Folding extreme

Skladackovy extrem or folding extreme in English. Two words which change my life and simply means: we are doing bike touring little bit different way. Usually the best things happens behind the comfort zone and I wanted to try find these limits and push alternative cycling little bit forward. That’s one of the main reasons I have chosen folding bike for my trip in South America. Thanks to the liability, comfort, strengh and much more positive features of my folding bike, I have made this half year trip one more time longer.

Since I’ve start in Ushuaia (Argentina), the southest town in the world, I knew, this journey is something different to my last ones. This was the first time I’m going alone and thanks to that, I need to rely on my bike much more. Also the feeling of riding folding bike in Patagonia after couple hundred kilometers told me, this is something amazing and I began plan my real, new, longer way.

When I crossed huge unnamed solar deserts and remote land in Argentina, where I’ve met 2 cars a day, I thought about the bike under me more and more. The roads over there are destroyed gravel with endless washboards. If there is some problem with the bike, you are 80km from the main road and some help. Walk and push 45kg heavy bike would means 2 days of hard job with no resource of water. There you realize, the bike which is there with you is your everything and ticket to survive.

Of course the bike had some small problems, but I was able to fix everything by some wire and a tape. Nothing, during last 14000km, was broken so badly to stop me and leave me in the middle of nowhere.

When I realized I have strong machine with me, I took the map and start to planning more offroad adventurous way. I remember when I pull out sticker from the frame where manifacturer said: „Use this bike only on pavement road“:) I had 2000km on the gravel without any issue and that made me smile. So I was going over mine and bike limits. I crossed Bolivia border where live challenge wait for me, us. The highest „road“ on the world was not so far and I set up my target. Volcan Uturuncu on south Bolivia area with 5780m above sea level. So one early morning, me, folding bike and my german friend on normal bike woke up at 1am and folding extreme could begin. Road was very bad, sometime we could not recognized where is the way and our bikes suffered more and more. After 12hrs of incredible cycling and pushing behind our limits, we were on the top with one more mission, get down now. Storm were around us and we needed to be fast. There I have found mine and bikes limits and when we reach our village, folding part of the bike was destroyed. Both screws on the left side were cut. So again, I have used wire and tape for another 2000km to La Paz, where I fixed everything. So my point is, even with the huge problem like this, the bike was able to load 30kg cargo with me and we have made it safely to our final destination.

All of these situations what happened here, just push me forward more and more. We crossed very hilly Peru with 100km a day in average. Also steep hills in Ecuador with sometimes 40% slope did not stop this bike and we safely made it to our first half final destination in Costa Rica. Over 14000 amazing kilometres, when I just change brake pads, tyres, chain, cassette and nothing else confirmed me, this bike and me are able to do more and visit another nice part of this world. Journey is heading to Alaska now, where over 5000km waiting for us to our another finish in San Francisco. Then will follow Hawai, Japan and Australia. Another 10000km waiting for us with many plane crossings, where I will use folding adventage again.