jimmyadkins

Riding out of Mexico City on a sunny morning I could never really imagine what my ride to the coast would hold for me! Am I gonna get robbed, shot or both of them. Well in the end apart from that one valley where the temperature was beyond 40 degrees Celsius I never had the impression I was in any sort of trouble. My freewheel hub was making some funny noises but that was just about it! The day I eventually left mainland Mexico and got onto the boat to Baja California, I knew my trip was going to take a drastic change. I was about to come back to the civilised WESTERN WORLD. Getting off the ferry in La Paz a cold headwind would instantly say hello and it did so for the remaining 14 days I was trying to make my way to the US border. Sometimes it almost felt like Mexico didn't want to let me go, but anyway even the 1600 km of straight headwind and the mind numbing landscapes couldn't stop me heading NORTH. With only one word on my mind - TIJUANA. The last day in Mexico was the one I probably remember the most out of almost two months spending in this incredible country. Riding out of Ensenada which sits about 120 km from Tijuana, I thought it would be a nice coastal ride with a quick jump across the border. In the end I had to climb up a cliff to get past the first toll station, ride on the wrong side of the Highway at the second one and cross into the US two times. A piece of cake as usual. I was glad not to bring any other cyclist with me on that day - because that really was a mess! After having my first big sandwich across the border I found an amazing campsite next to Interstate 5. Riding into San Diego the streets were pretty empty on Memorial Day apart from hundreds of homeless roaming around aimlessly. Welcome to the United States. The land of incredible opportunities, where everyone steps on each other and waits for you being stranded in the street. And that was exactly what happened to me. Not illegally but crossing into US from Mexico trying to make my way through this relentless country at times I felt like an immigrant. Back in L.A. I had my fist diarrhea in month. And that AFTER crossing over from Mexico. Well the odd "Gracias" would still come off my lips at times but it didn't really matter half of the staff would be Mexican anyway. So after slowly adapting to US lifestyle, crossing L.A. and riding a Granfondo - it was time to get some work done. So I rode 260 km to San Fran in a day, meeting up with Vlogger Plantriotic on the way. I even got a cameo in one of his videos. After spending a couple days in San Fran it was time to get my Hollywood career going as well. So flying to Utah was the logical step and filming the sequel of "Endurance" with Genesis Film. It was tough and especially getting up at 3 o'clock in the morning filming in Arches National Park trying to find the trail to the eponymous Arch! After some pretty rough days and a ton of luck we got our shit together and I was back on the road again! Cycling over the Golden Gate after coming back from this little shooting, was an absolute highlight if it wasn't for the hundreds of Mark Cavendishs and Grandmas who were trying to do the same in a 80 km/h crosswind... And here we are writing the last chapter before heading towards Canada. All stoked about being soooo far into this trip and still being healthy and alive.

It is that time of the year again when we have to look back, think about the last couple of months and write a funny blog-post! What a ride it has been to get through to Mexico City and pretty much closing the door on Latin America. It was hot, it was hot and it was hot. After all I am not quite sure if the 5 o'clock morning rides are my cup of tea. But to be honest my idea of riding a bike ist not dragging yourself to 1 pm and then spending the rest of the day just contemplating over the eventual distance you could have made IF you didn't take a lunch break or stop for toilet before the inferno strikes again! But in all this baking-oven-moments there was plenty of brightside too. Maybe not the day when news broke out about the murder of fellow traveler Catherine Johannet on Bastimentos island and I was just a stone throw away sweating my brain out. I have always looked at this trip as a bit of lottery and in the end I was always hoping to come home with the big check. Namely just walking away from it alive! But what makes you think on days like these ... is just in the end we might be riding our bikes or hiking on a trail but on THAT particular day I really wished I was hiking on that trail and could have helped that girl. In the end I didn't and I walked away from this whole experience quite drained in general. And it wasn't for the excruciating heat. Overall the entire Panama City - Tegucigalpa ride was a bit on the heels of what was left of my Colombia form as well. But as it seemed it was just enough to get the job done and ride that baby home. Nicaragua was a bit of a surprise as I saw backpackers roaming around and families climbing up volcanos. It was so much not like Honduras where hardly any tourists pass through. In Tegucigalpa I had a chance to catch up with some friends from my stint as a volunteer and also take some time off to process what has been going on in last 7,000 km. Still time flew by pretty fast and I could wrap up the photography and filming for the upcoming cyclingtips article which is due in May - hopefully! The chance to tell some of my story on local television for various sports programs - was also something I wanted to give a shot and it turned out to be a lof of fun altogether! Riding into Mexico City was definitely as hard as getting to Mexico City. That is for sure. I never really looked at the map - but what I definitely underestimated was the flat long drag from Guatemala to Mexico City. It was one baking oven out there and riding in this sort of heat with a full gear is for sure something I can't see those boyfriends with their girlfriends doing when setting off for an EPIC BIKE TRIP . Maybe that's why in the end there was none of them and I hardly doubt they ride in this sort of conditions at all ... but that is another story in the endless chapters of the Panamerican Highway encyclopedia which I probably write one day ... A little bit of a bummer was also when news broke out that Michele Scarponi was struck by a truck and I was pretty much just on the verge of cycling into the most congested/biggest city of this planet. Anyway somehow it seems we kind of digest these kind of stories and move on with our own lives but still having the balls to cycle into Mexico City on a morning like this is character building for sure. So as I keep building my character around minor and bigger setbacks one thing is pretty impressive for me so far: How well I have managed to get through Central America in the midst of the entire paranoia that sourrounds these countries.

