Ride Earth

The other day I was cycling towards Trabzon.  We went through a number of dark, ominous looking tunnels through the hills. I’m cycling along, and then there it is, another black hole. My blood pressure rises, the hard shoulder thins and squeezes me off onto the road, to share it with the multi-tonne trucks flying past, spraying me with muddy water. I check over my shoulder, ah, a gap, hopefully I will make it through, before being chased by the next vehicle.  Each vehicle sounds exponentially louder, like a plane taking off.  I pedal like fury through the tunnel. This is repeated a number of times, then we are about to go into a particularly long 3 km tunnel and an orange van with flashing lights pulls up behind us before we take the plunge.  The guy leans out the window, I assume they want to tell us we’re not allowed to cycle through the tunnels.  I feign ignorance or deafness and pedal into the tunnel at full pelt helped by a downhill.  After a couple of minutes of pedalling, I slow down and Tom catches up followed by the van shouting ‘we have an escort’.  I suddening feel silly for my pre-conception and a little more important for a few seconds.  The tunnel seems to go on for ages, pedalling into the concrete world, illuminated by the glow of the safety lights, and fire exits and the flashing lights from the van, I feel my mind drifting away into some sort of trance, pedalling along following Tom’s back wheel, a very strange feeling. Back into daylight and downhill to Ordu, the next town.

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It seems far longer than 6 months - but at the same time it feels like we left yesterday!

It’s an odd feeling, but I think I can pin it down to the fact that we have removed almost all trace of routine from our lives. I begin each day with little real idea of what will happen. Usually (but not always) I’m pretty sure it’ll involve some cycling. Today was no exception, but we were using our bikes to get around Trabzon, rather than having a long day’s slog on the road. In the previous 4 day’s cyling, we’ve covered over 350km and we’re having a couple of days off. (more…)

Although people are helpful and friendly, we often get looked at like we have three heads. I find it funny, and its completely harmless and utterly understandable. Two bearded English men turn up. One is wearing a fluorescent sock on his head and looks like a traffic cone, the other is wearing a ridiculous helmet with go-faster-stripes, and klingon-esque air vents. Why would someone on a bicycle want to wear a helmet anyway? They don’t go fast enough, there’s no engine. Both weirdos have multiple yellow luggage bags attached to their bikes, and one bike has three wheels. (more…)

I smell pretty terrıble but I’ve got a fishing boat to go and sleep on tonight, and I just bought a new blanket which I hope will keep me warm as the nights have been uncomfortably chilly recently. Normally camping is a perfectly fine option for our sleeping arrangements, but I’ve been more dubious recently as I’ve been cold in my thin sleeping bag, no matter what combination of clothing, headwear etc that I adorn. This is important because we don’t have the guarantee of a comfortable bed to sleep in each night but it is nice to know that I will be warm. Luckily the Turkish are living up to their reputation of hospitality. Almost every day we have either had a warm place to sleep, been fed incredibly tasty food, and always offered chai. (more…)

We’ve spent three weeks since leaving Istanbul following the Black Sea coastline. Yesterday we completed the very hilly northern stretch, arriving in the peninsular town of Sinop. It’s a charming place with some of the friendliest people we’ve met in Turkey so far. Already we’ve been fed lunch, dinner, breakfast and lunch again, taken clubbing, given baklava to take away with us, and lent a fishing boat to sleep on. To round things off, today’s weather has been gorgeously sunny and even warm enough to spend the day exploring in only a T-shirt. (more…)