The topics:
I am pleased that you are interested in my project and my travels and I will tell you how it came about: In 2006 I got on my bike for the first time to spend an inexpensive summer vacation close to nature. The three should go to southern Sweden. The travel partnership came to an end after only four days. Alone, without a detailed map and above all without a compass, I got lost in the forest and couldn't find a way out of the labyrinth of gravel roads until evening. In my lecture I will tell you how I managed to transform my fear and despair into peace, happiness and strength. This experience accompanied me on all further trips in many countries and strengthened me in some difficult situations. From then on, cycling alone was my way: It is my source of strength and means total freedom for me. You can find a brief overview of my bike tours here. For more information and photos, please click on the corresponding tab on the main page.
Cycle pilgrims experience the wonderful Way of St. James in their own way:
On August 8th, 2008 I was allowed to put the first stamp on my pilgrim passport directly on the statue of St. James in the Freiburg Minster. Blessed, my travel partner Josef, who accompanied me for a few days, and I set off after the pilgrimage mass, across the Rhine, along the Doubs. The beautiful landscape made up for the rain, flat tires, broken spokes and picking the bike lock by hand. I will reveal why in the lecture. My route led across France, across the Massif Central, the Pyrenees, along the Atlantic coast and from behind after visiting the “end of the world” to Santiago - peppered with small and large wonders. A tour full of miracles in the truest sense of the word.
Enduring cold, storms and continuous rain, crossing ice-cold streams and rivers without bridges and cycling through gray lunar landscapes made of volcanic ash after the eruption of the Eyiafjallajökull volcano was really hard, but it could never spoil Peter's good mood. We were compensated by the hospitable Icelanders, the historically and artistically valuable colorful houses on the island of Flatey, but also geysers, volcanoes, Icelandic horses and puffins. It was only in Iceland that I learned and experienced that a tornado can suck up an entire lake. What it's like to climb the Snæfellsness volcano without equipment in cycling shoes and much more, I like to report in my lecture "Through the land of elves and trolls".
My “On bike tour through Canada” was rich in unforgettable nature experiences and encounters with Indians, Mennonites and a brown bear in the wilderness. You can find out why I was terribly disappointed by the abuse of Niagara Falls by human greed, how I was allowed to wash dishes for two hours only by the light of a candle in the house of the Mennonites, who live without electricity, with many children, and how I danced around the fire with the Indians at the main annual festival of the Ojibwe Tribes in this lecture. And of course I'll tell you why the bear didn't eat me.
My eventful journey through the vast expanses of Asia and the Gobi desert, initially with Petru, a travel partner from Romania, threatened an unexpected and unpleasant end in the confines of a Chinese prison cell. How I got out of there, I will report in my lecture over 2,600 kilometers through Asia: from Siberia to Mongolia to China. In Siberia, Peter's bike was stolen, in Mongolia the nomads took all my luggage away from me because there is no such thing as private property, and in China I was thrown out of a hotel after I had already moved into the room. You are sure to be curious how these and other stories came to pass.
Africa, a continent full of contrasts: overwhelming landscapes, an incomparably colorful flora and fauna, but also poverty, misery and structures and traditions that are barely tolerable for Europeans, such as the circumcision ritual for girls, which are sold to older men at the age of 14, after being impregnated by their uncles.
You will find out how I met Salome and why this encounter means so much to me when you book my picture lecture: "By bike through five African countries - Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa". I would like to tell you about the work in the slum near Livingstone, the Victoria Falls, the safari in Botswana's Okawango Delta, the hospital stay and the invitation to a fascinating three-day bush wedding initiated by my escape in on the Angolan border, the Fishriver Canyon and the raid in South Africa like to tell more.
Look forward to exciting bike tour lectures!