After riding towards Pitalito I was told there had been some serious landslides on the way to Bogota as well and the main road had been closed down ! So I gambled pretty hard still riding all the way towards that point hoping they would clear the road in time! Luckily it worked....but with a little bit less luck I could have really ended up stranded just outside Pitalito. As the heat kept slowly creeping under my skin I learned that it is not that easy to find your way out of Neiva - the capital of Huila province. It took up so much time that I ended up riding in the complete dark before I would eventually get into Espinal - which marks the starting point for the 80 k something climb up to Bogota! And I already had a bad gut feeling before that very day:f: - but when 2 Colombian cyclists made me blow up (120 kg Vs 49 kg ) in the early 3 km after the famed "tunnel" and a random guy along the road called out "Gringo, hijo de p***", I knew it would be a hard day . This Espinal - Fusagasuga (or short "Fusa") ride was one of the hardest I did in a really long time and I don't remember drinking so much on a single day as well. I just hope I never have to do this stretch again and I feel sorry for every cyclist who lives in that particular area - it is simply mortal. Later I learned that Lucho Herrera hails from "Fusa" - and this doesn't really come as a surprise to me, because whether you go Pro or quit cycling if you live there! Unsurprisingly I was pretty dead after "The Fusa-ride" - the only thing that kept me going was that Bogota was just over the next hill. And after climbing another 30k it really was a pretty smooth drag into the city itself. Rodolfo with whom I got in touch with through Strava invited me to his home and I took 3 days off and reset my mind after the last couple days. Also I had to find a new set of wheels before crossing over to Central America. Fully charged and highly motivated I started riding towards San Gil and Bucaramanga. The first two days went pretty smooth....besides the odd downpour which pretty much got all my clean laundry smelly again and some pretty heavy traffic along a pretty narrow road! The days towards San Gil and Bucaramanga were supposed to be the last hard ones before about 600 k of pretty flat terrain. Surprisingly on the first day I was climbing really well even though I had like 4 flat tires within the first 20 k :bump:. On the second day I was pretty dead cycling out of San Gil but somehow I found my rhythm again and did a really really solid ride into Bucaramanga and I guess it had been the reward for the many many hard hours I had put in over the course of the last 2 month. After Bucuramanga it was not really a walk in the park but there was nothing in the way that was really worrying. Besides a stomach bug and the opressive heat the continent was pretty much in the (back)bag and the obligatory beer shower was there for the taking. And here we are writing these last few lines on the South America chapter from Cartagena.

