Get the Newsletter - Aventures Bicyclétales

* Newsletter no6 (28th of August 2008): Knocking on Tibet's door.
* Newsletter no5 (27th of July 2008): Hanoi !
* Newsletter no4 (28th of June 2008): I am leaving tomorrow.
* Newsletter no3 (4th of June 2008): Less than one month away from D-day.
* Newsletter no2 (19th of April 2008): Two months before departure.
* Newsletter no1 (11th of February 2008): Four months before departure.

Newsletter no1 (11th of February 2008): Four months before departure.

Le vent du cyclopède souffle sur vous tous et c'est avec une émotion certaine que je m'adresse à vous à l'occasion de cette première Newsletter !

Tout d'abord merci d'avoir eu le courage d'embarquer à mes côtés pour cette nouvelle aventure, je vais faire mon possible et l'impossible si possible pour ne pas vous décevoir.

Mon projet avance, récapitulons-ici quelques points parmi les plus importants:

le départ de Bangkok aura lieu le Dimanche 29 Juin, soit dans un peu plus de 4 mois ... mes préparatifs vont bon train et j'ai maintenant rassemblé presque tout mon matériel (il ne me manque plus que quelques broutilles comme un duvet anti congélation ou un réchaud multi combustion, les deux n'ayant pas véritablement de lien entre eux, du moins je l'espère ...).
le rodage => j'ai effectué le week-end dernier ma première sortie sur mon nouveau vélo ... avec quelques bagages à l'arrière pour "faire vrai". Tout s'est bien passé, aucun bruit suspect ni crevaison ne furent à déplorer ... pour voir une image de ce galop d'essai, cliquez ici !
l'itinéraire => moi qui prévoyais passer de Chine en Inde via le col de Nathu La (entre le Népal et le Bhoutan) ... et bien je suis moins confiant depuis que j'ai appris que ce col -qui accessoirement culmine à 5500m- n'est ouvert que 3 mois par an, depuis un an seulement, et pour les commerçants uniquement (les autorités concernées ne prévoyant pas le passage des touristes avant 2018). Ca se complique donc un brin pour aller au Bhoutan, et la seule route envisageable passe maintenant par Katmandou, soit tout de même un détour de 1000 km au beau milieu de l'Himalaya ... il faut que j'y réfléchisse ... diantre, ça pourrait monter ...
l'itinéraire bis => à propos de mon passage en Iran et à l'attention des généraux américains scrutant leurs images satellites haute résolution: "non je ne suis pas un convoi d'armes de destruction massive, non je ne peux pas déployer un missile nucléaire en 30 minutes, non Ben Laden ne s'est pas caché dans mes sacoches" ... faites passer l'information si vous avez vos entrées au pentagone, d’avance merci.
pourquoi un vélo vert ? comme pédaler permet d'avancer, et comme je vais très bientôt pédaler à plein temps, je me suis dit que je pourrais certainement faire avancer un peu plus que ma seule personne sur un vélo, et donc pourquoi ne pas faire avancer de concert la cause environnementale via la problématique des transports? Cliquez ici pour en savoir plus sur la pollution des transports en général et sur mon bilan carbone personnel en particulier !
dans quel but ? dans le but de montrer par l'exemple que la situation actuelle n'est pas raisonnable (surtout la mienne) et qu'il est urgent de le reconnaître et d'agir en conséquence. Il existe des alternatives à nos modes de transport, et par extension des alternatives à nos modes de vie. C'est le propos du concept de neutralité en carbone, cliquez ici pour en savoir plus. N'hésitez pas à me donner vos avis, ça m’intéresse !!
le site Internet => régulièrement mis à jour et traduit en Anglais depuis le mois de Décembre, il reprend tout mon projet en détail ... et compte déjà plus de 8000 visiteurs.

Bon vent à tous et rendez-vous en Avril pour la seconde Newsletter,

Newsletter no2 (19th of April 2008): Two months before departure.

Le vent du cyclopède souffle à nouveau et voici donc quelques nouvelles de Thaïlande à seulement deux mois du départ ! Bigre, comme ça se rapproche ...

