Cooper1991

Hi,

My objective is to cycle from Mumbai through Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and end in Philippines - a total of 5,500km in all and maybe taking 4 months. Has anyone here done this or can suggest some website I can use to help prepare. I suspect best time is October-January 20/21 to get the best weather.

I expect that the important things are (1) Fitness (2) bike and right equipment (3) visas (4) safety on and off road (5) health & food (6) a buddy with same fitness/outlook

I'm retired so I have time to build up training over the coming months but need to have an idea of the best training. I live in Bahrain which is all sea level and no hills. This was a difficulty when I did Everest Base Camp trek prep and Kilimanjaro prep.

Any guidance would be appreciated.

Thank you.

waddo

I have never done such a tour but I can offer some small advice. Make sure you know how do maintenence on your bike, and not just fix a puncture, I live in mountainous Japan. Where you are you cannot prepare. All I can say is push the bike if you have to and slowly slowly you will get the hang of riding up mountains. It's less a matter of strength and more mental state. Eventually you will learn to forget the hill/mountain and then you will suddenly notice you have arrived at the pass. If you will be camping buy a good tent that has 100% mosquito inner and a fly with excellent waterproof rating. Finally, make sure you have a multi fuel stove that can take petrol. Probably no help but my youtube channel is waddo and you can see some serious mountains and camping.

I envy you. your trip sounds great.

Cooper1991

Thank you waddo. Good advice and yes, I forgot the danger of the various types of mosquito. As I'm quite heavy, I don't want to add a lot of other weight to the bike but yes, I won't succeed without cooking gear etc.

Will look at your Youtube

schoolboy2 

Anyone can tour with enough preparation. I started touring at age 62. If I were starting again, here is how I would proceed:

#1 . Learn all you can about your route before you start buying gear. You can find journals of people doing similar routes as yours by searching on crazyguyonabike.com where there are literally thousands of cycling journals and you can search by country. If you don't find one doing the entire route, you can piece your route together using parts of the route from several journals. For my early tours, I made a huge spreadsheet of my planned route and listed every town along the way and what was available there (Hotels, restaurants, grocery stores, bike shop, etc). This helped me determine likely stopping points and to determine an average daily distance.

#2 . After some research you may learn that you don't need to bring camping gear or cookware as there may be inexpensive food and accommodation all along your route. I've traveled some in Thailand and Laos and never needed camping or cooking gear. Your research will answer these questions for you. One of the big lessons I learned while touring is that less weight = much more enjoyable time. Pack light!

#3 . Get a good touring bike. I ride a Surly Long Haul Trucker which is heavy but is designed to carry gear and is rugged enough to go the distance. There are many other bikes out there that are equal or better to my LHT. Read lots and learn.

#4 . Practice riding. Your daily distance when touring is up to you, but for practice you need to ride that typical distance day after day after day without a break. Spend your first couple of weeks riding unladen, then start adding a load to your bike until you are capable of riding your planned daily distance carrying all your gear. Try to start your route where there are few big hills for the first couple of weeks, that way by the time you reach the hills you'll be fit and have confidence in your riding ability.

#5 . Consider the logistics of getting your bike and panniers to the start of your tour and then home from the end of your tour.

#6 . Sign up for Warmshowers.com which is a worldwide network of people who will give a bike tourist a place to stay for free.

No matter how much planning you do, unexpected things will happen. Sometimes they are bad things, sometimes they are good things. Often they are both. Two years ago, my riding partner's rear rack broke the first day. (Bad thing) But, a very kind stranger with a pick-up truck drove us and our bikes to our hotel (Good thing) And, he came back the next morning with the tools and hardware we needed to repair her bike. (VERY good thing!) Bike touring allows you to experience the kindness of others, so be open for that.