After taking a bunch of photos on the beach in Mancora, it was time to pack my bags and ride the final 100k to the Peruvian/Ecuadorian border. It was a bitter/sweet taste since I had spent such a huge portion of my entire journey in Peru and I got so used to its pace and many many convenient ways. Certainly it has been the country that has shaped the Panamericana for me the most. After crossing over to Ecuador though it was time figure out how to map my ride through the rest of the Andes. Climbing up from Mancora was one problem, but doing it all over again from the other side was another. I never really spent a whole lot of time planning my ride through Ecuador....but when the guys in Cuenca at the bikeshop told me that the road to Riobamba is by far the hardest in the whole country....YEAH that's when I started thinking about descending again!! Doing the "El Oriente" ("Rumble in the Jungle- Tour") instead at the end really paid off. I could do some proper rides in lower altitude and it sort of started to click with the climbing finally as well. I was able to go a lot more out of the saddle and by the end of the jungle I did one of the biggest days in terms of climbing of the whole Panamericana. The closer you get to a target the more the stress starts to build up and Quito was a big target for sure. It marked the end of 2016 and also the start of the new year. After chilling for a couple days a few k's outside of Quito - on January 1st I hit the road again. Those rides to the Colombian border were super tiring and I was definitely a little bit worn out from the jungle altogether. Usually I could somehow sleep off the fatigue and after 2,3 days I would be back in the game. So I sort of dragged myself to Pasto were I could finally get the rest day I was craving for so bad. Pasto was also the epicenter of the Carneval de Negros e Blancos. There was a lot of white powder, paint and foam and everyone was pretty much spraying each other. It was sort of a fun distraction from the grind those two countries, namely Ecuador and Colombia had been so far. Heading out of Pasto it was pretty clear I would avoid the Cali - Medellin stretch and opt for the jungle option AGAIN namely - "El Trampulin de los muertos." This 50 km long dirt road is famed for its regular landslides and also infamously for its many buses and trucks that were thrown of the cliffs for one reason or another. So it comes pretty close to its namesake "Death Road" which sits close to La Paz, Bolivia. After spending a night in a roadside restaurant it was time to descend for 25 k on really bad bumpy dirtroad, including some pretty serious river crossings! As the trucks and buses kept rolling by (really close) on this beat up road.....I was wondering all along how tough it must be to sit in the back of a vehicle and getting a knocking for 3-4 hours. For sure a lot worse than riding it on a Cyclo Cross in slow motion. Once I reached Mocoa which serves as a logistic starting point to all expeditions into the deep Colombian jungle - it was finally time to get all my wet smelly laundry washed and do some more serious riding in lower altitude. By now I had definitely set my eyes on the Colombian capital! BOGOTA

As the year was slowly coming to a close it was time to make up my mind how to move on after leaving NPH Honduras. The plan was always to get back on the bike and continue the ride. Making the transition from teaching 10 to 12 year old orphans and living in a well-rounded community to cycling on my own through the Americas was never meant to be easy. Though I was determined to take that step. After a four month "layoff" I was finally riding out of Ica. It was by any means one of the brightest moments of 2016. No matter if you are tired, if you are on a high or if you are on a low - cycling transmits something that is so grounding that even in the weirdest of circumstances -and those were for sure pretty weird ones - it lets you settle and refocus. Sure there was a massive wall to climb to get back up to the Altiplano, but with every pedalstroke the energy this journey had given me was slowly coming back. I was out of breath, I was in poor shape - but I was riding. I had been looking at the Peruvian map for the last couple months always trying to figure out how I will get back up from Ica. And the route that had been most appealing to me was the one towards Huancavelica. It took almost a week to regroup and get my head around how to pace myself on altitude. But I would always be sure that at some point I would be able to handle that kind of workload again. The ride up to the Laguna Choclococha and the descent to Huancavelica reconfirmed my feelings that nothing had changed. I was still a bikerider trying to cycle the Panamericana. The long school days when I had been struggling to keep my temper and trying to come up with something entertaining, funny were all gone. Now it was just about moving the bike from A to B. And everytime I would be looking at a massive climb, being totally out of breath or just completely out of sleep - I would have a grin on my face and tell myself: "How nice it is to just feel ******!!":D I knew it would be hard to get a grip on the trip again. And to get back into the rhythm of eating, resting and sleeping; Being always hydrated and not going to hard on days when you are simply feeling "off". But the whole process was mostly about getting to that point when it all comes natural again and you are just moving on. I was riding out of Chiclayo in the North of Peru and felt really on the limit for most of the day. Just "push, push" for 100k. I was riding into a strong headwind when the road took a lefthand turn and a truck that had passed me about 15 min ago was suddenly upside down. There were people all over the place but the driver seemed to be fine. But when I looked at the scene and considered my current state - I just wanted to stop. Somehow I decided to push on and ironically there was a steep hill right after the place were tragedy just struck. I did almost 170 k that day. The legs were finally back and I was actually were I wanted to be. I was literally over the hill. The Cordillera Blanca was one hell of a struggle. Sometimes a hurdle so high I was close to throwing in the towel. But after all what those weeks have given me was simply invaluable.

