cycling Yunnan, Sichuan, Qinghai and xinjiang - best routes?

We are in vietnam now and will enter china via Lao Cai/Hekou in the next few days, part of our world tour. On the China leg we plan is to cycle from Hekou (Yunnan) to the Tajikistan border. We have 3 to 4 months (depending on visa extensions) and plan to cycle through Yunnan, Sichuan, Qinghai and xinjiang. We generally don’t take buses or trains and we also know that there is a lot of climbs, altitude, long stretches without food supplies and all that kind of stuff, we don’t mind that (in fact we love that!) My question is mainly about best routes regarding landscape in those 4 provinces trying to do the shortest route and avoiding big cities and busy roads ( we don’t mind dirt roads).
many thanks

Nuno

www.globonautas.net

Female cycling partner sought

Thought I might give this a go for a friend.
I have an Australian friend who is cycling France end of July early August '13. She is seeking a like minded female cycling companion as she would prefer not to do it alone. She is fit so would be covering anywhere between 80 to 90km per day and possibly some of the mountains (Pyrenees). Will be on either touring bike or mountain bike and staying at hostels or budget motels/hotels. Anyone out there? would be great if you are from Sydney as could meet up in person first!

Iceland for July anyone?

Cycling in Iceland for four weeks or so during July. Anyone want to join me? It should be a cool adventure. I'm a 34 year old Aussie guy.
D

Travelling in France with a bike on the train

Sorry i can't find a suitable thread in existence though i have seen them and know they are there somewhere.

I've just been thinking about the details of taking the train with my bike. And what i've found is quite horrifying.

I want to take the train from Paris to somewhere like Perigeux (which i think is a TEOS train similar to a TGV. )

I find i have to buy a bike bag which will cost about 50-100 euros,
pay a booking fee as well
and not being able to collect on my arrive but may have to wait up to 24 hours.

This is enough to make me give up the idea of using a train at all.

Have i misunderstood the policy. What should i do?

The last thing i want to do is buy freaking bike bag. Why are they doing this to us?

And i give in and buy the stupid bag, where do i buy it? Can i buy it at the station or do i have to buy it from decathlon in paris

I've no time... more »

Ebooks Lonely planet performance

We're heading on a long trip. Therefore we bought next to the paper books also the digital versions quiet a while ago.
All on the LP website. Now we're dicoverring that they work very slow and only now LP is saying we had to download specific versions for our Cobo Glow. WTF! When I bought my versions this was not mentioned.

We don't want to take all the paper version in our panniers. Maybe somebody found an solution for this?

June 2 - Start in the Pyrenees or Finish there?

(posting also on the bike branch) my google route

I've put together this map of my proposed route on google. (i also posted it in my itinerary post but thought people might have got bored with that thread.

I start my travels on 2 june and go until about 16 July. Flying out on the 18th. So its about 8 weeks and one of those weeks will be in Paris.

The advantages of starting south as i see it is that i feel this would take some pressure off me time wise. I wouldn't like to have to rush too much in the south, and would be happier skipping sites in the Loire if pushed for time rather than skipping places or the pyrenees themselves if i go north south.
The warmth is a big factor since i'm not much good in the cold and have never toured in rainy weather.
And from the point of view of history, the sites in the south were built first. (i'm being ... more »

Eurostars Revised Policy on Bike Bags ....not good

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/bike-blog/2013/may/13/eurostar-policy-bike-bags-cyclists

Eurostar's revised policy on bike bags will discourage cycle travelRule changes are hardly the sort of joined-up thinking we need to promote rail travel over flying

Last week, Eurostar announced a revised cycle policy on its trains – the second change in six months. I'd fallen foul of the previous version when returning from Paris on the Eurostar a few weeks ago. Arriving at the barriers with my bike in its bag, which I'd taken by Eurostar many times before, I was told that it was now deemed too large to carry on, and I had to pay €29 to send it freight instead.

Afterwards, I spoke to Eurostar, who said the policy was being reviewed, but the newest bike policy is disappointing: only bikes in bags up to 85cm in length can be carried on, which means it's impossible to take a non-fol... more »