Don't be overwhelmed by the amount of prep necessary, you can succeed. Have fun!

mev

Several general thoughts here:
1. Past accounts. The site crazyguyonabike.com has many journals and one can look up by country. So this is a good place to look for recent travels.
2. Visas. Obviously important. I would also pay attention to allowed crossing points - as not every land border is necessarily allowed. I believe Myanmar is the country with most changes in recent past, so I would look carefully for allowed crossings between Myanmar/India and to lesser extent Myanmar/Thailand
3. Equipment. Much of this area is populated with possibilities of lodging. I have traveled in India/Thailand/Cambodia/Vietnam all without having a tent - and in many places it is easier to stay in small hotel than to camp. However, I would also carefully look at your route to make sure there aren't larger "gaps" where it may not be possible to find hotels.
4. Training. If you are at a basic level of fitness, you can sometimes take it a bit easier at first, and then train up along the way. So while important, not sure I would put as much emphasis as your Everest Base camp trek.
5. Immunizations/medicine. This area has some mosquito-borne and water-borne diseases. When I've gone to places like this, I've been cautious and consulted travel clinic in advance on items like cholera/typhoid/malaria/etc to get appropriate medicines.
6. Safety/security. Several resources have helped me here in past (a) reading others journals has given ideas of what to expect as well as descriptions of routes to find better routes (b) I've consulted official warnings, typically both UK foreign service travel pages and US state department travel pages. Take with grain of salt, but along with past travel accounts increased my awareness. (c) paid attention to little things like a mirror to see traffic behind, mosquito repellent, care in where I locked my belongings, etc.

djb

I've been touring for about 30 years and I hope my following suggestion has some weight to it---given that you live in flat area, and at sea level, and you're a heavy guy, one thing that will make a world of difference is to have a bike with a mountain bike crankset triple, like a 44/32/22 or 42/32/22 and at the back have a cassette that goes up to a minimum of 34t

I have not bike toured in Asia, but I do know from reading years of experienced travelers on bike that these countries are similar to where I have done bike touring in Latin America---that there WILL be lots of hills, mountains, and steep roads , steeper than we generally see in North America or Europe.
I am a light weight guy, and I appreciate the very low gearing I have on my bike, 44/32/22 and a 9 speed 11-34, and I have biked a lot in mountains.

Cooper1991

Thank you for taking the time for such a comprehensive reply. Good info.

Cooper1991

Thank you. Looks like a huge exercise in detailed planning.

Cooper1991

Thanks. I hadn't thought of crankset and one of my fears is breaking the gears and being in a country where they are irreparable.

djb

You're welcome. You sound like perhaps you haven't done a bicycle tour before, so if you haven't, it would be good to try it out to see if you like it, and also to make sure everything is working, and to figure out what you need, don't need, or make changes to your bike.
good luck with this potential project

Tourist in MSN

Agree with Mev, Crazyguyonabike is a great website to look at.

If you have been to Everest base camp, you know more about training than many of us. And you certainly know how to camp in the wilderness. But, you were silent on past biking history and knowledge. You do not have to be a skilled mechanic to do a trip like that but you should know how to fix and maintain the expendables on the bike, tires, tubes, cables, chain, etc. Plus all forms of lubrication, adjustments, etc. Getting your bum to get along with a saddle for long days is part of your training. Mental fitness for long arduous days is also part of your training, but like I said, Everest likely means you have that sorted out.

I am assuming you have the financial resources to buy a higher end bike. You will have to decide early on which type of handlebars you want. Drop bars are common on touring bikes in USA, flat bars where you sit more upright are more common in Continental Europe. The frame geometry is designed for the handlebar type, so that is one of your first decisions. Another one of your early decisions will be whether you use a derailleur system or an internally geared hub for gearing. Rohloff is the leader in internally geared hubs for that kind of trip. Once you have bars and gearing sorted out, then you can start looking at bikes and bike companies. I think you want to have several hundred km on your bike before you go to make sure you and the bike fit well together, any off spec mechanical issues can be solved, etc. More is better. If you do not have much biking history, then you need more bike training time too. Some bikes are being built with the gearing in the crank and frame, the Pinion 18 speed. That is pretty new, does not have long term reputation yet, but that could be an option too but some of the higher end bike companies might not be using it yet.

