Central and North America (7).

his is the 50th country we cycle through", Henny said, "and we were refused nowhere, except for some Brazilian "peones" (farm managers, not owners) who simply didn't dare to say "Yes"".
We wanted to meet people in the US and that is why we had chosen this route and not through large, crowded cities, not through nature reserves, but through the country and smaller cities. The "bible belt" we heard later. The farther we came to the North, the fewer of these problems, and the more attention we got. Every local newspaper waylaid us and the local TV were filming us while we tried in our rest to get our rusty and worn out petrol burner working again.
Ol'man river was a marvelous area to cycle through, the cotton was still growing, completely with the manor house and the negroes.
"Look. Uncle Tom's cabin", I shouted, pointing at a old wooden house, paint-less, grey, and the veranda full of rubbish, a worn out bench outside in the overgrown garden, but no, a white man came out of the house and a few white children played between the rubbish.
If people asked us something, they mostly asked the standard questions such as: "Where are you going to?" "Canada" we said for convenience. "It's a loooong way", we mostly heard. At the bridge in Detroit, which forms the border between the US and Canada, we got a different answer: "I hope you will make it".
e got into Canada and encountered at long last fellow cyclists, to work or to school, and also as a holiday. The traffic, more used to cyclists, did not give way and tore past us contrary to Americans who made way for cyclists. In the endless, rather low and boring forests of eastern Canada, something happened to me, no cyclist will believe: while cycling I fell asleep, waking up every time with a jerk on the handle bar, but a moment later my heavy eyelids closed again.
At the last minute the new wheel from Houston, broke in crash against the curb stone. Steel rims - as this incident proved - are really better suitable for such journeys.
From the most eastern part of the mainland, Halifax, we flew to Scotland, and to end with a pastoral autumn trip through England with a lot of prosaic rain. Unique here was a pub, where we wanted to become dry. Fortunately we had finished our coffee, when the owner saw our bicycles. "Damn it, I don't serve anything to cyclists". And with this he was the only person on whole earth.
 

	A bit of statistics: (For two bicycles) Total time (2 journeys): 3 years and 2 months. Distance: 68.000 km (42.253 miles)    of which 10.000 km (6.213 miles) unpaved. 1200 punctures 53 tyres Record number of punctures in 1 time in 1 tube was 34 ± 200 broken spokes ± 60 brake shoes 22 cables (brake and gear) 6 chains 4 derailleurs 4 chain wheel sets front 4 chain wheel sets back (with many broken springs) 6 odometers 4 saddles 12 wheels 4 axes 6 sets of brake levers Repairs : Welded 1 fork 1 handlebar stem 1 wheel 4 legs of luggage rack 6 cables (manufacturing defect, nipples got loose) 1 front luggage rack 1 mudguard One bicycle was used in both journeys, one bicycle only in Asia and another one in Africa/America Total cots including flying across oceans, films, mail, parts etc. 29.000 Dutch guilders (for two persons) = € 13.160. In those days we earned in the Netherlands approx. € 400 per month! Up to the last day we still had not had enough of cycling.

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Continuation: With this episode, one manner to tell about our world travels has ended. We hope that you enjoyed reading it, in the next episode we will tell you about cycling with children. Also for people without children or youngsters, who do not think about children yet,also for them these stories are very entertaining, nice and informative. Since we can only publish new stories when we have (or take) time for it , they will be released rather irregularly.

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