[John Rogers]

In 1984, my last cruise in the U.S.Navy I took a racing bike with me and actually built up one during the cruise too with a Vitus aluminum frame. Anyways I took the bike ashore in France, Monaco, Casablanca, Ivory Coast Africa, Several places in Australia (won a race there), New Zeland, Hong Kong, Tonga, Japan, Singapore, Thailand and Korea. I used a large "bag" to carry the bike on the ferry boats and would change shoes on land. I wore a Schwinn racing jersey and got a tremendous amount of friendly waves and bus loads of people wanting to give me "hi-fives" as it went by! It was probably the best trip I made in my 20+ years of sailing I'd say. As bad as the traffic was in Japan the bikes always were treated with respect and given plenty of room.

In a moment of craziness I rode to the top of Mt. Wellington while in New Zealand and it was snowing up there! The next day a whole TV crew showed up at the USS Texas to interview the "sailor who races bicycles". The CO was happy that we got great press from all that!

Try to find out bicycle laws and rules where ever you end up going and be friendly.
John