South America was not an easy task – not even for a bike globetrotter as experienced as Helmut Pucher. “It took me a lot of patience and had to improvise a lot”, the Carinthian summons after 874 hours on the saddle of his STEVENS Prestige cyclo cross bike.

Already one day before his departure his new backpack was stolen. And starting from national park Torres del Paine in Patagonia stomach problems and a nasty cough slowed him down. About 1,000 kilometers further North not only the rough washboard gravel roads of Carretera Austral became a challenge for Pucher, he also broke his photo camera.

Nevertheless, he continued for another 1,000 kilometers to get to Santiago de Chile where he recovered well and got sent another backpack and camera from home. “Without the support of a Chilean friend I’d probably would have been forced to give up at this point nevertheless”, he says. Yet things changed when he got to Peru: “I rode some great stages there”, he enthuses.

“The stage from Arequipa to Lake Titicaca was a highlight.” If you want to take a closer look at the individual stages, you may do so on Strava or follow Pucher’s adventures on his blog Pan American Rouleur.

A break in Honduras was interim and final goal of his journey at the same time. Helmut Pucher took a shortcut from Peru to Honduras by plane where he taught the children of an orphanage of the child welfare organization “NPH – Nuestros Pequenos Hermanos“, as his goal is to collect funds for this charity on his trip besides riding from Tierra del Fuego to Alaska.

After teaching he returned to Northern Peru with fresh legs and went on to ride through Ecuador and Columbia that were not only an athletic challenge for Helmut Pucher: “The nervous tension was incredibly high in Columbia”, he recounts. “The presence of police and military could be felt everywhere.”

He was accordingly proud and relieved when he’d made this stage of his journey and celebrated the end of his South America ride at the beach with a beer shower. “I’d been thinking a lot about what would be an adequate celebration of my South America tour – a beer shower appeared to be the most logical way as it actually was a little champions party, the work of a whole year.”

In March, the globetrotter plans to take a Panamericana break in order to be fit for stages in Guatemala and Mexico before heading for the United Stated in May. When everything goes well, he wants to ride through Alaska in August. But first Helmut Pucher will enjoy spring in Central America and summer in California.