To cut a long story short in the last 4 month I have hardly been riding my bike. Most of you are wondering how things could take such a drastic change. When so much sacrifice, so much time was dedicated to cycling in the first half of the year. Sometimes in life we walk down a path that seems in many ways entirely dedicated to our own wellbeing. Coming to terms with the fact that the Pan American Rouleur project is not only some sort of well established PR machine that dwells on fun, action and mostly riding a bike but also strives to actually give back took a fair amount of time. Today months after really shelving those travel plans I can honestly say that giving back is not just an empty phrase. For me it is the disappointment, the anger and setbacks that come with it. And most of all it is hard work. I feel like at this point of my Pan American Highway ride I can make a choice if I want to go down the path of cycling along the coolest road on earth or putting another huge junk of dedication to the lives of others. I guess at some point in our lives we all gotta make that choice, we don't even have to cycle two continents and work in an orphanage - we only have to take a look around. Taking into account how much has been going on for me in 2016 so far - from the sheer excitement of setting off, through the desperation in the desert all the way to the ill-fated stories I come across in Honduras, I really keep asking myself how much can one really give until it is enough. The more I keep asking myself this question the more I admire people who have done this their entire life without even looking back once. And in the end they have paved the way for us who are seeking to find an answer to this question.

After tackling the desert it was time to get ready for some high altitude training! And in Peru altitude does come in quite handy with roads switching back and forth at about 4000m!! It was some sort of challenge going from nothing but sea level in the North of Chile to the magnificent plains of the altiplano. Sitting at 2300m Arequipa proofed to be a pretty decent base to get used to the extreme conditions which would lay ahead. With a couple days off the bike the Colca Canyon was a great opportunity to get my mind distracted from the upcoming rides towards Cusco and spend some time with fellow travelers. Seeing the biggest living bird - the Condor - in such a setting was absolutely mindblowing and almost worth getting up at 4am! But it didn't take long and I would find myself going up from 2000 to 3000 and from 3000 to 4000. People on Strava were asking me what it feels like to climb on 4000. After a long day on the bike and with almost no sleep at night - I would put it this way.... Imagine you are going to a race - the gun goes off and you are hitting the first climb - and you keep thinking "Shit, I came here with such crappy form I am getting dropped on the first climb....!?!?!?!". Well riding on altitude feels like getting constantly dropped - but at the end of the day you have to take the defeat like a champion and ride it to the end. So after being dropped like a thousand times - I rolled into Cusco. And to be honest it was one of the biggest moments in my travels having cycled all the way up from Arica and standing in the Plaza de Armas - it is not something people do on a daily basis! Not to mention the whole insanity around Machu Pikchu and Ollantaytambo (or somethin like this!?) - finally hitting those ruins was really jaw-dropping. A place like this just can't be photographed enough - as long as I don't get stabbed to death by one of those selfiesticks! I wish I could say riding back to Nazca went as smooth down as an Alpaca steak - I can tell you I would rather sleep a month outside on 4000 than hitting those slopes again! This guys really have to get a bunch of tunnels up there. But as long as the trucks keep going up and down (and some crazy cyclists) this road will always be remembered for the never ending switchbacks...

Thanks to everyone for the great feedback! You are absolutely right the starlite sky really made my day out there! Love the photo - it pictures well the colosal landscapes out there!

