A Hemisphere, One Pedal at a Time

Martijn Doolaard — Two Years on a Bike

From Vancouver to Patagonia by bicycle — 400 pages of landscape, solitude, and a genuinely vulnerable journey of self.

Find it on Amazon →or at Bookshop.org

Cyclist with a loaded touring bike on a salt flat under a cloud-streaked sky, from Two Years on a Bike

Two Years on a Bike: From Vancouver to Patagonia, cover of a cyclist on a mountain road

The cover

Martijn Doolaard decided he needed more in life, so he packed up and biked from Amsterdam to Singapore, pedaling for a year, a distance of over 10,000 miles. After returning home and producing a photo book and journal, he got itchy again, deciding to take on an even grander and longer journey, from Vancouver to Patagonia — a journey that would take him two years, cover over 12,000 miles, and produce this second book of his: a giant, 400-page journal of rich landscape photography, stories of connecting with locals across two continents, and a deeply emotional cascade into his own psyche.

This book is to be read. Mr. Doolaard carries us through the physical challenges of biking a hemisphere, the psychological struggles that come with it, love, lovers, and sadness, the breaking points, the moments of small victories. The book is an emotional affair, very genuine, and with a vulnerability that makes this a true human journey worth following along.

Cyclist with panniers pausing above a red-rock canyon

Hand-drawn route map from the North to the South Pacific coast

The photography is stunning — not in its fidelity, but for the moments in time it captures. The drone photography abstracts out, reframing the moments, often evoking the many periods of desolation and loneliness across Mr. Doolaard’s journey, and are complemented by intricate maps of his ride. The scale of the adventure is often unsettling.

“For hours, nothing changes around me as I pedal forward. It’s like riding in a dream.”

From the pages

Painted red hills, a crater lake and a bike against wind-sculpted snow

Retro motel sign, desert sky and yellow wildflowers

Portraits and a cyclist walking through dense jungle

Volcano view, llamas, and portraits of people met along the road

Cyclist climbing green ridges and muddy Andean trails

Rust-coloured mountains and a woman in a blue scarf

Between the storytelling and the imagery, you get truly carried along. Frequent rogue camping, hills, bigger hills, impossible hills, lengthy interludes with friends and lovers in cities, eating rice and beans in jungle shacks, theft, the zen of bike maintenance — it was surprising and refreshing that this wasn’t just about bagging miles and mountains. You get carried through all the topographies and climates: hot, steaming, soaking, dry, dusty, muddy, freezing, numbing; all of the ups and downs and changes become the simile of the personal challenge itself. This is as true and delightful a travel journal as I’ve read in a while. What an adventure.