Peter Hargreaves

In 2014 my wife ,Anne, & I having been married for 30 years .in celebration,(desperation) undertook the Tour d' Afrique , on the basis that if we deferred the trip we might never go. We completed some 4,700 kilometres through Sudan, Ethiopia & Kenya, when just over the border into Tanzania I was hit by a truck resulting in 6 cracked ribs & unconsciousness, which meant I was forced to withdraw from the ride. I have decided to join the 2017 TDA in Arusha , where my TDA ended in 2014 . So assuming (fingers crossed) I complete the journey to Cape Town this will complete my personal TDA . Anne hopes to join us at Victoria Falls & ride from there to Cape Town. .

Lisa Parsons

This is my big 50 this year and I wanted to go big! I love mt. biking and bike touring preferably on dirt! I've been mountain biking since 1988. I've mt. bike toured in Peru and Mongolia. I did a two month solo tour in New Zealand. My husband, David Delfiner, will be joining me for part of the trip (he has to work). Besides mt. biking we like to climb, hike and whitewater raft. I currently work as a paramedic near Seattle Washington. I've also been working in nonprofit conservation and conservation photography. We also host Earthcorps.org internationals and hope to visit some of them on this trip! The only downside to this tour is leaving our two best mt. bike fur buddies at home. I'm looking forward to another great adventure.

David Delfiner

I love the outdoors and adventure. Also traveling internationally. Looking forward to what's next.

Robert Keyes

Good ole' boy from Alberta.

Oliver Blackwood

Hello :) I am a Canadian (who will be using his British passport on this trip) who is currently living in London, UK. I enjoy most team sports and on my own I tend to be swimming, cycling or running. To collect the funds for trips like this I work as a software engineer. I enjoy the job because it is always interesting work and the people I work with are great. I really enjoy travel, especially if I am able to be active while doing it. This includes hiking and riding, this will be the longest ride I have taken part in to date. I am really looking forward to this trip.

Marek Poplawski

Hi, I’m Marek from Canada and this will be my third tour with TDA. I started cycling in 2014, and signed on for my first trip with TDA in 2015, through Africa. I cycled 10500km of the over 12000km trip. It was an incredible experience; definitely a trip of a lifetime. Then in 2016, I completed five hard weeks of cycling, through the mountainous terrain of Central America, with stops in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and Belize. I climbed 41061m in elevation, and cycled the total distance of the tour, 2600km. In doing so, I achieved the illustrious TDA EFI designation; meaning I rode Every F#&!ing Inch of the journey! It was challenging mentally, physically, and tested one’s endurance and equipment. I’m happy to say that my bike and I, met all the demands of that test. The experience was incredible, and I will treasure the memories forever. Now I look forward to meeting the people on the Bamboo Road tour, and making new memories.

Jan De Bock

Just a nice guy ☺

Michel Hendrix

I am 68 years old and in summertime I do cycling together with my wife and friends in winter speed skating. In 2014 I was participant 0f TDA from Nairobi to Cape Town. I enjoyed it very much, all those impressions and the nice people I have met on the Tour. Cycling through some beautiful countries of central America will be my next goal.

Samira Jamily

person

Luiz Henrique Ferreira

Entrepreneur, 36.

Rob Seeley

Living in Fernie, British Columbia. Enjoy mountain biking and road biking in the summer, skiing in the winter. Looking forward to riding in the Central American mountains, meeting new people and sharpening up my Spanglish.

Andreas Pakenham

If doing this trip once has others questioning your sanity, doing it twice must confirm its missing. As this is my second time leading this wild, beautiful, and challenging trip, you could say I've fallen hard for the old trade route. My goals this time around, are getting fewer people lost, and finally discovering the fabled peanut butter merchants of Central Asia ;)

Jodi Scott

Hi I'm Jodi and I'll be the medic on tour

Cristiano Werneck

“Good afternoon, my dear dream merchants."—TDA rider arriving at the office in Toronto for a visit.

I started with TDA as a local cyclist in Brazil during the Vuelta Sudamericana in 2009. I had just finished a long solo cycling trip through South America and I was invited to join the first couple of sections of the tour to help with the language. Once I was back home I started volunteering for the company, doing everything I could to spread the word about TDA. Eventually they decided that it was only fair to hire me.

It’s really hard to choose a place or a tour that was special, but both scouting and leading our first Trans-Oceania tour was certainly out of the ordinary. I had ten weeks to scout the whole thing from Medan to Sydney and spent nine of them trying to wrap Indonesia.

I recall a particular day in Indonesia that the riders later named "The Wall". Henry and I had been discussing avoiding a stretch of highway we weren’t happy with. We’d seen an alternative on the map but the road was privately owned by industry and we were having trouble getting the getting the permits we needed to use it. When we arrived, we saw local people using the road, which was a trail, so we decided to have lunch there to give me time to scope it out. A local guy on a motorbike took me up the steep trail to check it, flag it, and take notes and waypoints. At some stage, the trail got so steep that the motorbike couldn’t get both of us up, so I walked the rest of the way before calling staff at the lunch spot to tell them the route worked and to give them directions. It was a bit improvised and out of the ordinary but it was functional.

Because I knew what this steep route would put the riders through, I decided to wait and touch base with the first to complete it to see what they had to say about the experience. The first couple of cyclists showed up with big smiles on their faces and said they’d loved it but that they didn't think I should wait for everyone because there was sure to be some aggravated rider who would probably punch me. I decided to stay and wait for that punch, and while a few people did arrive looking ready to smack me, the angriest of them all actually just gave me a big hug. After a good shower and some good food everyone was in fine spirits; in the end, this day turned out to be a rider favourite of the whole trip.

Working with TDA is really the perfect job. Not only do I love both travel and bicycles, I also love watching people achieve things of which they never imagined themselves capable. Finally, this job allows me to share these loves with a wonderfully diverse group of people.

Brian Hoeniger

“There are few experiences in life that compare to riding my bike through beautiful landscapes in faraway lands.”

The circumstances that led to me becoming TDAs accountant date back almost 35 years. In 1985, after studying Africa in University, my then girlfriend and now wife were hired by Henry Gold, to work for CPAR, a small humanitarian NGO he was leading at the time, on a medical famine relief project in Ethiopia. I spent 12 years with CPAR before becoming Executive Director (and Accountant) for a sports non-profit - the Professional Disc Golf Association (PDGA). In mid-2007, I convinced Henry, who had founded TDA in 2002, that I was the numbers oriented guy to do the job. Today I work for TDA about 70% of the time while also serving as PDGA International Director.

I've also been a TDA client 7 times now and these journeys have all had their magical moments. Spinning through Iran - pinch me, I'm dreaming!, across Turkey - where east meets west, down Chile's remote Carretera Austral, and into the canyonlands of the American southwest, to name a few. Completing the Tour d'Afrique and winning a couple of race stages is another. Eating super fresh Octopus ceviche and a massive Shrimp cocktail in the town of San Felipe while scouting Baja California. And of course, meeting TDAs amazing clients from around the world and the "salt of the earth" local people along the way.

On a macro level, TDA is a spirited little company that seizes the day and refuses to accept the words "no can do". This anything is possible attitude enables TDA to provide intrepid travel experiences of a lifetime from the best seat in the house - your bicycle, and people like you and me to break through their personal barriers.

On a micro level, toiling as company accountant is way more entertaining and challenging, transacting as we do in a myriad of major and obscure currencies, than most positions in the seemingly humdrum field of financial management.

Paul Davison

62 years old, retired engineer. Coming back for another instalment of South America. Not a fast rider, but a persistant one.