I assume being in the mid-east, you would buy a bike in Europe. There are several very good companies that can set you up with a good bike. The better known ones are Thorn (retail is SJS in the UK), Santos, Koga, Tout Terrain, I am sure there are others that do not come to mind. There are a few others in the UK too, but not sure if Brexit would mess you up if you bought a bike from the UK and it was not shipped until after the UK leaves EU. Some of the better companies may take a month or more lead time to build up a bike for you, so expect a delay for that. I am in USA so I do not know a lot about the higher end touring bike brands in Europe, I own two Thorn bikes but I would not rule out the other brands I named, they are all good.

I do not know which tire standards would be best to have, 26 inch (559mm) or 650b (584mm) or 700c (622). When you check out some of the trip logs from past travelers, note what tire size they found most likely to be available. If it was me planning a trip like that, I would carry one or two spare tires, I would decide on quantity based on weight and how well they are constructed. If you are lucky, you might not need to buy any additional tires.

You will probably want a dynohub to be able to charge up electronics as you roll. I think I get about 2 watts on average out of my SP hub and Sinewave Revolution USB charger. I also use a large pass through cache battery of 44 watt hours. If you buy the bike in Europe, you likely would get a Son hub instead of the SP that I use.

The better bike manufacturers that I cited would likely build up a bike for you based on your desired specifications. They also could make good recommendations for other touring gear, such as racks, panniers, etc.

Cyclist0100

Subscribed. Sounds like a fun adventure! Warmshowers and crazyguyonabike seem like excellent resources.

reynoldsarts

Six months +

Cooper1991

Thanks for all the insight. I did Everest Base Camp in April 2017 having dieted and exercised and lost 28kgs. I had never climbed a hill never mind mountain before that. I am looking on this Mumbai to Manila trip as a possible one off, although crossing USA looks cool apart from the Rockies / West Coast mountains. I have no experience of bike riding and certainly not running repairs and hacks, so that is one big reason I am planning 8 months out. The next big reason is travel during monsoon seems a bit stupid. The bikes in stores here in Bahrain have an upper weight limit of 220lbs and I'm presently a good bit over that, but trying to reduce. Watching tons of youtube experiences in South East Asia as a guide but most are focused on scenery and food rather than navigation, maintenance and daily problems.

Tourist in MSN

Check with the local stores to see if any offer classes on general bike maintenance, how to change an inner tube and patch it, etc. If you can't fix a flat tire, that is a must that you have to learn. Changing a cable, adjusting gears and brakes, those would be very important skills you should have too.

You really need to ride a bike some to get used to what riding a bike feels like. Even if it is a used cheap old beat up bike, something that you can pedal to run errands, etc. Then you can give that away when you buy the touring bike for your trip.

Crossing USA needs a good bike that would ride well on good quality pavement (tarmac). There are lots of good bikes that could easily handle such a trip.

But the route you mentioned through asia, that likely would mean a bike that is capable of very poor quality pavement or worse for roads and such a bike would weigh more and be more robust.

Don' t let the USA Rockies scare you, there are some passes that are a reasonable elevation, but other passes that are quite high.

Most of the photos at this web link are over a decade old, but it gives you an idea of what a loaded bike would look like. Click on a photo and you get an expanded version on your screen.
https://www.pbase.com/canyonlands/fullyloaded

Photo below when I crossed the Rockies through Glacier National Park.



And crossing the continental divide in Canada is the photo below.



Compared to Everest base camp, I will take the bike ride for sure.

I have not been to Asia, but if I went there to go biking, I would take a bike more like the one below, it weighs a lot more with a very strong frame, but I would trust it to go anywhere on both good roads and bad.