It was a tough call riding out of Renaca, a well known beach town a stone throw from Vina del Mar - knowing there was 1000 km of desert ahead. I took a last bite in the "Belle Helene" crepe I ordered and thought "Let's do this!". Coming from a lengthy break - it is always a little bit of a mind game. What am I doing here? Why am I camping next to the highway? Two days ago I was in good company in a cool city with plenty of things to keep me entertained - and now I am sitting alone in my tent! Well this is were the "Pan American Rouleur" comes in! It is the hunger, the desire to ride this road. Whether it is a desert, a beach or a tropical jungle - it is all about riding on that road. And the more days you have in the bag, the more nights you have camped out - you start to realize - I came here to do this and not to eat pancakes! Well some say there is a romance in cycling in the desert, camping out in the nothingness and talking to yourself. I wouldn't put it that way but it does get intense out there. Sensations, feelings, ideas - everything is a bit overwhelming and especially since you are exercising and going up and down over again - it does get even more intense! You prepare yourself. You picture yourself in certain scenarios - but at the end off the day the isolation will get at some point to your brain - and all you have is your bike and the few items you carry along. This makes it pretty simple. And for me the desert is one of the few places were things become very clear. You go in and eventually you will come out. But what happens in between is in your hands. Everything that happens has a much bigger impact on you. The people you meet, the setbacks you have - it all comes down to you how you deal with it! And after a while that moment when you camped out on the highway after riding out of Santiago almost seems like an old joke. Because now you are looking at burned out cars at the side of the road and hundreds of ks without even people to talk with. You have hardened up. You have tested yourself to the limits! Today I went back into a nice restaurant and they had some pretty amazing burgers with all you can dream off. And the only thing I thought about was that moment when I started riding into the desert - not knowing what would lay ahead. I lifted my game, I pushed myself and that's all you can do out there.

With Patagonia slowly starting to be a distant memory - the North of Chile, the Atacama desert and the Peruvian/Chilean border are the next objectives. Tomorrow I will be heading out for completing the South American leg of this ride. After somewhat 333 hours in the saddle and 200,000 calories burned it was really time to recharge batteries, meet up with friends and also stock up on gear for the next month. But what felt most difficult was to resist the famous "Completo" (a sandwich the size of a flatscreen) in this period of resting. Last weekend we headed for the famous Cerro San Cristobal to shoot the new PAR short film. You can find more on the proceedings via Panam-Rouleur.com People were telling me about the San Cristobal all over Chile. Everyday hundreds of cyclists are climbing the serpentines of this beautiful hill situated right in the center of Santiago. Coming here reminded me of the many times I went out training in Mallorca and watched fellow cyclists going up and down the same hill over and over again. For me the Cerro was simply a day of rest, to drink a cup of coffee and to complete the shooting. Riding the city itself feels incredible challenging - you can see at every crossing how congested Santiago is and how little space cyclists have in this metropolis. I have respect for every cyclist who takes to the streets in the wee hours and tries to make his way through this enormous city. Still I would love to return to Santiago de Chile, a vibrant city situated in the middle of the Andes.

When Riding out of Ushuaia I already knew I had a huge junk of headwind in front of me! But what would lay ahead was hard to imagine anyway. And just to put the record straight - when talking about the winds of Patagonia it kind of reminds me of talking about J.R.R Tolkien and his tails about Middle -Earth .... it just goes on and on and on..... You bury yourself out there on the road, hope for the better the next day and get up - and it all starts over again. You are still in Hobbitland - only in the Pampa there is just Guanacos instead of Hobbits and they are pretty damn good at jumping across the thousands of kilometers of fence. "There is no sweet without the bitter", they say - but in this case - it would take like a truckload of the finest chocolate to compensate in anyway! The Lago del Desierto crossing marked also the end of the Ruta 40 which will be included into this route. Although it was incredible tough sometimes I have enjoyed riding on it. The Ruta 40 still marks one of the epic roads that are out there to tackle. Isolation, distance and heartfelt people are the three things which will always come to my mind when thinking about this Chapter of "Pampa rides" - but for sure it teaches you one thing: No matter if you are on a good day or bad day - you gotta get the job done out there!

I have left the Ruta 40 on a couple occasions but overall even riding the Carretera Austral - I was with my thoughts already all about heading south from Chile Chico via Argentina again :love:. Paved roads, no tourists, just the wind, the bike and you! Perito Moreno proved to be the beginning of the lottery of winds! It all seemed pretty smooth at first but as the day proceeded the road was hit by massive side winds coming over from the Austral and it was hard to get anywhere near where I wanted on the first day! Baja Caracoles was a bit of a shocker and turning point at the same time because 240 km of nothingness leaves behind a huge question mark over how much food and drink to take!?! Because with decent wind you can ride the whole thing, with the opposite you might be struggling for days! I took a gamble and went all in - at the end of the day it was 238 km on the Garmin of up & down roads, side winds and huge tail winds ! The biggest ride I did since Siberia with luggage! But the luck was on my side in the casino of winds for the following day so I was able to back it up with another 200+ ride towards Rio Gallegos! Rio Gallegos marked the end of my Pre- Panamericana rides. Overall I feel pretty confident in the gear and from a physical point of view I am bringing a decent amount of training to the table. To have the first 3000 k under the belt in SA gives you a little bit of piece of mind for the next things to come. Everything went smooth in the first month - and I am ready to go back to Chile now and head out of Ushuaia tomorrow! Keep your fingers crossed. Train hard & travel harder!

