Everyday we can ride bicycles and cheer on bicycles all the world round as one *and it must be said: fun* way to address human caused climate change.

My complete vision for this bicycle odyssey is as a messy loop from my brother’s house north of Boston Massachusetts United States of America to Bogota Colombia on eventually to Jakarta Indonesia *Bogota and Jakarta are antipodes; they occupy perfect opposite places on the surface of our planet* then return to the home of my brother.

For the time being I ride in Patagonia.

I use the money donated to me mostly on food and occasionally also for shelter, supplies and whatever else seems necessary for me to continue moving forward. I shop at small local enterprises as much as possible and from time to time give money or assistance to other traveling cyclists in need.

*Know that I realize you may have already contributed to my ongoing efforts and I humbly thank you with deep gratitude.*

While we all know that there are many pressing challenges facing us environmentally speaking and otherwise, I think it is well for such adventures to take on the transmission of one relevant issue. I choose this Worldwide Bike Ride as a statement about climate change and hope to spend some time balanced in a world that may have already tipped over numerous critical ecological thresholds. As such, I ride for all the people I know, all the people I will never know, all the people that I am sure to meet and the enormous family of all living things be they essential, charismatic or otherwise inside the kingdoms Archaea, Bacteria, Eukaryota, Protozoa, Chromista, Plantae, Fungi and Animalia because the cataclysm of human induced climatic changes will disrupt the conditions on which we all depend.

I realize that my choice to live on a bicycle and mostly sleep in a tent while traveling one time around our planet is not something possible or even desirable for most and further that simply riding a bike is not something available to us all. I do not do this because I believe it is something that you should also do. I do choose it because I have a chance of making good on a dream and want to live now for something bigger than myself.

I believe that, in whatever measure possible, we must all accept a version of this personal challenge and find ways to engage with those things which matter most. In the neverending deluge of information/entertainment certain things cannot be forgotten. We have to defeat, permanently dismantle and replace the prehistoric interests which seek to profit on collective oblivion.

Since setting my sights on a Worldwide Bike Ride several years ago there have been quite a few open questions *which cause to highlight being only one*. Besides the huge menu of logistical, material and physical concerns, my eventual plan to head down the west coast and continue south into South America instantly brought up two doozies. I have prefered to face them each in turn because looking too far ahead makes the variables explode into a forking garden of uncountable and un-weighable unknown unknowns.

Question 1: ‘How will you cross the Darien Gap?’ There aren’t roads between Panama and Colombia so a creative passage of some kind was going to be required. I am avoiding flights *as of yet I have not flown* to the extent which seems possible. As it turned out, the answer was to travel from Central America to South America *north coast of Panama and into Colombia* via the San Blas Islands with the aid of 4 separate boats. One leg in particular *by far the longest one* proved to be a very bumpy. That section was hours of barely bearable discomfort but got the job done.

Since that time I’ve been more seriously contemplating the other frequently asked question. Up until very recently I was leaning towards no, not going to do it, primarily because it requires tremendous effort and doesn’t exactly contribute to my goal of riding a bike one time around the world. Question 2: ‘Are you heading for Ushuaia?’

As you may well know, Ushuaia Argentina is one of the earth’s most famous cycle tour destinations. It is a place apart from all others. The end of the road. The end of a continent!

The name Patagonia might be known to most because a distinguished high end outdoor apparel company has adopted it but please be sure that the region of Patagonia is a very real, very large and largely wild place bounded by the Pacific Ocean on the west, the Atlantic Ocean to the east. It contains many bodies of water that connect them, such as the Strait of Magellan, the Beagle Channel, and the Drake Passage. It is at the southern end of South America and includes big parts of both Argentina and Chile not to mention the southern section of the always glorious Andes mountain chain, gorgeous lakes, rivers, fjords, temperate rainforests, and glaciers in the west and deserts, tablelands, and steppes to the east.

Ecoregions such as the Valdivian forests, Magellanic forests, Magellanic moorland and Patagonian steppe as well as the National Parks of Laguna San Rafael, Los Glaciares, Nahuel Huapi, Torres del Paine, Alberto de Agostini and Tierra del Fuego are all found here. Patagonia’s most famous road is Chile’s Ruta 7: the Carretera Austral *my apologies to Ruta 40 in Argentina, i just don’t make the rules here* runs for about 1,240 kilometers or 770 miles from Puerto Montt to Villa O’Higgins. Every year the temptation to pedal past some of these earthly treasures then all the way to the bottom of the continent proves irresistible to a squadron of rowdy bicycle riders. Now it seems the magical enticements of this idea have captured me also.

Can you please help?

A quick update: By bicycle, I have now traveled well over 30,000 kilometers or ~20,000 miles with no flights and via motorized vehicles only when it seems absolutely necessary. At first my ambition was only to ride across the USA. Prior to that the longest trip I’d completed by bicycle was just a few nights long, so attempting to cross a continent felt like an enormous and scary enough undertaking.

I enjoyed 2 night 3 day Amtrak ride from Portland Oregon to Boston Massachusetts. Then after about 2 weeks of catching up with my brother James and his family, I rode out to the Atlantic ocean at Rye beach in New Hampshire with my friend Chris. Shortly thereafter I wobbled west from my brother’s driveway all by myself, with too much gear and a tremendous feeling which in no small part was anxiety. About a week later, on a rainy night while camping off the back of an old cemetery in New York state, lightning flashed between strobing firefly illuminations and it occurred to me that I was pretty ok at bicycle touring.