L’itinéraire : j’ai décidé de retirer le Bhoutan de mon parcours, non sans regret, mais il fallait se rendre à l’évidence, le col de Nathu La (entre la Chine et l’Inde) est bel et bien fermé et le détour en passant par Katmandou est tout simplement déraisonnable. Le petit détail qui a aussi eu une grande importance compte tenu de la nature de mon voyage, c’est qu’un séjour au Bhoutan implique une voiture suiveuse, c’est la règle, mais ce n’est pas dans l’esprit d’un voyage sans émission de CO2. Donc exit le Bhoutan … je compenserai en prenant mon temps au Tibet !

Le Tibet, c’était mon premier plan B, mais depuis les émeutes du 14 mars dernier, c’est particulièrement mal engagé. Pour faire court, le Tibet, tout le Tibet, est fermé aux étrangers jusqu’à nouvel ordre. La Chine elle-même vient de se fermer à l’approche des jeux olympiques. Les visas se délivrent au compte goutte et pour des durées réduites … là aussi jusqu’à nouvel ordre. Mais qu’ont donc les Chinois à cacher au reste du monde ? La réponse est évidente, mais ça ne résout pas mon problème.

Je prépare donc actuellement deux autres plans B, le premier contournant le Tibet par le Nord (sortie de la Chine par la frontière Pakistanaise) et le second contournant par le sud (via le Bangladesh). L’incertitude prédomine et à priori je serai fixé une fois en route. Je croise les doigts.

Le vélo vert … roule particulièrement bien. J’ai attaqué l’entraînement assidûment et je ne désespère pas de parvenir à enfin assouplir ma selle en cuir !! Cliquez ici pour voir les dernières photos.

Les partenariats … avancent, avec notamment plusieurs écoles primaires Françaises qui sont intéressées et qui ont, pour certaines, déjà commencer à travailler le sujet. Cliquez ici pour voir les différents types de partenariats.

Le site Internet … régulièrement mis à jour, il reprend tout mon projet en détail et compte déjà plus de 16000 visiteurs.

Bon vent à tous et rendez-vous en Juin pour la troisième Newsletter,

A bientôt,

Newsletter no3 (4th of June 2008): Less than one month away from D-day.

Here I am again for the latest news coming from Thailand, less than a month away from my departure ...

Visas: Laos, Vietnam, China, India and Nepal ... I got them all. It has been extremely difficult to get a proper Chinese visa due to the recent repression in Tibet and the upcoming of the Olympics, but thanks to a bit of help and lots of luck, it's finally at the Chinese Embassy in London that I got it !! Concerning the two remaining visas I will need, I should get the one for Pakistan in just a few days ... and the one for Iran in a few months.

Itinerary update: the situation is still very uncertain in China. Yes I got my visa but this isn't enough to go through Tibet

still hermetically sealed by the police and the army. As if this was not difficult enough, the recent deadly earthquake in Sichuan has destroyed most of the Eastern access roads. So more than ever I am working on a Plan B going around Tibet

via Bangladesh or via the Chinese province of Xinjiang.

Training on the green bicycle: after having ridden about 500 km with a << not-loaded >> bike and 200 km loaded with 35kg of luggage, my saddle is starting to soften at last !! But my first few kilometers on this heavy vehicle with lots of inertia have not exactly been a piece of cake ; weight and pitching (is that right ?) have proven to be particularly traitorous when changing direction, I learnt it the hard way ... and will try to remember it ! Click here to see the latest pictures.

Finalized partnerships:

Two primary school classes have confirmed they would follow the progress of my trip (The primary school of Jallans near Châteaudun and a primary school from the surroundings of Nice).
Three companies have decided to support my project (Climat Mundi, CFE and Crédit Mutuel of Châteaudun) ... Click here to learn more about those companies.
... and numerous individuals have joined my carbon offseting program, making it possible to offset already 100 tons of carbon dioxide !! Click here to learn more about the carbon offseting program.

In the medias ...

