‘I have been living in Wiseman since 1971, when I was 13. I have to go to Fairbanks to get supplies every 3-4 months, but hate it.’

Jack Reakoff is one of Wiseman’s famous faces and voices. he seems to know a lot about a lot and works part-time as a tourguide, showing busloads of tourists around Wiseman and telling all about its history. Whenever there is a radio discussion about a current topic, Jack calls in and he has been featured in books, videos and guides. he sells fur from animals he hunts and traps and beads to make necklaces and jewelry.

He has a clear opinion about the oil industry and the thoughts behind the pressure to start drilling in the last remaining wilderness in the arctic:

‘It’s all political. Due to new drilling methods there is actually more oil in the North Slope available than there was when they started drilling a few decades ago. But they have to lower the output, which serves them for several reasons: firstly, the pipeline will not break. It is old and corrosion has lowered the maximum pressure that can go through.

Secondly, the prices can stay high. Even though there is plenty of oil, the output is low and therefore the prices are high. High prices mean problems for the consumer but simply high profits for the guys on top and their investors. Thirdly, due to the high prices, they can try to change public opinion. Here in Alaska, many people use oil or diesel to heat their houses and to fuel their generators for electricity. also all goods have to be picked up by car or plane. Any increase in oilprices hits them triple as much as anywhere else. They think it is unfair as the oil is right beneath their feet.

Now the only thing left that all the politicians need to do to drill in the last wilderness (the Arctic Wildlife refuge), is twist public opinion. They do not need the oil beneath the refuge, they have trillions worth of oil ready to get out. But once they admit there there is enough oil already, people will start to ask: Why are the prices so high? Instead they turn it around: they reduce the flow, increase the prices, blame the Arabs and tell everybody that they need permission to drill in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, so that prices can go down again. By creating fear of the Arabs, they increase dependency of US oil, meaning more profit.’

‘ They already own the entire North Slope, really everything besides the Wildlife Refuge. Besides the few dozen well-known oilfields, they have already identified many more and can go on drilling for decades to come. They only want more profit, over the backs of the consumers and they are backed by high-ranking politicians, who either have investments in the oil industry or were put into office by people who do.’

‘ They get to buy land up here for $10 per acre, an incredible low price. Other people pay $1000- $50000 per acre, depending on the location. But the oil companies get special treatment: they can buy the land, totally inspect it and sell back whatever they do not need. So now they have many islands of land within the North Slope, ready to drill. ‘

‘ And the worst thing is, they do not even pay taxes. What they do is: they find a place to drill oil, set up a complete drilling and extracting station, sometimes built complete islands, drill to about 20.000 feet, find nothing and then write the complete thing off their taxes. Then 3 years later they come back, drill to 21,000 feet, where they knew all along the oil was, and the oil comes out, pumped up by a written off installation. Meanwhile our taxes rise and a big percentage of Alaskans will not make it through winter financially.’

‘Of course, all we need to do is simply use less oil. Use solar energy, wind energy and let the oil companies play their games, but be less dependent on them. But the people are to blind: they do not see that there are sustainable energy sources available as the politicians do not promote them. The politicians have big interest in the oil industry and therefore now stupid programs and initiatives like ‘ drill US oil now’, ‘USA oil for Americans’ etcetera try to divert attention away from saving energy to drilling in nature reserves by using ignorant patriotic sentiments. The public does not know better. They do not know they can get smaller cars, because ‘US cars are better than foreign cars’. They have no clue about saving energy, because they were taught that energy is plentiful and should be used as much as possible.’

‘All environmentalist as well as all big oil bosses have never set foot in Alaska. They have no idea how beautiful and at the same time how hostile nature can be. They do not know what they try to protect or are destroying. The Alaskans that do know are now only thinking short term: how do I survive winter? They think things will change by letting the companies drill in the last piece of protected land that has not been stolen by the oil companies & the politicians that back them up.’

