Heinz Stücke

Although he has ridden the same steel-framed bicycle on most of his journeys, in 2002 he rode across Canada with a partner on a Hase Pino tandem recumbent bicycle, which Hase Spezialräder built and sponsored.

In 1995, around the time he set the world record for bicycle touring, Stücke self-published a memoir: Mit dem Fahrrad um die Welt ("Cycling Around the World"). In 2015, Dutch travel writer Eric van den Berg published a biography commemorating Stücke's career of international bicycle touring—a career which by then had continued for more than 50 years. The book, Home Is Elsewhere: 50 Years Around the World by Bike, also features Stücke's photographs.

In the early 1980s, after two decades on the road, Stücke decided to attempt to visit every country in the world. He believed he had accomplished his goal when he reached Seychelles in 1996, but to him it felt anticlimactic. He had spent too little time in some countries, and there was still much to experience; so he continued on. Between 1962 and 2010, he cycled more than 609,000 kilometres (378,000 mi), and visited 195 countries and 78 territories. From 1995 through 1999, the Guinness Book of Records described him as having travelled more widely by bicycle than anyone in history.

In November 1962, the 22-year-old Stücke quit his job as a tool and die maker, and rode out of his hometown on a three-speed bicycle, with a plan to see the world. He says that his extraordinary desire to travel was partly motivated by his aversion to returning to factory work.

Since 1962, Stücke has taken more than 100,000 photographs. He funds his expeditions with licensing revenue from his photo catalogue; donations; and sales of his travel writing, postcards, and booklets that feature his photographs, writing, and illustrations.

Heinz Stücke (born 11 January 1940) is a long-distance itinerate cyclist from Hövelhof, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany — noted for setting the world record for bicycle touring in 1995.