The 3rd of May in L'Echo Républicain,
The 10th of May in La République du Centre,
The 10th of May again on Radio Intensité,
In June but not published yet in Le Petit Journal, Le Gavroche and the BangkokPost.
Click here to read already published articles (in French).

That's all for now, but you will receive some more news at the end of the month just before I hit the road for real ...

Newsletter no4 (28th of June 2008): I am leaving tomorrow.

So here it is, tomorrow morning I am leaving for good …

But this last week has been such a hardship, with so many goodbyes, so much emotion and also so many tears. My colleagues as well as my friends managed to make sure I won’t forget them …

… and I won’t.

Check here for the last pictures.

So I’ll be starting my journey tomorrow morning at 08.00 AM, from the Lumpini Park, with a few friends escorting me out of the city. I hope that by that time the sky will have cleared up and the wind weakened … today the weather is just so sad …

Fitness : I’m all good. I rode about 1000 km within the last two months and now I just need to raise the cadence a little, to about 2000 km per month.

This month menu : 10 days in Thailand (heading north-east through Isaan), 5 days in Laos (starting from Savannakhet, crossing west to east,) and 15 days in Vietnam (all the way up to Hanoi).

News about China : Tibet is finally slowly getting opened to foreigners … it was reported that two tourists have taken –legally- a trip to Lhassa on the 25^th of June. This is an excellent news, it’s now not impossible anymore to ride through Tibet, but it does not mean it’s possible either. Let’s wait and see. Meanwhile, I started to refresh my souvenirs of Chinese … because I have been told communication is likely to be a difficulty there !

Carbon offsetting : the project continues, and it will soon be 150 tons of carbon dioxide which will be offset !! Click here to learn more about carbon offsetting.

In the news ...

Just published => in Le Gavroche and Khrungthep Turakij (double center page).
To be published => in Le Petit Journal, The BangkokPost, The Nation and L'écho Républicain (second article).
Click here to read already published articles.

I will send my next newsletter from Hanoi, with my first impressions after a month of traveling.

Tomorrow, I’m finally leaving …

Newsletter no5 (27th of July 2008): Hanoi !

And so it is, I had been talking about it for so long, and now I am finally on the road, on my way home … I left Bangkok on Sunday the 29th of June as it was planned.

It hasn’t been easy to leave, to shut that apartment door that I shall never see again, and to leave behind 10 years of souvenirs, but it’s done and it's time to start a new chapter.

I am really grateful for all the support messages I have received from family and friends. Believe me, it really helped.

The start of the ride itself was quite something, in the middle of Bangkok traffic -busy for a Sunday morning- and with a bicycle poorly balanced because of an inappropriate packing, as I found out later. It was good to enjoy my friends Stéphanie and Henri’s company to make it safely out of the city. After, I knew the way pretty well and I did not have any surprise : the Isaan provinces, the Mekong river and the border with Laos. [Click here for the Thailand travel journal]

Crossing Laos was much easier as initially anticipated ; the road no9 had been repaired few years ago with some Japanese aids money and in just a few days, I reached the Vietnamese border. It nearly went too fast. [Click here for the Laos travel journal]

I arrived in Vietnam after about two weeks of riding, and I experienced immediately quite a radical change of scene. Vietnamese culture is very different from Thai/Lao cultures, behaviors are different … and language, which now I don’t really speak, is different too. The real adventure starts from here I feel. Two days ago I arrived in Hanoi after riding about 700 km on Highway 1 … [Click here for the 1st part of the Vietnam travel journal]

Itinerary : I have reached in Vietnam the most eastern point of my trip, and now I am following a north/north-west direction. For those who were surprised to see me heading east out of Bangkok, while France is more on the west, just be reminded that it is still impossible to ride through Burma at this time : borders are closed and some roads are missing on the Indian side.

Physical condition : really good. After riding more than 2,000 km on mostly flat roads, my legs are well and I can’t feel the weight of the luggage anymore.

The green bicycle : he’s fine too. I just had to tighten the headset, put some more air in the tires (once only), a bit of oil on the chain, line up the brake pads … and nothing else. The only thing which is not working is this stupid rear auto light, switching on and off as it wishes, without any consideration for my opinion. It’s annoying, I will have to change it before even having used it. Basta (it’s the brand name, and this is self-explanatory I think).

