Searching for book
 

A number of years ago I was given a book about three English men who rode from South Africa to London. They rode two bikes, an old English tandem and a single. Along the way the author developed a tumor and had one of his testicles removed. The "sub" title of the book was something like "123 flats, 67 broken spokes and one testicle". Does anyone here know of it? Many thanks, Andy

I’d want to read that. ;)

Hey there senor A, you know I was going to say that doing a trip like that takes balls, but that would be terribly inappropriate and technically wrong, so I shant stoop that low ;-)

dumbassery aside, good luck finding book.

Some tips/ideas:

https://www.nypl.org/blog/2017/11/22...n-title?page=5

Made me laugh out loud.

Must be a rare book since it doesn't readily show up on Google.

BTW I see that Neil Peart (drummer for Rush, RIP) wrote a book, The Masked Rider: Cycling in West Africa. Sounds pretty good, "Peart’s “masks” are the masks that we wear–culture, psychology, labels, expectations–and his book reveals how traveling in a very foreign land allows us to peer behind them".

https://kickasstrips.com/2013/05/thr...alled-trandem/

What did I win?

dont know what you win, but good find.

you know the thing I thought of the most of this trip was riding a three person bike on dirt roads....ooooooof....tough.
I ride a lot on snow and have ridden my touring bike on loose surfaces, and its one thing doing this and all the body language etc you do on loose stuff on your own, but with not one but two guys behind you on a very heavy bike....they must have walked that bike a lot.....

pretty bonkers idea they had
and geez, you read the blurb and "numerous bouts of malaria" stick out....I know someone who had malaria a few years ago, and it was pretty crappy sounding, dealing with it on a bike trip must have been fun.

Interesting find. A few comments:
- This trip was done in the late 1980s. Road in Africa have improved significantly since then.
- The route map between Nairobi and Khartoum shows a straight line. I'm guessing they flew for political/logistical reasons. This region is mostly Sahara desert areas (or Ethiopian highlands if they went a bit further east) as well as politically sensitive. After that perhaps following the Nile and/or on the water e.g. Lake Nassar?
- Even for that period, 278 punctures is a huge amount. When I went in 2013, we encountered a lot of thorns. Tires were perhaps better (I had two flats, lower than average but even members in my group with most were less than 50)

After this discussion, I bought this as a used book online. It took a while to reach me since the seller was in the UK.

I haven't read it yet, but can confirm they flew from Nairobi to Khartoum. They followed the Nile river valley after that.

This makes sense as Southern Sudan, Ethiopia and Northern Kenya were some of the toughest bits in when I rode in 2013 - and this is after a lot of new paved roads have been built that wouldn't have been there in 1988. So the other bits would also have been considerably tougher in 1988...

I know this book, I used it to hand over material at the university. Try looking at the site https://essayontime.com.au/plagiarism-checker there I think you can find what you are looking for. There are a lot of students, maybe you can ask someone, they will definitely be able to help you with this, as they helped me.

that’s a tough in field repair

a swiss amry knive, zip ties and super glue? No problem.

(ouch!!)

A quick google search of adventure cyclist Australian Dr Kate Leeming puts paid to "any" overland cycle journeys prerequisite for any balls beyond bearings on a bike :p

To get started.....
https://worldexpeditions.com/Blog/on...h-kate-leeming or possibly https://wild.com.au/features/curveba...be-a-positive/

Possibly pertinent to the OP's thread, she has books of some of her various journeys including
https://booko.co.nz/9781925171297/Njinga
https://booko.co.nz/9781920892463/Out-There-and-Back

Just to be clear, that dumb joke was because one of the three guys on three person bike lost a testicle during the trip....

but thanks for that ladies travel site, always fun to see stuff like that.

Yeah yeah, I spotted the smiley wink at the end.:)

Thought I'd throw in a little something for others to peruse using your witticism as the "in"

she is one impressive rider, and using her platform and travels for education, especially encouraging education for girls, is a great achievement.

south africa cycling [ goodreads search result ]

Because it is his birthday tomorrow, thought I'd mention that I just read George Washington survived malaria - 6 times!
(From a review of a new biography titled: You Never Forget Your First, A Biography of George Washington by Alexis Coe.)

Great thread! I just bought the book on amazon.co.uk, and sent it to a friend in UK and hope to rendezvous at some point and read it myself!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Three-Canon...3993601&sr=8-2

The book in question "Three Men on a Bike" is available through abebooks.com .There are at least 4 copies with the less costly at nine and change. Hope this helps.