrated their magic time and time again.

In Santa Barbara, CA a slick camera salesman talked him into spending two-months of his trip's budget on a SLR camera. He started making pictures and writing stories for the first time. Those pictures and words have found their way into a coffee table book, "Bicycle Diaries"—it is being packaged for publication by Rich Clarkson and Associates.

Since his bicycle trip, Gregg has developed the unique ability to deliver strong feature length writing and fine photography packages to his clients.

 To see more of Gregg’s photography, check out his website at: http://gbleakney.com

 Patagonia also did an Earth Day podcast over his bicycle trip/photography:  http://www.thecleanestline.com/2011/04/dirtbag-diaries-ditch-logic.html

Cycling in South America    © Claude Marthaler

When he’s not exploring the world by bike, Claude Marthaler lives in Geneva, where he was born in 1960. After multi-year cycling trips through Europe and the Himalayas, Claude left Switzerland in 1994 for a two year trip to Japan. His bike, dubbed the "yak" has a passion for detours and the bike decided otherwise. Singing with every turn of its wheels, the “yak” traveled through Europe, Asia, the Americas and Africa before finally coming back to Geneva. This trip lasted 7 years.

Cycling in Iceland / 2003     ©Paul van Roekel

Paul van Roekel and Anja de Graaf are two cycling and photography enthusiasts who once did a two year world bike tour and are still leaving Holland every year for a bike trip.   They are best known in the bicycle touring community for their website http://www.cyclingaroundtheworld.nl which contains great photos and extensive information on a number of cycling destinations.

As one reviewer said over their website, "What Paul van Roekel and Anja de Graaf did on their bicycles (North, South America, India, Namibia, and Australia) is certainly as impressive as their web pages about these travels. With pictures, so beautiful, you have to see them!”

Cycling in Scandinavia   © Kees Swart

Kees Swart is a fervent traveler and photographer who has cycled through Europe and Africa

Kees writes, “I studied photojournalism, portrait and documentary photography at the Photo Academy in Amsterdam and since then I work as a freelance photographer. I always work on location and try to approach reality without manipulating it
So no glamour and studio photography for me and I don’t have to carry suitcases full of lights and tripods. An additional advantage of carrying minimal equipment is that I can travel by bike and train and I don’t have to get a driver’s license.  There are already enough cars on the road ...”

Kees has also written a list of bicycle touring photo tips which can be viewed under the category “cycle reports”  The Dutch title is “Fotograferen op de fiets” which should translate to “Photographing while on a bike trip” and not the Google translation of: “Shooting the bike”.  If you want to improve your bike trip photos – then it’s a good site to check out.

Kees Swart’s Photography website: www.keesswart.nl

Sleeping under the Saharan stars   © Tom Allen

I began adventure cycle touring in 2007. After my first rite-of-passage ride across Europe to Turkey, I fetched up in Armenia, staying 9 months. I rode south through the Middle East and north-east Africa as far as Djibouti, then headed across Arabia and Iran and back to Armenia to live and marry the girl I'd met there previously (everybody say "aah!"). A few months later I travelled overland to cycle off-road in Mongolia, and recently finished travelling back through Europe to the UK with my wife, returning home on my bike 3 and a half years after I originally left.

This photo was taken in northern Sudan on the desert crossing to Khartoum. I was on a 330km stretch of asphalt with only one water stop, and I'd planned to do it in 2 days. I really had to force myself to set the shot up - all I really wanted to do was collapse on the sand and sleep!

For more photos from Tom’s trips see http://tomsbiketrip.com

Tibet de l'ouest - ©Nathalie Pellegrinelli

Nathalie writes about her bicycle trip

In October 2005 my friend Claude Marthaler and I took to the road with our bicycles for a long trip without specific plans; from our native town of Geneva in Switzerland to... wherever the wind pushes us. In reality, as every « cyclonaute » knows it’s just the opposite- the wind enjoys blowing into your face! To avoid the cold of winter, our wheels took us though North and East Africa: Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia and Djibouti. From there we took a wooden merchant ship crammed with kidney beans and squash seeds to Yemen. Then we flew to Mumbai, India and cycled up to Kathmandu, Nepal. Our plan was to ride in Tibet, but unfortunately we didn’t obtain permission to cross the border by bicycle. So we flew to Lhasa. From there we cycled across Western Tibet to Kashgar and onwards to Tajikistan. After Murghab, we were stopped by the police. Our Tajik visa was expired! We struggled as far we could, but the Tajik administration did so difficult that we had to hoist our bicycles on top of a van going to Dushanbe. For me it was the end of two years travel, while my friend Claude continues alone.

You can see more of Nathalie’s photos on her flickr site: www.flickr.com/photos/15222814@N05/

Sunrise over the Himalayas – © Peter Gostelow

Peter Gostelow bio:

My interest in photography began with a backpacking trip to Africa and a simple APS camera. Most of the pictures were snapshots, but I quickly grew passionate about documenting what I saw with a camera.

Sitting behind the window of a moving vehicle, as I was then, isn’t a good place to take photographs. Neither is the saddle of a bicycle, but the freedom of being able to stop when I wanted was one of the reasons I took to two wheeled travel.

Photography played an important part of my 3-year journey Japan to U.K, motivating me to explore different roads and the places I pedaled through and stayed in.

In August 2009 I began the Big Africa Cycle. My route will take me through west, central and southern Africa, a journey of over 25,000km through more than 25 countries.