For Herb Masters, 55, of San Carlos, Calif., the inspiration to go on seven African bicycling trips through the Seattle-based International Bicycle Fund came in 1985. That’s when he decided to start tackling a list of sights he wanted to experience before dying.
Near the top of his list were two sights that he would cross off at the same time: Halley’s Comet and Machu Picchu, the famed Andes Mountain ruin. He bought a mountain bike and went to Peru alone. The monthlong trip was thrilling, he says, but the comet was a dud and the language barrier frustrating. Then he tried a trip to Costa Rica, but didn’t like the tour group’s style of self-contained cooking and camping because it made him feel detached from the local culture.
IBF’s bare-bones approach for its two-week rides is heavy on serendipity, with visits to villages and rides on back roads aimed at creating enriching, real-life encounters. Last year, riders in Vietnam were briefly detained after taking a shortcut down a road that apparently was closed to foreigners. While being held, they ate a delicious lunch and gulped shots of rice wine, toasting one another with a Vietnamese version of “cheers,” says Doug Sovern, a radio reporter in San Francisco who was there.
Such trips are “an amazing reality check,” says Mr. Masters, who retired as a firefighter in 2005 and has been to Ghana, Mali, Togo and Tunisia. “It validated my worldview was warped. I knew I didn’t get it, but I didn’t know how much I didn’t get it.”
