We all have to find ways to address human-caused climate change. Everyday we can ride bicycles and cheer on bicycles, the whole world round, as one fun way to encourage creativity in the face of unfolding ecological disasters.

Please know that I realize you may have already made significant contributions to my ongoing efforts and I thank you with profound gratitude.

My complete vision for this bicycle odyssey is as a messy unidirectional encirclement of the planet Earth. I set out from my brother’s house north of Boston Massachusetts, United States America, crossed the continent to the Pacific Ocean near Portland Oregon, rode north to the Canadian border and then to Bogota Colombia before pedaling all the way to Ushuaia Argentina! Since then I have toured back up to the famous Iguazu Falls!

As of yet, I have not flown and only take motorized transport when it seems absolutely necessary.

Eventually I'll need to cross some big water and push for Jakarta Indonesia because Bogota and Jakarta are antipodes; they occupy perfect opposite places on the surface of our planet. And after that !!! I plan to return to the home of my brother. One time around the earth, easy peasy.

This GoFundMe does work well. If giving here is what you are most comfortable with then please do not hesitate to make a contribution. PayPal and Cashapp do not charge me fees, so if you are already using one of those, please consider supporting me via PayPal or Cashapp instead. My Venmo has been giving me too many problems recently so please don't send me money via Venmo. Paid and Unpaid subscriptions on Substack are a big boost too. Substack is where I do my major publishing about my life as a bicycle adventurer, so no matter what, please follow me on Substack. All those links and more can be found here - https://linktr.ee/ukodus.8

The money raised is predominantly spent on food and calories. Paid camping and hostels are a regular expense too. Of course bike fixes, bike gear and whatever else seems necessary for me to continue moving forward comes from this budget also. As much as possible I shop at small local enterprises and from time to time give money or assistance to other traveling cyclists when it seems like they could use a bit of help. It must be said, we tend to be a rather silly bunch.

I think it is well for such adventures to take on the transmission of a 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 by bicycle and mostly sleep in a tent in a bunch of random locations is not something possible or even desirable for most. Even riding a bike, period, is not something available to everyone. I do not do this because I believe it is reasonable for you also. I choose it because I have the chance of making good on a dream and want to live for now in the world so much larger than myself.

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 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 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. 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. The longest ride proved to be very bumpy. That section was hours of barely bearable discomfort but now I have more stories to tell.

Since that time I’d started contemplating the other frequently asked question: Are you heading for Ushuaia?

At first I was leaning towards no, not going to do it, primarily because it required tremendous effort and didn't exactly contribute to my goal of riding a bike one time around the world.

As you may well know, Ushuaia Argentina is one of the earth’s most famous tourist destinations. It is a place apart from all others. The end of the road. The end of a continent! Well, now I have done that also.

At this moment of writing, I rode my bike from Ushuaia north along the Atlantic coast, first to Buenos Aires and am presently near the famous Iguazu Falls on the The Triple Frontier (Spanish: Triple Frontera, Portuguese: Tríplice Fronteira): the tri-border area along the junction of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, where the Iguazú and Paraná rivers converge.

And further north I will go! Since I am trying to stay out of airplanes, the plan is to keep heading northwards for the Caribbean sea and then find sailboats to cross some big waters.

Dear reader, to pay for months of food and supplies, replacement of certain gear, national park fees, occasional camping costs, ferries and a sundry of other expenses, I invite you to send me love and money.

Know that I realize you may have already contributed to my ongoing efforts and I humbly thank you with deep gratitude. Your support makes this mission possible and is what keeps me going.

I do my best to creatively chronicle these experiences.

My instagram is: @ukodus.8

A monthly newsletter on Substack: https://worldwidebikeride.substack.com/

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

Occasionally I post to Youtube also: https://www.youtube.com/@worldwidebikeride

All my links including my whatsapp contact: https://linktr.ee/ukodus.8

Thank you so for supporting me in whatever way makes the most sense for you. No matter which way you are able I am absolutely happy to have you along for the ride. Sometimes the road is difficult but I believe that this can be done.

Thank you .

joshua aka ukodus

extra extra

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.

By bicycle, I have now traveled well over 35,000 kilometers or ~22,000 miles (i don't accurately track my distances or my elevations) 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 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 an 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.

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. To highlight just one feature, 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.

Pictured here is Chimborazo: a stratovolcano in Ecuador and the Cordillera Occidental range of the Andes. Its last known eruption is believed to have occurred around AD 550.

Chimborazo is the highest mountain in Ecuador and the 39th-highest peak in the entire Andes. Although not the tallest mountain on Earth relative to sea level—it reaches a height of 6,263 m (20,548 ft), well below that of Mount Everest at 8,849 m (29,032 ft)—its summit is the farthest point on Earth's surface from its center due to its location along the equatorial bulge.

So in looking at the photo above you are looking at the point on Earth farthest away from its core. Or if you prefer, the point on Earth closest to space.