———————

Jack is a WiseMan. He knows so much as many people working for the oil companies pass Wiseman and stop for a chat. So many people are directly or indirectly dependent on the oil industry that the nature is almost a lost cause. Probably Alaska would be a better place with people like him as governor. Instead now the State of Alaska is suing the US as they want the Polar bears of the endangered species list as it would mean less possibilities of unlimited drilling for oil, that we, the consumers, so crave for when we buy our new SUV’s…

Where are you going?

• The plan is to cycle through America, from the North of Alaska to the South of Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. Note that America is not the same as the USA. We want to see America and the USA is one country on these two continents.

Straight down?

• Well, straight down is impossible, you would hit water already in Alaska, but even in a straight line is not possible. The fastest route would be more or less straight to Panama, fly or sail to Colombia, then down the west coast of South America, over the PanAmericana.

So how far is that, 16.000km, about 10,000 miles?

• It might be if you could go straight down. We think we will have cycled at least double that distance (about 35000km) as we want to visit every country on the mainland, so including all the small countries on Central America and all the larger countries in South America.

How much do you cycle every day?

• Usually between 50 & 100km, depending on the wind, road surface, health, bike problems, interesting places and people.
• We will not cycle every day, we will take longer rests in interesting places, so our average will likely be around 50km/day or even less.

How long will this trip take?

• We think about 2.5 years, give or take a few months.

Why 2.5 years, why not 2 or 3 years?

• We have to start in Alaskan summer, so July (June is considered Spring, August Fall, the rest is winter in Alaska). As the Southern hemisphere has reversed seasons and we want to arrive in summer as well, we need either 1.5, 2.5 or 3.5 years. 1.5 is too fast, 3.5 a bit slow…

Who & what

Who are you?

• Ivana Coria from Argentina & Harry Kikstra from the Netherlands. you can read some backgrounders and links to our other projects and websites on the about page.

Argentina & The Netherlands? So where did you meet?

• In Tibet. She was cycling from Malaysia to India, I was climbing Mt Everest. We got engaged two years later on the summit of Kilimanjaro, 3 weeks before the start of this cycle trip.

Tibet? Kilimanjaro? Eh, ok. So you like travelling. Where else have you cycled before?

• Ivana has made one very long trip: first around New Zealand, then from Malaysia to India, passing Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, China, Tibet & Nepal on the way. Then she cycled for a month in Turkey and has also cycled in France.
• Together we cycled in Italy for a month.
• I (Harry) was raised in the Netherlands, so was practically born and raised on bicycles. Previously I have not made any very long cycle trips, but have done some shorter touring of 2-3 weeks per trip (Belgium – Normandy – Jersey -England; Wales, Ireland, Northern Ireland – Scotland; Amsterdam – Zermatt on a tandem).

What bicycles do you use?

• We ride on the perfect travel bike: Dutch made to order Santos Travel master, aluminium frame, 26″ wheels. Tubus racks and Ortlieb bags see for more details the gear pages.

Website:

How does this website work?

• well you found the FAQ, so you seem to have some idea already. On the homepage you see 4 tabs with a photo and shortcuts to the last 4 posts.
• You can check older trip reports in may ways: check archives, trip reports, search for words, browse by categories (the second/lower top menu) or use the tags system, which is a bit more detailed than the categories.
• You can contact us through the contact form and we love feedback on our posts, so please leave some comments when you read the posts. You will be asked to verify that you are a human being (and not a spam robot) by typing some random code. Though this might be difficult and annoying, it saves us hours of time and helps to control spam.

Will you write reports every day?

• We will try but already know that it will not be possible as we will be too tired, to grumpy, too out of battery power, or too far away from any internet connection. So likely we will write in batches, whenever we have a few hours or day off and post them when needed.

So do I need to check every day to see if you updated something?

• No, you can make it much easier to follow us: either add our RSS feed to your feed reader, so you get a notice when a new feed is available
• If you have no idea what RSS is, just subscribe to our mailinglist and get a maximum of one email every day new updates are posted. You can do this on every page, see the box at the right side, near the top of the page or just click here.

