Twisting Spokes

About Twisting Spokes

Martin and Susanne are the crazy cyclists behind TwistingSpokes. We enjoy taking you along on our adventure while we are traveling by bicycle from the Netherlands to Nepal. What occupies us while cycling are the interactions with people on the road, culture, scenery and meaningful encounters. You can read more about us on our About page or on G+

Up the plateau and down to the Bodensee

By |2019-08-15T10:03:20+02:00 18th February, 2014|Categories: Cycling, Germany, Journey, Other travellers, Tripreport|Tags: , , , , , , |

Leaving Tubingen we were enthusiastic about the next phase of the journey. However our knees were less enthusiastic. We had some reflecting to do and after biking up some hills in the center of Tubingen we really realized that our knees needed a break. Especially because the ascent of the Swabian Alps would be within 30 km. [...]

Old modern milk farming in the Swabian Alps

By |2019-08-15T10:03:20+02:00 17th February, 2014|Categories: Germany, Interesting environment, Nature, Our interests, People|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |

We were searching for a place for our tent and these days the weather is unpredictable, so we have been trying to find shelter in barns or sheds by farmers. This day we were in the Swabian Alps near the town of Scheer. We rode up the road to a farm. After asking around, a kind old man [...]

Pushing south and heading inland

By |2019-08-15T10:03:20+02:00 17th February, 2014|Categories: Germany, Journey, Other travellers, Tripreport|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |

Leaving Koblenz we were curious what else Germany would have in store for us. We cycled in the afternoon along the Rhein where there are multiple Unesco World Heritage villages until we reached Bad Salzig. Here it was difficult to find a place to sleep with the water on one side and hills on the other. We [...]

Brown coal mining in Germany

By |2014-02-07T13:37:37+01:00 7th February, 2014|Categories: Germany, Nature, Our interests, People|Tags: , , |

Germany is known as one of the countries that is achieving the most on the part of renewable energy. We have already seen many windmills and also lots of houses with solar energy. Still not all energy comes from renewable sources. Fossil fuels are a part of the energy flow in Germany. The other day we passed [...]

Following the Rur and meeting the Rhein

By |2019-08-15T10:03:20+02:00 7th February, 2014|Categories: Germany, Journey, People, The Netherlands, Tripreport|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |

Wow, what to say about the first days on the bicycle. First and foremost we have already been amazed by the hospitality on the way. Also we really appreciate the small things while cycling. The small rays of sun, the compliments and encouragements we give each other, the views and nice bicycling paths. Departure on Sunday the [...]

12 hours until the journey starts

By |2019-08-15T10:03:21+02:00 1st February, 2014|Categories: Journey, Preparations|Tags: , , |

Time goes by so fast. It is about two years ago that we started dreaming of our big trip and tomorrow this journey starts. Since we last wrote on the blog we have been preparing and organising ourselves. We are confident that we are ready for this, although the last few weeks have been hard work, physically [...]

2013 the year when dreams became reality

By |2019-08-15T10:03:21+02:00 31st December, 2013|Categories: Preparations, Year review|Tags: , , , , , , |

Reflection is a strong human function and can be used to improve our lives and if possible the lives of others. The year of 2013 was a year where we really decided to go for our dream journey. So as Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi says "Be the change you want to see in the world" we can now look [...]

Our idea becoming real, part 2

By |2019-08-15T10:03:21+02:00 5th December, 2013|Categories: Frequently asked questions, Preparations, Travel tips|Tags: , , , , , , |

Welcome to the second part of our blog post Our idea becoming real, part 2. Here we continue explaining our progress from idea to reality. Currently preparations are progressing and we are on schedule, at least we think so. See Our idea becoming real, part 1 to read what we have covered already. In July we returned from our [...]

Who are Mojo and Isaba?

By |2019-08-15T10:03:22+02:00 22nd November, 2013|Categories: Frequently asked questions|Tags: , , , |

Mojo and Isaba are our lovely bikes which we are really happy with. They will guide us through a whole lot of good adventures and we will do the same to them. Mojo is light green and ridden by Martin, the name Mojo came while biking in the Pyrenees. The word originally means a charm or a spell. [...]

Nice encounters in the misty Netherlands

By |2019-08-15T10:03:22+02:00 21st November, 2013|Categories: Preparations, The Netherlands, Tripreport|Tags: , , , , , |

We were ready to enjoy some days on our bicycles, so we had prepared with a long weekend and the route was set. The weekend before we had bought some new gear which needed testing (later in this post we will outline what we specifically were testing). We packed the bags Thursday evening and were packing as complete as [...]

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