26/07/2026
You'll always be an inspiration to many. 🕯🕊
Heinz Stücke's long journey came to an end on the 22rd of July, 2026. He was 86 years old.
In Memory — Heinz Stücke
11 January 1940 – 22 July 2026
Heinz was born during the Second World War, in Hövelhof, a tiny agricultural village in northern Germany.
Books first set him in motion. The adventure stories of Karl May—filled with distant lands, unfamiliar people, and journeys—captured his imagination. As a teenager he explored France, Italy, and Switzerland, traveling the only way he could afford: by bicycle. In 1958, after completing his apprenticeship, Heinz cycled from Germany to Egypt and around the Mediterranean before returning home. In 1960, he left again on his bicycle, crossing India before returning to Germany through the Soviet Union. Then, in November 1962, at the age of 22, Heinz cycled away yet again for—what was supposed to be—just a 24-month trip. He wouldn't return home for another 52 years.
If he hadn't taken photographs to prove it, nobody would believe the adventures he had.
He crossed the Sahara Desert. He climbed Kilimanjaro. He camped on the Great Wall of China. He ventured into the Amazon rainforest, emerging the third time in 1967 carrying the skin of a 6.4-meter green anaconda.
Heinz met royalty, including Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, but felt most comfortable with ordinary people who had no power, no influence, no riches. He drank fermented kumis with a truck driver in Mongolia, sipped tea with two shopkeepers in India, and ate steak with an Argentine cattle rancher. Everywhere he went, he was fed home-cooked meals and given a safe place to sleep. Heinz offered tales of odyssey and adventure.
In 1996, Heinz became the first person to visit every country in the world by bicycle and was recognized by Guinness World Records.
He achieved this without sponsorship teams, support vehicles, GPS, or expensive equipment. He was short, stocky, and looked nothing like today's muscular athletes. For much of his adult life, he owned little beyond his heavy, three-speed bicycle and what he could carry on it.
Heinz, however, was not a saint. He could be stubborn, outspoken, and contrarian, just to keep the adrenaline flowing. He also refused to return home to help care for his aging father, but later demanded his share of the inheritance.
Yet for all his shortcomings, he inspired thousands of people to travel and explore, preferably by bicycle. As the Greek cycle champion Pantelis Ioannidis remembers, "Heinz told me that the real weight is not carried by the legs or the bicycle. It is carried by the mind. If your soul is light and free, the bicycle goes by itself."
In 2014, at the age of 74, Heinz finally returned home to Hövelhof.
He spent his later years there surrounded by reminders of his journey: a puma's tooth from Ecuador, Mardi Gras medallions from New Orleans, handmade dolls from the Philippines, and hundreds of other objects, each with a unique story.
Heinz never married and had no children. He left behind no great fortune. He left something rarer: proof that an ordinary person can live an extraordinary life.
--- If you have a Heinz story to share for the book, please write me at [email protected] ---