The Ruta 7 Lagos is not really a beginners route for getting started in bike touring - though a lot of Argentinian newbies opted for this epic! ​ I had a chance to get in touch with some of this colorful people that venture out into the unknown challenging their limits! It was one of the best sections I enjoyed so far on the famed Ruta 40 and after visits to the Northern section in ´08 &´12 I finally had a chance to roll along these amazing roads! I was scratching my head over the famed "bosque de arrayanes" until someone came forward and explained this endemic species of trees just a stone throw from the shoreline of the Nahuel Huapi Lake in detail! A true keeper is the Catamaran ride and the 11k walk back to the Puerto. I stocked up on Pan Casero and plenty of water to make it through the heat of the day. Live Music wrapped up the day and I could only picture myself finally getting to San Carlos de Bariloche the next day before fallin asleep! Highlights included San Martin de los Andes, Villarino lake, La Angostura with it's unique Orange trees....but the real highlight were indeed the people I met in the campsites and along these roads!

Ist natürlich auch Geschmackssache. In "Expertenkreisen" kursieren ja Gerüchte wonach bei der klassischen Route von NORDEN nach Süden der Wind in Patagonien eher von Vorteil sein soll als umgekehrt. Dies kann ich bisher NICHT bestätigen. Der ausschlagende Faktor ist natürlich das WETTER und die JAHRESZEIT. Startet man in Patagonien im "Sommer" so muss man im Spätsommer Alaska erreichen (ca 8 Monate). Startet man in Alaska im Sommer so hat man gut 16 Monate Zeit um wieder im "Sommer" in Patagonien anzukommen. Persönlich finde ich Alaska als Endstation spannender, weil der Alaskan Highway vom Höhenprofil härter zu fahren ist als beispielsweise die Ruta 40.

WE ARE STILL HERE. No Crimea. No Koktebel. It's been now two years since the sun set over the scintillating Nu Jazz stage to the sounds of Cinematic Orchestra and I was all smiles. This year there is no Jazz in Koktebel. There is no Rave at the sea in Popovka. No Metalheads headbangin in Evpatoria.... This year I am in Kirillovka. And the man on the mic is telling everyone to cheer on when their hometown is being announced. Dnipro - Zaporishje - Kiev - Melitopol - Kharkiv - Donetsk – Lugansk-.... Somber moments in a place where every weekend DJ's gather to play the latest tunes to the young and beautiful, that want to have a good time. "What do you think about having a festival when there is at the same time a war raging in the East?" I take a look around... I see tents, lots of tents, 2 stages and many young people. "You can't just cancel every event due to planes crashing and people dying. There is tens of thousands young people in the country that have been waiting for the summer. You gotta give them some sort of entertainment. Even when it is rough times." "WE STAND AGAINST POLITICS AND BORDERS" The frontman of Antiflag yells into the microphone. It is hard not to see that there is a significant change going on in Ukraine. Flags are being waved and the national anthem is being sung. And it is not independence day... It is Day 3 of Zachid Rock Fest in Rudaky, Western Ukraine. Angela came also over from Saporishje. She does slackline back home. And I saw her group practicing the other day down by Kortysa island. Shortly after a car almost run me over whilst crossing the road. It turned out to be a massive quarrel, where in the end the guy had to be compensated because part of his window was damaged. "So you are not dancing ?", I ask a girl standing almost at the very end of the Festival Zone. "I do, but.." and all of a sudden a bald guy in a yellow T-shirts appears out of nowhere! This is another face of Ukraine. The lost wishes, the hopeless longing for something else, for someone else. But what to recall from this summer in Ukraine? Even when half of Ukraine is almost standing still - the festivals and their unique spirit are still alive.