Why does http://WorldOnABike.com change to http://worldonabike.com ?

• World On A Bike .com is just easier to remember and to tell people. It automatically forwards to the real website which is located at harry.biketravellers.com. On http://BikeTravellers.com everybody that cycles can open a free weblog (yourname.biketravellers.com), try it yourself, many others have already done so.

Where are Ivana’s reports?

• Ivana prefers to write in Spanish, so her website is http://ElMundoEnBici.com . Note that this also is just an easy to remember shortcut, it forwards to http://elmundoenbici.biketravellers.com .
• Do not forget that our penguin friend Pablito is also joining us and he makes his own reports as well, sometimes in English, mostly in Spanish, check out his website here: http://Pablito.biketravellers.com

What are those ‘Google Ads’ I see on many pages?

• These are small advertisements, supplied by Google. We do not choose them, the content is based on the content of the page, so a page about Alaska will give you ads about Alaska tours or land. It might show things we do not support, like drilling for oil in Alaska.
• Every time somebody clicks on them, we get a few cents, which helps to pay for our website costs. So if you are interested in the ads, please check tem out as you are helping us.
• Do not just click a lot of ads just to help us, as Google might ban our account if some people repeatedly click our ads from the same computer/IP address. So only check the ones that are interesting to you.

How & costs & support

How can you afford such a trip?

• We spend much less than you think, we saved some money the past years and might make some more on the way.

So, how much will you spend?

• North America will be the most expensive: until we reach Mexico, we will spend about $15 per day (together). This means less than $3000 in the first 6 months.
• Then from Mexico down it will probable be less than half of that.
• In total should be less than $10,000 together for the entire trip.

That is less than my parents spent on a luxury 2-week safari trip last year! How come you can live so cheap?

• We do not need much. We have our tent, so we do not need to pay for hotels. We camp out in the wild or at people’s lawn’s, so do not pay for expensive campsites. We will stay in cheap hostels in cities -in central America, you can get these for a few dollars-, but will also do a lot of Couchsurfing/Hospitality clubbing/ WarmShowering: staying with people for free, in return we will host them later.
• We cook ourselves, so all we need is some pasta, some veggies and some candy bars to get us through the day. We drink water we get from people or take it from streams and purify it with our Steripen. We recharge our batteries using our SolarSupra solar panel. We never buy bottled water, that is a waste of money and plastic.
• We do not have an expensive taste and have no space for souvenirs on our bikes, so all we take home are pictures and memories.
• Our sponsors supplied us with most of our gear, so we had little costs up front.

It is still a lot of money, don’t you have any other costs as well?

• We do not have kids, we do not have a car and have no debts, we never bought and will not buy anything we cannot afford. We have a house, but that is rented out so almost pays for itself.
• So things we need to pay are: food & drinks. Sometimes camping fees (mostly we camp in the wild or on people’s lawns); Internet connections along the way, spare parts for our bikes; replacements for clothes we wore out; park fees; visa fees; entry fees for places we want to visit etc.
• It is hard to plan exactly how much we will spend, but we want to see things along the way and will buy some dinners or breakfasts along the way when we are too tired or lazy to cook or think we deserved it after cycling another 1000km or a tough day. Basically we are on a tight budget, but will not let this stop us from enjoying the places we visit.

Is there any way we can support your trip?

• Yes! Many ways, first of all you can sign up for our newsletter or RSS feed. Forward them to others that might enjoy reading travel stories, stories about people and culture, cycling, environmental issues, America.
• Leave comments on the posts. We love to read them, they keep us going. Small notes from friends and strangers are huge boosts for our confidence and can help us through rough and difficult times.
• Just think of this website as a free interactive travel magazine subscription. If you enjoy reading our stories and seeing our photos, you can thank us by donating some money using the form on the right side of every post and page, using PayPal or credit card. Every small amount is welcome, just think what you would spend on a magazine or book.
• Check out the Google ads if there is something interesting for you (do not click them all just to help, see notes above).
• Link to our websites or specific reports or photos from your own website or blog. Add us to Stumble Upon, ReddIt, Digg etc. get the word out that it is possible to travel by bicycle!
• Invite us to speak in your town. We can give presentations about our trips, about climbing the 7 summits, cycling Asia, Bike Travelling or a photo presentation of the culture and nature of the 7 continents . We can charge admission fees or just ask for donations. We love to tell about our trips and spread knowledge about cycling and the environment.
• Buy something from our shops, see the links above. We get a small percentage of every item sold and you promote cycling!
• Invite us for dinner or to stay at your place or recommend addresses to sleep (friends, family) or even just places to pitch our tent
• Start cycling yourself!