Next month program : 15 more days in Vietnam (the north-western loop via Dien Bien Phu, and the highest road of the country at 2 000m) and 15 days in China (following the very old tea road used during the Ming period).

Carbon offsetting : the project continues, and it will soon be 150 tons of carbon dioxide which will be offset !! Click here to learn more about carbon offsetting.

In the news ...

Published this month => in BangkokPost and Kom Chad Luek.
Published the day after I left => in Daily Xpress, The Nation and Le Petit Journal.
Click here to read already published articles.

I will send my next Newsletter from Zhongdian, in Yunnan, just a few km away from the Tibetan border.

Newsletter no6 (28th of August 2008): Knocking on Tibet's door.

My previous newsletter was sent from Hanoi in Vietnam, and since then I have cycled quite a bit : I am now in China, at the northern end of the Yunnan province, in a small town called Zhongdian (3,160 m) ; this is the last town before Tibet ! But before I tell you more about China, let’s come back to the second part of my trip in Vietnam.

I left Hanoi by following the north-western road, which goes through the highest mountains of the country, the very first real mountains on my route. I really had a great time there, it was hard some days but sceneries were truly rewarding, and the so many ethnic minorities living in the area contributed a lot to the feeling of being on a different planet. They were so many, with their traditional outfits, that I felt sometimes as an ethnic minority myself, the French cyclist ethnic minority, wearing those weird tight pants with a pad in it ! Everything was going well until the rain from the Kammuri storm started to pour all over the region … for four very long days and nights, without any interruption. Dust became mud and roads were quickly obstructed by numerous landslides and floods. [Click here to read my travel journal in Vietnam]

When roads finally got cleared, I went straight to the Chinese border in Hekou … to find out that there as well, it rained very hard over the last few days. The border crossing has not been an easy thing, on both sides, for different reasons, but I eventually got through … leaving behind all my books with counter-revolutionary content, threatening Chinese national unity. If north Vietnam

was a different planet, China is then a different galaxy : EVERYTHING is different here … and communication in English is totally impossible. I got used to it, I had to, and I then fully appreciated the kindness and extreme generosity of the Yunnan Chinese. I have been offered lunch or dinner so many times, I was really not expecting it, certainly because of the way China and Chinese are depicted in western media. The Yunnan province, as the whole China and so many other fast developing countries, has two faces : on one side there are the very modern cities with sky-crappers and futuristic buildings, where some Ferrari play who’s fastest with some Porsche (really, I’ve seen it in Mengzhi) … and on the other side, few kilometers away only, there are poor struggling farmers who move around on the back of their donkey ! [Click here to read the 1st part of my travel journal in China]

Physical condition : it’s going very well. After 2,000 additional km of hills and mountains, with stages of about 100 km (and climbings between 1,000 and 2,000 meters), the legs keep going nicely without any pain … and my saddle is now as comfortable as a sofa ! No more sore butt in the evening …

Climate : I left the tropical heat behind and I enjoy now a high altitude temperate climate. It’s really nice … when it’s sunny, but when it rains, and it does, it’s really cold (15 or 16 Celsius).

The green bicycle : he suffered in the mud and under the rain, but he survived. The only major problem came from the rims, as for a reason I can’t explain, they both got totally worn out and had to be replaced after less than 4,000 km !! I do not recommend Rigida Grizzly rims ...

Next month program : this will be 100% Tibet, crossing through the Himalaya with passes well over 5,000 meters. I think this is going to be something …

Carbon offsetting : the project continues … slowly. There are still a few hundred Euros missing to compensate another 50 tons of carbon dioxide. Click here to learn more about carbon offsetting.

In the news, two articles were published this month, both in French : in l'Echo Républicain and La République du centre. Click here to read already published articles.

Internet website : regularly updated until now, and with already nearly 50,000 visitors, I don’t think I will have time to update it while riding in Tibet. So don’t worry, this is normal …

I will send my next Newsletter from Nepal, in a little bit more than a month,

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