Over a month later, after visiting my friend Justin and his family in Chicago and a few days before dropping in on my buddy Torvald in St Louis, a big idea struck me like a bolt. I was listening to a recording of saxophonist Charlie Parker on a sunny day in a southern Illinois cornfield. With crackly notes cascading from a inspired horn and ripening ears swaying all around I was instantaneously possessed by the intention to ride a bicycle around the world!

Ok and Oh jeez… holy hell and what the fuck! Fortunately I had the next few months to I think through what this meant to me as I continued to pick my way toward the Pacific because this concept clearly needed lots of fleshing out.

As time is always sure to go by, before too long I finished my east west passage at Heceta beach in Oregon with a rough plan for my Worldwide Bike Ride. I’d spend about a year in Portland saying goodbye to all my friends, getting rid of nearly all my physical possessions while re-equipping with gear and shifting my entire life into a orientation which might make it possible for me to continue chasing this wild dream and that is pretty much how it went down.

After something over a year passed, I first rode north through the San Juan Islands in Washington state to the Canadian border north of Blaine before changing direction to cycle south down the whole west coast *with a short trip through the Columbia river gorge to Hood River and back just for fun* and then just kept on headin’ south.

When I launched this fundraiser I was staying in a hostel in Pichilemu Chile (-34.387706718430074, -72.0062250006591)

At the beginning I rode a somewhat overloaded black Miyata road bike given to me by Ian but now ride an even more overloaded teal blue 1983 Specialized Stumpjumper after one of my touring mentors, Richard in Corvallis Oregon, told me to buy a heavy duty old school mountain bike because they are tanks, have reasonably good touring frame geometry and use parts that are easy to find in shops along the way. I purchased my beloved ‘sports donkey’ something like a month later from Shift Community Cycles in Eugene while being hosted by Alex and Max. As of this writing, pretty much all the parts it came with have been switched but I have not had any problems whatsoever with the frame.

Now I’ve traveled by bicycle down the whole west coast USA, through Mexico via the Baja Peninsula then by boat back to the mainland, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, *took 4 boats to cross the Darien Gap* Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, north west Argentina, back into Chile, back into Argentina, back in Chile... Adventures unlimited have been being had and the highest mountain pass now crossed is 4,831 meters or ~15,849 feet.

I can say that my decision to ride south for Patagonia came not in a flash but more in waves of rising awareness.

Up until quite recently, it was something that I was leaning away from. Primarily because I already have a full docket of places to see. Besides the encouragement of many other riders, this enthusiastic yes-ing hinges on accidentally being in the right place at the right time. As you would expect about a place so far from the equator Patagonia is highly seasonal. So the best time to go is in the summer *winter is happening if you are in the northern hemisphere right now which means it is currently summer here in the southern hemisphere... halloween hits different with all the flowers popping off!* I absolutely was not planning to put myself in the perfect position to catch a Patagonian summer but it ended up happening anyway. So what the heck, why not, let’s go!

This brings us to a 3rd question: how am I going to pay for months of food and supplies, replacement of certain gear, required park fees, occasional camping costs, necessary ferries (there are gaps with no roads down here) and other expenses?

Dear reader, I invite you to send me love and money.

Please support this journey by helping me raise the requested funds.

Know that I realize you may have already contributed to my ongoing efforts and I humbly thank you with deep gratitude.

I feel a responsibility to my sponsors and community and do my best to creatively chronicle these experiences on a nearly daily basis on instagram ( @ukodus.8 ) in a monthly newsletter and occasionally on Youtube also https://www.youtube.com/@worldwidebikeride The current method of newsletter distribution is here on Substack https://worldwidebikeride.substack.com/

On Substack all the posts a year or older are free to view in their entirety. If you are keen to support my efforts, paid Substack sponsorships are also very very helpful. They have proved to be a vital contribution to my ongoing journey and I hope to continue expanding my following here. You are of course welcome to give money here and I’ll upgrade your free Substack subscription membership to full access. *After you give to my GoFundMe just tell me what email you use on Substack so I can bump your subscription up to full access.* I know not everyone is open to a paid subscription on my Substack or to give me money at all and that is completely 100% totally fine. No matter which way you are able I am absolutely happy to have you along for the ride.

Thank you so much for being here with me. I cannot do this without you.

I stopped riding long enough to launch this fundraiser and will make updates as often as possible as I go. Now I am back out riding with my fingers crossed that it ultimately works. Based on my calculations the distance down is close to 4,000 kilometers or 2,500 miles from Santiago Chile *about where I started this leg* to Ushuaia Argentina. It will take months to pedal there *and probably I am pedaling back up also*, I think the number 4,000 will be pretty close to what I’ll end up spending to make this dream become a reality. Since originally posting this fundraiser I have made good progress and right now I am in Coyhaique Chile -45.571193874438954, -72.06855598833396

It can be a difficult road but I believe I can do it. While I cannot exactly say what comes next, now it is time for Patagonia.

Thank you for supporting me in whatever way makes the most sense for you.

joshua aka ukodus

Here is a free download fun to make and fun to play puzzle book: https://substack.com/home/post/p-168222689

*it occurs to me that if we cover this distance I will have biked almost the full length of the Andes. At some future time perhaps I will catch the northern most sections in Venezuela also and thereby have seen bits from all parts of the range. The Andes are impossibly glorious my friends. No descriptions will ever ever ever do. Please believe they exist in innnnncomprehensible fantastitude whenever it is that you can or cannot see them.