We passed quite a few roadhouses and motels, that were either closed for the season or closed altogether. Seems that the combination of higher gas prices (increasing the costs for the generators and heating) and lower number of tourists (also partly because of higher gas prices) already has put many businesses out of business. Still some smaller business like the Cappucino house at the Gakona Junction seemed to survive. Shame that most clients never leave their car and stop to talk with the friendly ladies that run the wildly decorated place. Louise warned us for the many wild bears that were on the coming stretch and showed us some photos of a bear on the side of the road that apparently was not afraid of humans at all, taken a few days before…

We had stopped for some internet at Gakona Roadhouse, a nice historic place in a beautiful setting. It was comfortable to stay there, but the late evening sun convinced us to go a bit further and so we managed to see the beautiful sunsets over the Wrangell-StElias national park, with its 2 dominant peaks (from this side) Mt Drum and Mt Stanford.

We arrived late at our destination, a roadside pullout at Mile 24, which had toilets and nice free camping sites. When we arrived we saw a table with two open Ortlieb bags, but nobody around, even after I shouted in all directions! I called Ivana, who came running. She was already scared as it was getting dark and because of the many bear stories on the way. ‘Oh, is that all that is left of him?’ She asked in panic.

But soon a young US boy came out of the bushes, named Thimble. He had been watching the sunset and had forgotten to close his bags. His bike and tarp were a bit father away. We learned that he had been travelling with Nico and Jason, our Dalton Highway cycling buddies, but that both Nico and Thimble were sent back at the border because of previous minor arrests in the US. Nico had been nervous and ignored the STOP sign and then their backgrounds were checked as well as their bags. Jason was let through, but the others were denied access to Canada and had no option but to cycle back towards Alaska…

Of course this made Ivana more nervous, but we still managed to have a good sleep. The next morning, the weather was still nice and we headed in the direction of Slana, halfway on the so-called Tok-Cutoff highway. Just before leaving Ivana remembered that a bit earlier she had left her lightweight Vertical rain pants in the toilet and went to get it. we had been having breakfast just behind the toilets, but apparently one of the few RV’s that had stopped to use them, had taken the pants as they were gone! That was very bad news, not only were these pants very light and dried fast, but with the current rains and dropping temperatures, one wet day would be enough to get her soaking wet and hypothermic.

We passed a small place called Chistochina and asked in the first big farm if they had any spare rainpants that we could buy. They did not, but the owners of the Redeagle Lodge, Richard and Judy were very friendly and showed us around their new collection of wonderfully decorated lodges, to be opening next season. What impressed me most were the enormous solarpanels, heating all the water for the showers.

We continued to Slana, where the rain began to fall again when we arrived late. Slana had been a controversial place as the subsistence and hunting-gathering lifestyle of the community was threatened when the National park was formed. Suddenly the local people were not allowed to do what they had been done for centuries and many angry faces were created, resulting in the burning of the brandnew Ranger station (twice!). Now some kind of agreement that gives both parties freedom has been arranged and things have cooled off.

Just past Slana is a small ‘mom-and-pop-store’ called Midway Services. It is a very nice grocery with very reasonable prices, the first time we could get Snicker bas (the cyclist’s staple diet) for 65cts! When we entered the store, we saw 3 people, 2 men and one woman, looking tired, smoking on some benches.

