Madagascar

A bicycle trip from Toliara to Antananrivo in the first two weeks of August 2025.

Following is a rough overview of some choices we made for this trip as well as general conditions:

  • We arranged a car and driver as a SAG vehicle both to carry our belongings and to get across the largest gaps without services. This worked quite well and I am also quite pleased with the driver we had. We started from review pages including this one that lists Chris Tophy with contact information. Chris subcontracted his cousin and I am very pleased with service we received from Chris and heartily recommend him. Without a SAG driver, it is possible but then involves several additional choices
    • Being able to make it across ~140km/~150km gaps that are also quite hilly
    • Finding additional small accommodations in the gaps
    • Carrying full gear and and perhaps camping
    • Using local bus services.
  • We started from South to North. Not sure there is a huge difference but this worked well for us. With a SAG driver we could also being a bike box to use at the end. We flew all the way to the end point after learning it could take ~3 (perhaps 2 if you pushed it) days to drive to the end
  • Madagascar is a poor country. World bank lists it as #7 from the bottom. Accommodations and food were inexpensive sometime less than $1 for two of us for soup. We looked using Booking.com and otherwise found places as we traveled. We also used our driver’s help
  • Wildlife is unique so we also dropped by a few parks along way. It was interesting to get our obligatory lemurs
  • We were there in winter and also the dry season. It was often in high 40s or low 50s overnight and during the day not much more than 70F. A pleasant change from Central Texas though if anything I didn’t quite bring enough warm clothes
  • There were lots of local cyclists on sturdy non-suspension mountain bikes. The rear racks would be locally made out of rebar and allowed the bikes to carry a passenger. The front derailleurs were generally removed, but people could shift range on the front by stopping and manually shifting from one chain ring to another. Rear derailleurs (5, 6, or 7 speed) generally seemed to function and be maintained. Tires and tubes came from India.
  • People were friendly and communication was a bit like in Morocco. The people who did speak something other than Malagasy would most likely be able to speak French. English speakers were much more difficult to find. The most common Malagasy phrase that kids would yell at us was “Solly Bazhar”, which roughly translates to “foreigners give us presents”. If we answered “bonjour” or “salama” it seemed to work fine.
  • There were plenty of places along the way to buy food. Finding a place to sleep was more of a challenge. These were mostly in larger towns and there was one stretch of 150 km without any overnighting that we could find. In the direction we were cycling, this also had more than 8000 ft of elevation gain, which was more than we had trained for. There was one other day with 120 km and about 5000 vertical feet. All the other days were a maximum of 100 km and 5000 vertical feet, which we could manage, especially since we didn’t need to have much gear on the bikes.

Overall, definitely enjoyed this trip as a chance to see a somewhat different part of the world. Slightly challenging but not too much they way we did it with a SAG driver.

List of the latest blog posts from the trip:

Background information

Some background information:

  • A climate comparison suggests 60F-80F in Toliara and around 10F cooler inland.
  • A wikipedia description of the Route Nationale 7
  • Overview map (below) showing Toliara in the southwest and Atananarivo in the center of Madagascar

Background Information

Gemini AI generated planning guide

Madagascar-Bicycle-Tour-Planning-Guide

Gemini AI generated climate guide

RN7-Madagascar-August-Climate-Study

Gemini AI generated hotel search

RN7-Madagascar-Hotel-Inventory_