In the last few months I have heard many times about the concept of ‘type one’ and ‘type two fun’, mainly from other cyclists. Type one fun is when you know you are having fun: cycling downhill with the wind in your hair towards a beautiful sunset, eating an ice cream, skipping through the daisies […]
On the road for six months now, I have been gloriously free from daily and weekly time pressures. Visa constraints notwithstanding, my only real deadlines this year have been to cross the higher Asian mountain ranges before winter, and, ideally, to traverse the desert regions of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan before the hottest part of the […]
At the border crossing into Azerbaijan from Georgia things looked more serious than previous frontiers. Armed military police controlled the approach of traffic to the passort control gates and my bags got their first proper going over, ‘what is this?’ (an inflatable globe, what does it look like?), ‘what is that?’ (a melted, half eaten […]
Georgia, I had heard, is a cycle tourist’s dream country. Everyone who spoke of it sang its praises. The lush, hilly landscapes, the mountains of carb-rich, tasty food, the legendary hospitality, the beautiful women. Georgia had a lot to live up to and I was eager to dive in and see how the reality compared […]
At the boundry of Europe and Asia and the first overtly Islamic country I have visited, Turkey always represented an important threshold on my trip. However its customs and social norms remained something something of a mystery to me. Would I spark a diplomatic incident by eating with the wrong hand? Would delicate religious sensibilities […]
Dubrovnik wrecked my legs! Its countless flights of steps hammered muscles in my legs that hadn’t been used for three months, leaving me half crippled, hobbling downstairs clutching at the walls for support. Fortunately, back on the bike I didn’t feel so much as a twinge of the DOMS (Dubrovnik onset muscle soreness) that had […]
I am in Dubrovnik, Croatia, heading south down the Dalmatian coast in long-awaited sunshine. As it’s been a while since I posted, here are the highlights so far! Central and southern France Cycling through Northern and Central France was lovely in early February; sunny for the most part with cold nights (-5C or so) and […]
After arriving in St Malo on Monday evening I headed up the coast to Parame and found a great camping spot on a grassy headland above cliffs. Well hidden and facing east, it was a huge relief to find somewhere secluded to pitch my tent and get my tea on as the sun went down. […]
Written on Monday 2nd Feb: I am finally on the boat to France! A week later than expected, but the sun is shining and the sea is calm and I am as ready as I’ll ever be to start the real adventure of this trip. Already my departure from Glossop on 17th Jan seems like […]