‘Do you want to sleep here tonight?’, the man asked.

‘We are not sure yet’, we replied. We had seen the Campsite site outside and were looking for a protected place to camp, but as always we were also very careful about our budget.

‘Cause if you do, you can pitch your tent outside or you can sleep in the old bus in the back of the yard. And the price of the staying in the bus is…’ he paused a bit. ‘Free!’.

We looked at each other in disbelief and told him that we would love it. He took us to the old bus that was parked in the back, which was turned into a campervan. It was great, it had 3 beds, many seats and a table and even a 4-burner gas stove. He checked the gas, saw it was empty and refilled the bottle for us. Then he turned it on.

‘To make it a bit warmer’…

It was wonderful. They left the store open for us, so we could wash some clothes, charge some batteries and even take a shower. We were warmed by their generosity and trust, something we had encountered so many times by now in Alaska. We ended up staying 2 nights, resting on the day in between, writing updates, cleaning stuff. We spent some time in the store, listening to to many stories of all the locals coming in for their groceries and ice-cream (apparently the Rangers and many tourists never visit or even know of the place). The story of the week was the bear that had entered a few people’s back yards, taking some groceries. One guy had shot it once, but with a small gun only that had jammed after one shot. The bear was wounded but got away and now everybody was on the lookout and shared stories about guns and bears.

it is so wonderful to be away from the world politics for a while and get immersed in the local stories. Just like the people in flooding Nenana a few weeks before (though Nenana definitely was informed about Climate Change!), the Slanans did not care about Iraq or Zimbabwe. Their life was basic and community based, which was a delight to experience.

After our resting day we headed towards Tok, with the promise of restaurants and more shops The road was nice and we made good time as we even had some tailwind! This made the dozens of small hills a pleasure to climb as most downhills would get us far up the next uphill. We even saw a very rare animal (see photo below), though none of the feared bears entered our view.

We had already heard about the all you can eat breakfast at the Sourdough campground in Tok, but as they wanted to charge us $15 for a gravel campsite (discount, normally $20!), we headed into town and found out that you can camp for free in the back of the 24/7 Chevron gas station, perfect for cyclists! Only one more road to go in Alaska, this time to Canada, but would we be admitted?

Kowalski, Status report!

It was great to have a sunny day and catch a glimpse of Alaska’s beauty. We can only imagine what was hidden under the clouds the rest of the trip… Not too many tough hills this time, though it is never flat up here.

www.lenovo.nl

Lenovo is part of IBM computers. Their Thinkpad series is well known all over the world. When researching our optimal road warrior’s laptop, we stumbled upon a pressrelease announcing the new X300. It was light (3 pounds/1.5 kgs), had a solid state disk (so no spinning harddisk), but still managed to pack 3 USB ports, a DVD-reader/burner, a 1400x900px screen, 2gb RAM, a core duo processor, a fingerprint reader, an integrated webcam and much more under the hood (go here to see a full list of specifications). Connectivity is important and the combination of a HSDPA modem, WIFI and an Ethernet connection will be vital for us.

We noticed Lenovo also in another positive way. They are leaders in green computing:

Read more about the green program below.

When Bernie Pruissen, head of Marketing Europe, heard of our plans, he immediately supported us as lenovo is dedicated to ‘green computing’. The result: Lenny, our faithful recipient of thoughts and rants and hardworking processor of photograps and videos. This is what others say about Lenny

Beyond thin and light

Lenovo’s amazing new ThinkPad X300 ultraportable notebook is the thinnest ThinkPad ever – less than
19mm at its thinnest. It’s light too, just 1.4 kg.

