Our project

From 2006 until 2010 we want to do a world tour by tandem bicycle. We want to see all continents, starting from Europe to Asia, then Australia, north and south America and then to Africa. Wherever it is possible for us we want to go only by bicycle. Of course by bike it is difficult to cross water, therefore we will also take hopefully boats or ferries, or if not possible in the ultimate case a plane.

With our tandem bicycle "Pino", a semi-recumbant special tandem from hasebikes.com luckily also our sponsor, we estimated to cycle a distance of about 60.000 kilometers. As well we want to break the Guinness world record of the longest tandem bicycle journey. (click here for more ->) The current record distance is 38.143 km, set by Phil and Louise Shambrook from England on their journey from 1994 until 1997.

Our relationship has started in spring 2004. Right from the start we were sure to have the same hobbies or interests in being outdoors and doing sports. Benny had followed other cyclist world trips through books or the Internet, and also Mandy had some cyclist friends who had been doing longer tours. And she was as well very enhusiastic about the idea in doing a long bicycle journey ourselves. Before we started, we lived together for a year and worked, tried to live cheap and save as much money for our trip as possible.

Partly this year was really nice, but also partly very exhausting. On the one hand we worked, an on the other hand we had to organize our world trip which was sometimes like a full time job as well! Especially in the days and weeks before our departure it became very stressful, and in the last nights we only slept very few hours. Due to that we were highly exhausted even before we had done our first day on the loaded biycle. By now we know that we had in some ways worried and planned even too much, but how could we have known better at that time.

But now we are on the road since April 23rd 2006, and now already - written June, 2008 - travelling for more than 2 years since. Slowly we got more and more in good shape and more relaxed about being in a different country and constantly having to deal with new challenges all the time. About our experiences on the road we write in our photo weblog: click here >

I was born in June 1979. The first nineteen years until my A level I lived together with my parents in the northern part of Saxony-Anhalt, right next to the inner german border. After the wall came down, the whole world suddenly became huge, but it still took a while until I realized this.

1999 I started an apprenticeship to get speech language therapist in the town of Halle, for which I had to work hard. As well it took my life in a direction I did not yet want it to go. But the time in Halle I also enjoyed, for example doing dancing classes, started to do rock and indoor climbing, and I bought a nice mountain bike and I did the first shorter cycling trips within Germany.

In 2000, there was a big turning point in my life which made me think a lot. My father died after heaving suffered from cancer for over a year.

In 2003 I got injured whilst doing indoor rock climbing, and also had a lot of time to think whilst I got surgery on my crucial ligament three times. And then, in 2004, I met Benny, a soul mate and my better part.

Just a few month after our relationship had started, we made the decision to go on this big trip. Still today I am overwhelmed, just thinking about the happiness in those days when I just thought about a world trip by bike. But the more we are now actually on this trip, I only know that I know nothing. Apart from maybe, that our travel is sometimes tough and difficult, but I would always do it again in the same way. Just like the motto of our dutch friends Karin and Peter from Holland:

 

Hello, my name is Benjamin Jacob. The world first saw me in August 1980 when I was born in Essen. From six years old until the year 2000 I went to school, then I did civil service and afterwards took up an apprenticeship to become software engineer. I also then worked a little bit in my first company.

In the mean time, already since I was little, I played a lot of table tennis in the club TUSEM Essen. I was always very motivated and ambitious and had lots of fun, even though I was not skilled too much in this game.

But something was still missing in my life. And thats why I left "proper" office working life the first time in summer 2004, to do mountain bike tours for a touristic company in Turkey as a bike touring guide. And afterwars, in the winter season, I worked in Crans Montana in Switzerland as a snowboard instructer for the same company.

But as Mandy and I where planning our current trip at that time, I decided to go back to the office and work in my proper job one more year to save up enough money for our current trip. We saved a lot, found sponsors, and finally left my home town Essen by tandem bike on the 23rd of April in 2006.