I saw your post from Janeen’s site (no direction known). Thanks for the detailed writeup. It is impressive to see the choice of aluminum, I guess that dispels any argument that one must choose carbon because the ride on alum. is too harsh.

Interesting hub. I wonder if one additional advantage is that there are less shifting problems because it is easier to clean (less exposed parts), and so maintenance (except for oiling) is easier.

I think I would have gone with a suspension fork. I would imagine they could stand up to significant abuse and would make the ride much more comfortable, although I supposed anything could break, even the frame as you mention.

I don’t know much of the roads until you get to Chile, but some of those roads have huge rocks – although I did see mtn bikers on them. That was many years ago and may have changed by now, i.e they could be nicely paved.

Enjoy!

Very nice and inspiring interview again.. What an adventure!
I hope you guys are able to enjoy the rest of this amazing trip without any physical discomforts. All the best wishes out of Holland!

A few weeks ago I motivated somebody to start training and compete in runningcontests, but this person liked to stay in the comfort-zones. Now this person seeks for new things all the time. It was very recognisable what you said in your stories. Some people just need this extra motivation or stimulation to start things up and discover themselves. If I had not been to Australia and New-Zealand, I would have never thought about climbing a mountain in Africa I guess.
Harry: Months ago I visited the four guys who invited me to tell about Kili and the Lemosho trip. I guess they have planned it for sure? They where really enthousiastic after hearing the stories and seeing my pics! I will graduate next month for school so hopefully Iam able to save up for some new adventures in the coming future Harry! We will contact again.

All the best on the tharmac Ivana and Harry.

Greetings out of sunny Enschede,
Rob Lanting

Thanks for your note. It will take a while before we can update the stories on Guyana, so here is already some quick info

The main roads from Georgetown Guyana – St Georges (border French Guyana & Brazil) are all very good. Some roads in Surinam are bumpy, but being upgraded as we speak. You need to take a ferry between the countries, but you can take a motorbike on them.

The only two bad roads are from the brazil border to Georgetown (first 400km unpaved and either bumpy or slippery, but still very ride-able) and from the other Brazil border to Macapa (first 30km paved, then 300km very unpaved Note that also that road is scheduled for upgrading.
As we were in a hurry to catch our boat on the Amazon, we took a bus on both routes, but other cylists have ridden it.

Hope this helps, the Guyanas were definitely one of the highlights of our trip so far, recommended!

With best regards,

Harry & Ivana
http://WorldOnaBike.com
ps: check also my twitter stream (http://twitter.com/exposedplanet)