Dancing in the Dark

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.

Rolling off the tongue

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.

Cold Nights and Notes from Sinop

I smell pretty terr?ble 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.

Istanbul Movements

We arrived in Istanbul after cycling through 75km of suburban sprawl along the dangerous highway. It was a traumatic experience. We rewarded ourselves with a gourmet kebab that we couldn't afford from a small place full of old men drinking, smoking and chatting. It had become dark in the city, after watching the sunset on the cycle in, and we needed to find our place to stay for the night. It was in Besiktas over the other side of the Golden Horn, probably about 25km away. Tom and I were both tired and decided to split up to find it and we went our separate ways. I met Maria at the ferry port and followed her along past the Ottoman palace which looked amazing all lit up. The main street in Besiktas is lined by large trees with Turkish flags hanging between them. It was very atmospheric. I sunk into bed that night and slept very well after a very long day.

Looking Back, Moving Forward

I am in Kadikoy on the Anatolian side of Istanbul. We have reached Asia by bike. Today commences our third week in Istanbul. It is a multi-layered and vibrant place, enough to make one consider staying longer. The open road and adventure beckons once again.

Roam in Romania

The first few days in Romania were mentally tough. We donned full wet weather gear and ventured into the terrible weather that the first day offered us. It was overcast, drizzle, cold and miserable. The road away from the border was full of lorries, one after the other, spraying bucket-sized amounts of water over us. In the morning we cooked a huge meal at a bus stop and washed pots in a puddle next to bemused-looking people waiting for a bus.

Romania beckons

We arrived in Romania a couple of days ago. We crossed the border and had a long night after realised we had crossed at a place we shouldn't have.  We had to return to the official crossing and cross there.  It was dark, wet, lightning was striking around my feet, again, and the officials were stroking their moustaches with intent.   

We have the addition of a new member of Ride Earth, Maria.  We met her in Budapest.  She is cycling along on an old touring bike we picked up for twenty quid from the local scrapyard.  Last night we found a beautiful campsite on a hillside overlooking the vast plains that we have spent the last few days travelling across.

Romania, so far, is a feast for the senses.  It is beautiful, serene, wild, and moody.  Small farmholdings dot the land and shephards roams tending to their lifestock.  We have met a number of friendly people which we managed to communicate with despite the language barrier.  Romania promises a whole new adventure for Ride Earth.  It is a vast country with a range of geography, from imposing mountains to endless plains.  We plan to cross the Fagaras mountains in around a weeks time.

Ride like lightning

Sitting on a park in Vienna after a huge thunderstorm during which I feared for my own life, I find a moment of tranquility and reflection.

Getting Into A Rhythm

Its been six weeks now and I'm settling in to the lifestyle. Each day is is a mind expanding experience. The creature comforts such as shower, comfortable bed, etc that I was once used to are now an occassional luxury. Each day is limited only by our own decisions in each moment, leading us off down a new path of chance meetings and opportunities.

When I last blogged we were still in Belgium. We travelled through France to Switzerland and stayed with our WWF contact in Geneva where we took the opportunity to rest for a couple of days. The arrival to Geneva was suitably dramatic with a knee poppingly steep ascent of the Jura Ridgeway and a bitterly cold heart-in-mouth nighttime descent, with view over moonlight alps, towards an illuminated buzzing Geneva.

Turn On, Tune in and Pedal On

Another day on the road. I drink a large coffee, pack the trailer and panniers pedal on to the next big adventure. Each new experience is challenging my preconceptions and leaving me with an excitement and anticipation for the next one.

The most difficult thing so far is the challenge of working in a team and sharing responsibilities as a group, taking into account three sets of ideas. However it is ultimately a very rewarding experience.

What is completely unexpected is the amount of hospitality we have received.

National Bike Show located at secret venue called the NEC

Today we drove to the National Bike Show at the NEC after generously being giving some tickets by the organisers. I was up early and went over to pick Tom up at 8.30am to drive down. We collected our previously prepared (at midnight last night) press packs and printed a couple of cheap t-shirts with the Ride Earth logo and website on them. Eventually after the usual faffing about we headed off with some circa 2000 Pete Tong tape playing in the car.

We cruised on down the A14 and M6 then missed the turn off for the NEC by just the 5 junctions. To make things worse when we turned off in order to turn round, the southbound direction was closed and the traffic was diverted so we had to drive another junction up the M6 just to come back again. After an intense session of cursing about the lack of clear signage, we managed to find our way to the NEC by using the sun and the art of tracking.

On arrival we milled about for a bit, before being walked in by the organiser and left to do our thing. We spoke to a few different companies who had stands including Chain Reaction, Extreme.com, Pace/DT Swiss, Merlin, and dropped press packs off with Singletrack, DIRT, MBR and a few others with a view to getting some regular coverage on our trip.

You only live once...

Coming along with us to the One Life Live exhibition in Earl's Court, London next weekend will be Project Carbon.

Project Carbon is a UK based, not-for-profit carbon reduction service that aims to help one to understand and reduce one's carbon footprint and compensate for non-reducible carbon dioxide emissions.

We are extremely pleased to announce that we will also be joined by The Wilderness Foundation UK (blog).

The Foundation is dedicated to preserving and promoting the value of the world's last remaining wild areas by through lobbying, education and, wherever possible offering direct experience of wilderness itself. They support projects that conserve wilderness and those seeking to re-establish it in Great Britain and overseas.

We share the belief of the Wilderness Foundation in the irreplaceable value of wilderness, which contains the wonders of pristine nature, and enables us to return to our origins and draw a deep sense of belonging and inspiration and that by visiting the unspoiled places where nature has been allowed to exist since time began, this connection is rekindled.

A million thoughts

Time is ticking away from us in the count down to leaving. Thinking about all aspects of the equipment, navigation, etc... Which bike frame, wheels, brakes? What combination of clothes? Do I really need to take a dinner jacket?

We have been kindly donated a stand at this year's One Life Live Exhibition. This is a huge exhibition backed by the Independent newspaper, with a massive PR and marketing campaign behind it including national newspaper, magazine, London Underground posters Radio and TV and a year round website. One Life Live 2007 (2nd – 4th March) will take place at London’s most prestigious exhibition venue - the Grand Hall, Olympia in Central London.

Tom and I will be going along with some expedition kit, hopefully with a presence from our charities and some equipment companies, reciting poetry and talking to people about the aims of our trip to encourage sustainable living, promote bike use, and hopefully inspire others.

If you have a company who would like to be represented and help us with our trip please email me.

On another note, I recently watched a couple of documentaries. An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore. Al Gore combines the science of global warming in an easy to understand way, with the potential consequences in a positive and strong, rallying cry to protect the one earth we all share and how we can take action without getting too evangelical about saving the planet. I also watched Who Killed the Electric Car?. This is a lesser publicised documentary, about how the Zero Emission Vehicle mandate and emerging electric car in California was quashed by government, the car companies, Big Oil, even Eco-darling Hydrogen and consumers who turned their backs on the car in favour of the SUV. Both highly recommended and interesting.