Category Archives: Video

7 Epics Promotion Video

The 7epics promotion video, featuring Brett has been published on YouTube.

7epics promotion

A nice introduction to the 7epics. the idea behind it, his motivation, by fellow Trans-Oceania cyclist Brett Lanham combined with an assembly of video footage and photos from the current Trans-Oceania tour, past Tour d’Afrique and other TdA epic tours.

Woohoo! Kangaroo!

Today, the second to last day in the outback, I had the luck to finally spot a group of big red kangaroos. Riding solo again I had the time and opportunity to deviate from the road, when I wanted to. 1-DSC_0283I had to walk about 1 km into the bushes to find and follow them. I was walking into the fields away from Stuart Highway, to get a better view of the salt lake this morning, when I recognized a movement ahead of me. I just saw a bouncing long tail disappearing into a valley and followed it. I 2-DSC_0292readied my camera and followed the ‘tail’, when I spotted a big ‘rock’ on the other side of the small valley, in front of me. My zoom lens revealed the ‘rock’ was another kangaroo. Soon there where 4 of them ahead of me. I continued to follow them, funny to see them hopping away whenever I moved, then stopping and curiously watching my next step, when I stopped, too.

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This continued for quite a while. I made a step, they jumped ahead. I watched them equally amused as they watched me. Eventually the kangaroos disappeared in the horizon, as if they were diving into the white, salty lake.

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My extra walk and time spent paid off. I had my photos and an awesome experience, no other in the group had, as everyone was just riding into the wind and to next camp.

<placeholder for a video I shot>

A Bird Attack

Today I was cruising along after lunch, when I heard a bird above me and a shadow flying by low several times. I turned around and saw the bird above me. It was somehow attracted by my helmet and inspecting the little bug zoo I carry since Darwin. I got my GoPro ready just in time to film the bird’s last attempt to checkout the prey. Thereafter he gave up and rested in a branch. Although I turned around  to give him another chance, he didn’t return again …

bird

a short video sequence

Doomsday Style River Crossing

The provisional Bamboo bridge closed at Noon for 1 hour or someone told them to reject the German rider from crossing over it. So I had to recall 05-IMG_8719my Doomsday Ride / Central America skills and find an alternative. Piece of cake, it is just water. Shoes off and into it, shouldn’t be a problem. Half way through the water was running fast and deeper., pushing the bike into my legs and almost causing me to totally lose my stand. But I did not really stumble and fall, and made it halfway dry onto the other side.

 

Thanks to Bob for shooting the photos.

I’ll add a video here, taken with my GoPro, some time later.

A tough & Rough Cycling day

Stage 23 was one of the toughest and demanding cycling days so far. Steep, long climbs on loose gravel, big boulders and the need to walk the bike in the ‘almost vertical wall’ Cristiano found for us to conquer, made it another long day on the road. It required full concentration on what was once named a ‘road’ but now looked like a dry river bed to not end in a crash. Therefore the stunning scenery could only be viewed when the bike was not rolling.

Cycling ‘The River Bed’ and ‘The Wall’

The second climb into ‘The Wall’ was another challenge. With full bellies right after the lunch stop it wasn’t easy to ride. Some sections where impossible to ride up at all, due to the steepness of up to 22% and the loose underground. Who never walked a bike in the past was now in the first practice lesson. Well done to all who conquered this beast at last.

Unfortunately the video and photos cannot really depict the steepness of the terrain.

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Fisherman’s Friends

I met these youngster down on a river, when I left the road before the bridge to get closer to the water. The boy carried his catch of the day in his hands. Besides the usual ‘how are you’, ‘what’s your name’ style of questions, a nice little conversation and a language lesson developed …

Nice conversation

 

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