Dave McCaig – London to Cairo
Posted by Prashant - 23/03/10 at 08:03:07 am
Long time Ottawa BMX rider Dave McCaig recently returned to Canada for a short while, after having completed his longest bicycle tour yet, cycling from London to Cairo. Dave road the treacherous distance with his trusty Hasselblad camera, and two partners; Nikola, and his goofball brother Ryan. We have featured Dave’s photography on this site before, so I felt it only natural to ask him if he would share a handful of images from his latest cycling adventure on this site for everyone to see, and perhaps motivate and light a fire under people to explore traveling from a different perspective. Click below to read Dave’s statement and to check out the rest his amazing photos.
These photos only show a very small percentage of what actually happened on this trip. I’m happy to say we cycled from London to Cairo with only pedal power. During this trip we endured snowstorms, sand storms, Biblical rain showers,wind and some of the most friendly and giving people I’ve ever met. This trip was probably one of the most hardest trips I’ve ever done but also probably the most epic trip I’ve ever done. We cycled through 3 continents and 3 desserts and everything I owned on that trip really shows it. I really hope these photos inspire people to travel and open there eyes and not believe the bullshit the media feeds them.
- Dave McCaig
Souq in Istanbull:
This is a photo of a medieval style souq in Istanbul, Turkey. As you can see it’s pure madness in there.
Nik & Ryan Sinai Desert:
So this photo was shot in the Sinai desert. This desert was known to kill half of Mosses’ people when they walked across and I understand why it did. A very small part of the deserts we road through actually had sand dunes. Most of the time it’s just really Rocky.
Ryan Sinai Desert:
This photo was shot in the Sinai desert. As you can see we had to carry a ridiculous amount of water on our bikes because towns were far and few between.
Boys and Meat:
Okay so this photo was shot in Homs, Syria. This is a very beautifull city that was originally colonized by the French so lots of buildings are painted with pastel yellows and beautiful wooden shutters. This was shot in a souq/market. There was literally a full block of dead cow carcasses.
Dogs on Roof:
This was shot on our second day in Turkey. People in Turkey are amazing. People were always giving us tea or food or places to stay. I’m pretty sure our first day in Turkey we were given about 5 cups of tea throughout the day. So the photo of these dogs was shot at a gas station just after I was given a map of Turkey by probably one of the most beautiful girls I’ve ever seen. As soon as I started shooting the photo one of the dogs went a little crazy.
Ryan in Snow:
This photo was shot in Romania just after a 4 day snow storm. 4 days before this there was no snow and no real sign that snow was coming. We decided to camp on the top of this mountain. We woke up in the morning to heavy rain and we had both camped in puddles so most of our stuff was wet and the temperature was dropping fast. Luckily we were camped just down the road from an out of season ski hill that had these really beautiful cottages for really cheap. So we checked our selves into this nice warm cottage for 8 euros each a night and watched the rain turn into a full out snow storm. By the time we left the snow was waist deep. We were super lucky and got to do some snowboarding while we waited for the storm to pass. After the 4 day snow storm we still had to cycle in the snow for the next 3 days until we were out of the mountains.
Nik & Ryan Sandstorm:
This was shot in a sand storm in the Sinai desert which is in Egypt. By far one of the most brutal things I’ve ever been through. Any exposed skin is stung by the fast moving sand. The winds are brutal. As you can see Ryan and Nik are leaned over because of the wind. Whenever a truck passes the wind cuts out which throws you off balance and then you fly into the sandy shoulder or in Niks case right into the middle of the road. As much as you try and cover your eyes little sand dunes fill in your eyes making it hard to see. The paint job on one side of my bike was actually sand blasted from this. One side is shiny and the other side is dull from the sand.
Muddy Wheel:
This seemed to happen a lot in Turkey. There were some nights where the only place to camp was in a muddy farmers field. So your wheel would get clogged up with mud and then you’d have to throw your bike on your shoulder and hike out into the field and set up your tent. After a day of cycling 160km this can be a little painful to do. It’s even more painful when you wake up in the morning and it’s -5 and you have to chip the frozen mud out of your mudguards.
Iraq:
So some parts during the trip we where pretty close to Iraq which meant lots of paranoid military asking for are passports. There was actually some points where we could feel the ground shake from bombs going off in the distance. This photo was shot in the Syrian desert.
Stripped Hyena:
I never thought I’d see a stripped Hyena while cycling through the Israeli desert. I mean it’s dead but still pretty freaking cool. These guys are known to roam deserts in the middle east by themselves.
You can check out Dave’s work, along with numerous other local and internatioanl photographers, at La Petite Mort Gallery (306 Cumberland Street) on March 27th – 28th (Vernisage Saturday the 27th, 7PM -10PM) for the Crossborder Collection – A Fundraiser in Support of the Stephen Lewis Foundation. More info on that can be found here.
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holy crap so many good photos.
the sand-storm photo is amazing.
Comment by Trent Barker — March 23, 2010 #
Did you guys have any bike troubles along the way? Did you carry any spare parts?
Comment by Landozine — March 23, 2010 #
I saw a dead possum on the side of the road while cycling to Guelph last week.
Comment by leland — March 23, 2010 #
Epic photos.
Gnarliest trip ever award?
Good job!
Comment by Rich Red — March 24, 2010 #
so inspiring!! i have so many questions! you guys are amazing!
Comment by COCKMASTER — March 24, 2010 #
Wow guys! Incredible.
Comment by ChrisBryan — March 24, 2010 #
hey guys thanks for the compliments. we where pretty lucky as far as are bikes holding up. We had two tyres blow out. we went through a endless number of break pads. 80 km from cairo ryans rim blew out so he had to hitch hike the last 80 into cairo. As soon as we hit the middle east we seemed to get a lot of flat tires. I’m pretty sure we got over 30 flat tyres. Are tyres where really good but all the debris on the road was to much for them. As far as spare parts go we just carried spare tubes a patch kit, break pads and enough tools to fix anything that might go wrong with are bikes.
Comment by dave — March 25, 2010 #
this looks like an amazing trip and it really comes through with the amazing photos that you took.
Comment by simonmead — April 4, 2010 #
Amazing photos.
Comment by Adam J McKay — April 5, 2010 #
[...] to working as a courier in Tasmania, to living in a squatter house in London, England and cycling to Egypt (click that to view a photo documentary of that trip from last winter), Dave’s life seems to [...]
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