First 'Tour'

[shootingstar]

Great deeiamond! Once bitten by touring, it won't quite leave you alone. Keeps on nagging me..to do a little trip by myself for a few days by bike. My partner and I have done a number of our own little bike trips ranging from weekend to 3 wks. 'Course he's done alot of solo bike touring.

We started off camping first few years, but thereafter it just was more comfortable going to places with a real bed.

Maybe one day I can plumb you for advice on your area of the world. I haven't even been to Asia yet.

If you scroll down the page of this link, 2 of the women in the photo, have each done solo, loaded bike touring. Woman in middle biked in the United Kingdom (and I think France or Netherlands) and Iles de Magdelene off the coast of eastern Canada. These islands belong to France, not to Canada. They both did their own self-loaded bike trip together in the Canadian Rockies.

http://forums.teamestrogen.com/showt...=aging&page=13

Woman in orange did 5 days solo on her Bike Friday in Quebec on Velo Quebec routes. She loved it and wants to try a different route again soon. (She was a bike courier just after university for a year. She must have been one of the very rare female bike couriers in Toronto of Asian descent at that time..nearly 30 yrs. ago.)

[Tri Girl]

WOW! The picture riding on the road is so beautiful!!!! Congrats on your first tour. I think I would love to just put all my belongings that I'd need for a few months on my bike and go away for a couple months: no pressure to throw down specific mileage, no planned destinations, just ride.
Your week long tour will be so GREAT! How neat that you found a touring partner who you can go with. I was reading a journal from a woman on CGOAB ( www.crazyguyonabike.com ) who rode all around central Asia by herself. She never had any trouble. From the journals of lone women I've read, it seems like Asia is not as worrisome a place as some others for a woman alone. I don't live there, tho, so I wouldn't know for sure.

[deeaimond]

Hi Shootingstar,

yeah I remember reading that thread, full of admiration for women like that. Cycling has given me alot of independance in a sense, (not to mention gives me alot of confidence about my body - alot of my image issues got better since I started cycling)

There are several things about touring solo that I feel isn't so suitable as of yet. I'm 25 yrs old, female, and look local. It's too easy to attract alot of unwanted attention because people/men think you're some young chick. They'll at least give it a try. In malaysia there have been cases of lone female drivers stopped on the road by gangs, raped and killed. If that can happen to someone in a car, I can't imagine on a bicycle. My parents won't sleep for as long as I'm gone, and even if I feel perfectly safe, I know they would be worrying themselves stupid about me, so I won't do that right now. (even riding in a pair I have people telling me to get more people to ride with but I absolutely refuse on that count. Two is the magic number)

Tri-girl,

definitely when I become an expert on the area I'll share all I know. Central asia and southeast asia is abit different I think in terms of amount of traffic and also population density. From backpacking in SEA, i know trunk roads are often heavily used by buses and heavy goods vehicles. Roads are not well-maintained and when the road passes through any small town, there are no stoplights or anything, people just crossing the street, markets, children playing, the occasional animal...

actually, I think lone women who make it halfway across the world to tour on a bike won't have a hard time anywhere... just my opinion hahha.

my tour partner is a photographer by profession, and takes these off the bike. My bike wobbles like crazy if i so much as let my hands go. I let him take all the pictures so I have lovely souvenirs.