Cairo - Cape Town on a folding bike

We just finished an awesome trip on our Dahon folding bikes through Africa. After lots of other bike travels, we decided to take folding bikes this time. When the roads were bad or we didn't feel like cycling we hitch-hiked. We are convinced now that folding bikes are THE best travel bikes (unless you want to cycle every single km!); you just have to travel very light. We had a smallish backpack carrying our clothes, tent, sleeping stuff and cooking gear. You can follow our adventures on www.najo.co.za

Hi Najo,

Congrats on completing your trip

Folding bikes are ok for traveling short distances (e.g. to the next truck stop to get a hitch) but as you said not for real worldcycling (cycling all the way) with a lot of gear on bad roads. A bagpack is just too uncomfortable in the end. Did you like cycling with those big bags? Did you have problems with the bikes?

How do you manage to travel that light?
On my 9 month trip I had the following with me as clothing:
rainjacket, raintrousers, 3x glove (fingerless, windstopper, winter), 2x trousers (thin, thick), 2x underwear, 1x sandals, 1x shoes, summercap, winterhat, 1x fleece, 1 windstopperjacket, 2x shirt, 2x socks, 1x cyclingshorts, 1x buff

Camping: -15C sleepingback, matress, fuelbottle, stove (+spareparts), pan, spork, tent, waterfilter, waterback, repair-patches for tent and clothing, seamseal.

Bicycle: 1x spare tire, 2x innertubes, patches+glue, chain-oil, nuts and bolts, chain, 2x brakepad-set, tie-wraps, spareparts lowrider, chainwhip, multitool

Various: Camera, portable HD, cables, first aid, maps, 1x guidebook (in each country bought fresh)

All in all I carried 25 kilo (without food and water) and many consider that to be as light as you can get without entering the "dangerzone". What did you both cary?

Cycle the world,
Whisky

Wow! I could even feel the excitement knowing you really had finished the trip! Congratulations!

Hi whisky,

you are absolutely wrong saying folding bikes are not for travel,you should try one and after you can give your opinion,also depend which folding bike.I own a folding bike a bike friday NW tourist and I been traveling on the most worse routes full loady and I did n t have any problem
Greetings

Hi Colman,

Nice site you have :-) I'm really impressed what you can handle with your folding bicycle. But those roads in Cambodja are heaven compared to some other roads in the world :-)

Is it possible to handle roads covered with snow



or loose sand like here



and here



with your bicycle?

How is the handling in mud and water with 20" tires?

Are 20" tires comfortable on loose washboard roads ?

The only disadvantage I see in a folding bicycle is the folding point (weakest part of the bike) and the small 20" tires. For the rest they are great of course For commuting and hitching they are the best you can get!

Cycle the world (with 26" tires),
Marc

I think people should be more tolerant ,what you always German say
"what the farmer doesn t know he doesn t eat"
Greetings

Hi Colman,

I'm not intolerant, I'm just curious. I totally agree that with panniers it is a very nice way to travel. With a bagback like Najo did I think it's going to be very uncomfortable in the end. And because of the small tires I think that folding bicycles are not well suited for the more demanding roads. For asfalt and good pistes I believe they are fine though.

Cycle the world (always curious),
Whisky

It s ok PEACE!! don t worry, I mean my wife and my self we didn t have any problem and the routes in Cambodia the are not all asphalt,the route going from Thailand border to Siam Rep was a in very bad conditions and after 150km going from Siahanoville to Thailand border was a desater a lot of hills and a lot of sand imagine going down the hills no more then 5km
So here some pictures
http://www.der-radladen-mannheim.de/Cambodia/

Greetings

It has been proven folding bikes works but maybe not the best way?


Loved those pics by the way..

Colman,

I am very impressed about your travel pictures with your friday bike.

My opinion was initially close to Whisky's. It is hard to believe that such a bike can behave that well with such load on it.

After your post and pictures... I am enthusiastic to get more informed about this type of bicycles. Only thinking that it could be possible to bring the bicycle in a suitcase it makes me dream :-)

May I ask you... in terms of rigidity... don't you feel the "chewing gum effect" :-) when heavy loaded ?

Thanks in advance for your comments.

you don't give us much to go on like make, model,year, and condition. these bikes are found in all price ranges as new bikes so if you have any or all this info. please edit your question so someone with knowledge in that area can give you an educated answer.

I didn't experienced folding bikes directly, but in the last summer a travel companion (which came from US with a folding bike to avoid airplanes fares) had to end its tour cause of a tire: he didn't find a replacement. And we were in Innsbruck, and then in Passau, and then in Prague.

Anyway I like these small bikes. I think they should be very useful when there is a plan of mixing cycling/train/buses/etc. in the same tour.

I think that touring on a folder is a great idea. I like the Terry brand which are not too expensive, also learn to use padded lycra cycling shorts they are worth the money.

I've got a 20 inch dahon dash P18 and it's great for the own car, for the train... And for touring in and around cities, no problem for rides until 20 km or also more. But sure, for real trips, vacations by bicycle, I would prefer a fordable big bike, like the 26 inch Dahon Matrix or Cadenza. They are still foldable, for using them in trains..., but when you ride on them you have the feeling to be on a 'normal' bike.:)
And yes, as already sayed above: easier to buy a tire!

Regards, Steffi