But the X300 is more than ultra-thin and ultra-light. It’s
ultra-functional, too, thanks for available performance and convenience
features like these:

		Integrated DVD burner – Hard to find in an ultraportable Extended-life batteries – Get up to 10 hours unplugged Easy connectivity – Advanced wireless options plus Gigabit Ethernet Convenience – 3 USB ports, line in/line out, and more

Advanced components on the X300 include Solid State storage drives (with no moving parts, they consume less power and are considered less likely to break down than traditional hard drives). The X300 also offers several wireless connectivity options including integrated Wireless WAN and Wlan. Style-wise, the X300 is closer to the size of an actual paper notebook than a ThinkPad notebook has ever been. And it offers numerous design flourishes including a glossy bottom bezel, select illuminated buttons, and – for the first time in X Series – an integrated camera option and stereo speakers.

‘Greenest’ ThinkPad ever
		In addition, ThinkPad X300 is the first Lenovo notebook rated EPEAT Gold for low energy use and minimal impact on the environment. It also meets the European Union’s Reduction of Hazardous Substances standards. And it is Energy Star 4.0 qualified. The X300 uses 25% less energy than previous X Series models. What else makes the ThinkPad X300 so “green”? Energy-saving low voltage processors, LED backlit displays and solid state storage drives Arsenic-free glass / Mercury-free displays 90% recyclable packaging (by weight) And much more

Why choose energy efficient products

Environmental issues are becoming important to organisations and individuals alike. Energy efficient choices can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and save energy costs for the user, without sacrificing features, style or comfort.

Lenovo’s role in combating climate changes

Lenovo is committed to providing environmentally responsible, energy-efficient technology choices. In 2007 Lenovo joined the Board of Climate Savers Computing to support the efforts in reducing the IT CO₂ emissions by 50% by 2010¹.

Move your mouse over the arrows to learn more		This is how we do it: All Lenovo ThinkPad notebooks, ThinkVision monitors and many ThinkCentre products launched from 2008 are Energy Star 4.0 compliant and have up to 70% energy efficiency improvement compared to older generation PCs. Lenovo systems that achieved EPEAT Gold rating also contain up to 90% re-usable and recyclable materials and their packaging is 90% recyclable. Lenovo Power Manager and BatteryStretch² technologies provide adjustable power management for better performance and longer battery life. Our end-to-end solution Lenovo in partnership with our alliances offer a complete environmentally responsible solution from buying back and recycling customers’ old PCs to providing them with new energy efficient Lenovo systems that help reduce energy consumption and electricity costs.

Energy efficient products

Lenovo has a range of energy efficient EPEAT Gold systems and monitors to suit the requirements of different types of customers.

Your choice

A small office network of just 2 PCs can use as little as 130 kWh or as much as 1300 kWh annually³. Consider the environmental impact and achievable cost savings by switching older generation PCs to the Lenovo Energy Star 4.0 compliant products.

By choosing to purchase more energy-efficient PCs, consumers and organisations can do their part to reduce carbon emissions and combat climate change while also saving money.

One of the most interesting items he imports are Solar Supra solar panels: foldable solarpanels, that come with a smart battery. You can use the solarpanel directly (it comes with a range of adapters and plugs), or you can charge the battery first and then take power off it later, offering a voltage switcher, to use it with many appliances.
This is not only an excellent way to conserve solar energy, but offer many new possibilities: even with a relatively small solar panel, we can generate enough power to charge our laptop, batteries for the water purifier, headlamps, bike light, but also all cameras and mp3 player. It s a great feeling to be able to use the solar power and to be independent from any other power source for a long time.

One other interesting product Peter supplied us with is the Steripen. We used to drag large water filters and pumps with us or all kinds of bad-tasting drops to purify the water of viruses & bacteria. Now we just take water from any source (we tested tab water everywhere in Zanzibar and Tanzania), press a button, stick the pen in and stir for 2 minutes. Ready to drink immediately!

A great weight saver and as the batteries are rechargeable, we can use it for a long time. One charge will purify about 100 liters/26 gallons and the light will last for about 4000 liters/1000 gallons.

For this and much more useful travel and cycle gear, go to www.outdoordacht.nl

Thanks Peter and we will definitely report back in detail on all the great gear.

Some of the products Outdoordacht sells:

OUTDOORDACHT

MARSOOPS

STUUR-/ZADELPEN BIDONHOUDER