A Long Ride from Paris to Dakar

We’ve posted about biking on this blog before. There’s so much more that travelers can see from on top of two wheels. GoNOMAD writer, Emily Morse, reiterates this point once again in her article Paris-Dakar Bike Race: Fulfilling a Lifelong Dream.

“‘The route of this trip is so interesting. Starting in Paris and passing many interesting spots in France, Andorra, and Spain. After Europe you will see how different Africa is. First the rough mountains in northern Morocco. Then crossing the emptiness of the beautiful Sahara. The world will get green and have many villages and people again after driving into Senegal,’ says Co-creator van der Geest.

And despite the tremendous distance, Bike-Dreams claims, ‘What’s done by car, you can better do by bike.’ Instead of powering through the country roads, mountainous paths and coastal desert streets with vehicles, cyclists will not damage the terrain they’ll ride on or cause a ruckus along the way.

Finnish participant Mika Holker finds it “fascinating to see how everything (nature, culture, weather, etc.) changes gradually from here to there.” Holker will have the added benefit of seeing how everything will change from Finland to Paris as he plans on biking this first part of the trip before joining up with the Paris-Dakar expedition. This will add at least another thousand miles onto his journey and quite possibly as many as three thousand more miles. “