RSS FeedsWhere Are We Now?
(Last updated in February 2008)
The story so far…
On the 17th of June 2007, three young Englishmen departed from their homes in the UK with the collective but vague ambition to travel round the world by bicycle. Their names are Tom Allen, Andrew Welch and Mark Maultby.
Though a momentous and long-awaited occasion that day was, the chain of events that led to that day had been formed long before. The seeds of the idea were born as far back as 2003; a simple desire to learn about the true nature of the world before embracing any other way of life, coupled with a conviction that the bicycle was the optimal way to gain this knowledge. With a willingness to throw themselves at any obstacles that the idea would throw at them, these feelings brought the three together to embark on an expedition that they had named ‘Ride Earth’.
Travelling for the sake of travelling can sometimes be self-indulgent and escapist in nature. Today’s almost-inevitable round-the-world pre- or post-university ‘gap year’ was not attractive; nor was the concept of ‘going back’ to a previous lifestyle in the UK. Rather, the idea for Tom and Andy at least was to wipe the slate clean, leaving as little as possible behind and literally carrying their lives’ possessions into the unknown, to see what happened, to obtain a better knowledge of what the world actually is, and to steer well clear of the restrictions of fixed itineraries and ‘plans for the future’.
From the earliest of the planning stages, nearly a year before departure, an important aspect of the project was to share with friends and family (and anyone else who cared to listen) the lessons learnt from the bicycle-travel experience. Carrying cameras and camcorders with them on their journey, a huge part of Ride Earth would be to let the rest of the world in on the group and individual adventures, through online photo albums, a blog on their website, and, in the future, a first-of-its-kind video documentary in conjunction with String Films, a new and environmentally-oriented film production company based in London.
After many months of practical route research, equipment testing, sponsorship proposals and publicity, the day of departure arrived. Cheered on by friends, family, filmmakers and local villagers, the three departed from Tom’s home in Middleton, Northamptonshire, England. Struggling to adjust to the emotional and physical stresses of this massive change in lifestyle and thinking (none of the three had ever travelled, let alone by bicycle, before this day), they spent five days cycling through the country roads of central and eastern England to Harwich, where they procured a highly discounted ferry crossing to the Hook of Holland.
From the remarkably warm and sunny days of England, the trio pedalled through the unbelievably wet summer of continental Western Europe. Three weeks following minor roads and cycle routes south from Amsterdam, through the Ardennes of Belgium and the Lorraine, Comte and Jura regions of eastern France brought them to Lake Geneva, where the first of many meetings with expedition sponsors and conservation NGO WWF took place. Hot and sunny weather, interrupted by unpredictable summer storms, became the norm as Tom, Andy and Mark abandoned their plans to head for the southern reaches of Spain and instead journeyed east across Switzerland to Austria and the River Danube, taking them to Vienna where an 8-day rest with friends was welcomed.
After leaving Vienna, the normal course of events was interrupted by Tom’s knee injury and Mark’s decision to return to England. Now down to two, a further two-week break during balmy August in the Hungarian capital of Budapest was necessary, but thoroughly fulfilling in itself. Recovered and inspired by their meetings during their stay, Tom and Andy continued eastwards through Hungary, accompanied by two new travellers - English girls who had thrown their Inter-railing plans out the window and found old bicycles at a local scrap yard in order to join the pair for the rain and culture-shock of rural Romania, the splendour of the Fagaras mountains and the gruellingly featureless and congested road to Bucharest.
By then, extended city breaks were becoming a regular feature of the journey, and Bucharest was no different. Tom, Andy and Maria spent 10 days in the company of an incredible variety of local people, while Magalie (the other English girl) left the trip to study back in England. After Tom’s loss of his wallet containing all of his bank cards and cash, the riding continued, as autumn descended along the quiet and now tourist-free Black Sea coast of Bulgaria, into the completely unfamiliar but warmly hospitable social climate of European Turkey. Maria suffered knee pain and hitch-hiked the remaining distance to Istanbul as Tom and Andy continued by bicycle, suffering a major wheel breakage and losing the second bank card but being well-looked-after by local Turks celebrating the end of Ramadan in mid-October. Waiting for a new pair of wheels for Andy led to a stay of nearly an entire month in the history- and culture-soaked yet sprawling and expensive city of Istanbul, where they met up with String Films to shoot their reflections on the journey so far.
Continuing as a pair into December along the quiet but steeply-mountainous north coast of Turkey, in hope of a challenging winter ride through the Caucasus and Central Asia instead of the original route through the Middle East to India, Tom and Andy discovered the shortcomings of their camping equipment in the face of night time temperatures dropping below zero. Rather than trying to find suitably warm sleeping-bags en route, they decided to have some sent from England - a decision that would lead to a logistical farce lasting for nearly three months and eating up a large portion of winter riding time. In Tbilisi, their stay of two-and-a-half weeks ended despite the non-arrival of the third set of replacement bank cards that were sent from England by long-suffering parents. At this time, a decision to travel alone after 7 months as a pair was made.
Now, in Yerevan, bureaucracy conspires to sabotage the deep-winter adventure, as Armenian customs and the British Embassy argue over unfair import taxes from the finally-despatched sleeping bags. Having successfully obtained visas for Iran, spring is edging closer, bringing with it the prospect of a springtime ride through Central Asia towards Tibet.
