Ireland to Istanbul

DualFrontDiscs

Given we're talking about bike setup, @blorg, how do you find the cantilever brakes on the carbon fork? I had awful brake judder on my fork until I fitted a fork mounted cable hanger. Cured the problem straight away.

DFD.

RobertFoster

That was a great read. I should have had breakfast before hand; I've a longing for some pastries now

Did it take you long to plan it all out beforehand? Even the planning of such a long trip seems daunting to me.

Diarmuid

Congrats blorg. That's some distance you covered!

mo_bhicycle

RobertFoster wrote: »

Did it take you long to plan it all out beforehand? Even the planning of such a long trip seems daunting to me.

I second Robert's question. How much planning was involved and what resources did you use for this?

GrumPy

Well done OP, fair fúcks.

Signal_ rabbit

Super impressive! gotta love those pastries!

trad

Very impressive.

Is this the first time a cycling thread got "Post of the day"?

big mce

Well done Blorg, fantastic achievement, and archiving the journey so well was incredible. Were you taking notes enroute?

niceonetom

Congrats on post-of-the-day, blorg.

Also, the cycling.

Dave147

Just read the first weeks worth but have to go to work now, I am actually hooked now and can't wait to see the rest of it. Might be something for me to strive towards, instead of my plan to drive through Europe!

uberwolf

great read. Legend.

brayblue24

Seriously impressive stuff there lad

Hermy

blorg wrote: »

At one point I found a bike shop with a track pump...

Easy know you weren't in Dublin.;)

Well done on an epic journey.

kincsem

Congratulations on an excellent journey and report. Its a very good read.
I'm going to go back and check the equipment list again.
Titanium > carbon.
What were the "kilometers per pastry" figures?

DualFrontDiscs

kincsem wrote: »

What were the "kilometers per pastry" figures?

Any KPP* figures would be seriously f*cked up by Serbia.

I visit Novi Sad (RS) regularly. It's a great place.

DFD.

*Kilometres Per Pastry.

amjon.

How much do you reckon you spent on the whole shebang? Did you not find yourself going a bit crazy cycling on your own most of the time?

jimm

Well done blorg. Amazing journey and a great read.

blorg

Thanks again for all the comments. As requested I've put up two pages with information on expenses and food.

@amjon- no, no more crazy than I am normally in any case. I like cycling with others but do a lot of my cycling on my own so I am well used to it. I had never gone three weeks before and was a bit concerned about that but it turned out fine. I was kept busy with getting everything cleaned, organised and of course the cycling. I really didn't have a lot of time to myself at all.

@Tonyandthewhale- I wouldn't say Mosonmagyaróvár was eerie, but there didn't seem to be a whole lot going on as far as I can recall. More unmemorable.

@Ant- your having to keep your accomodation records was really the only thing in Serbia and to be honest I suspect that was more just the first place I stayed, I don't think they saw many foreigners there and were maybe overly worried. I was actually missing one card leaving but the border guard didn't even look at them. Apart from that the country was very normal and extremely friendly, police and border guards included. I would say Serbia was probably my favourite place of the trip.

@dave2pvd- as Lumen says, I had the bike set up completely off and paid dearly for it. I was off the bike for a week in Istanbul before flying to the Alps for a week of sportives. The niggle was there for the first one but completely gone for the Marmotte. I haven't been cycling much the last month and while fine on my road bike I took my tourer out just to pop down to the shops there the other day and bang back with the knee pain. I'm going to do a comprehensive measurement on my road bike with a plumb line and try to duplicate that on the tourer I think, maybe just with a higher bar position.

@DFD- the cantis are fine on the carbon fork. There is maybe a touch of judder but nothing crazy. This is something that happens with cantis and although I have seen suggestions that the carbon makes it worse I am not sure. I have four bikes with drops and cantis or V brakes, 3 with carbon forks and 1 with steel. The steel fork was the worst for judder.

@RobertFoster/mo_bhicycle- I had about a month beforehand to plan it but wasn't doing it full-time, on and off. I basically used Google Maps walking directions from Cherbourg to Istanbul and then dragged it around a bit to stop it taking ferries which it likes doing for some reason. Then seeing it touched the Danube, I divided it into three, Cherbourg-Donauworth, the Danube Bike Trail to Budapest, and then Budapest-Istanbul. The middle section I did not plan any further as I reckoned I would just follow the bike trail, so I just changed plan with this as I went when I found I didn't really like it. The last section I had very roughly sketched out but left alone and finished as I was actually on the trip. The only big complexity with that was getting over the mountains in southern Serbia into Bulgaria. One route seemed to be a very big road or even motorway while the other seemed to go up and down to some crazy elevations with countless cols. It turns out with the latter that the elevation information was simply wrong, possibly partially to do with tunnels or it plotting the road going off a cliff and right back up. There were certainly mountains there but they were not quite as bad as I was expecting from the elevation projections.

The first section to Donauworth I mapped out in quite some detail, again using Google Maps walking directions. I dragged it around to avoid main roads and Paris and then recreated it in www.ridewithgps.com which gave me elevations. May have been a few minor changes then to avoid hills. RideWithGPS spits out a GPX which I took into Mapsource and recreated it there as a route, using the list of towns along the way as waypoints. To be honest you can overplan these things although I must say it did work out pretty well and I was able to do the first 1,000km across France and into Germany with pretty much no navigation issues or having to stop at any point to wonder if I was going in the right direction. A lot of nice small roads in France too.

@big mce- yes, I was keeping a diary (with varying amounts of detail, some nights I got in and just had to go to sleep.) I then spent a fair amount of time re-writing it initially in a country by country format before deciding to go back to the page a day format. I think in future I will just stick it up as I go along and not worry so much about it.

mo_bhicycle

Thanks for that reply Blorg.
One final question from me: If you had wanted to, how many of the nights do you think you could have camped (including wild camping)? Were there any areas/countries that you wouldn't have felt safe in doing so?

tomasrojo

I really don't see what the big deal is.





Ah no, a great accomplishment, and a really nicely written account too.

When I saw the name "Ivan McAvinchey", I pondered the significance of this intriguing Hiberno-Russian pseudonym, with its clever assonance-like almost-repetition of "Ivan" in the surname. Then it occurred to me that your real name isn't actually blorg.

tomasrojo

By the way, one of your photos seems to suggest that you abandoned the segregated cycle network in Germany and used the road. I'd be tempted to do that too, but did anyone hassle you about it?

EDIT: Ah, I see the answer to that: "But unlike Germany where cyclists conscientiously using the bike infrastructure would glower at me cycling on the road". I guess glowering is ok, provided the Old Bill (Der Alte Schnabel) didn't get involved.

blorg

@mo_bhicycle- could have camped 100% had I been hard enough! Some places there would not have been sites and so you would have had to camp rough and forgo a shower but certainly I don't think there was _anywhere_ I would have thought dangerous.

@tomas- yes, in places I didn't use the German cycle network. AFAIK it is not illegal to use the road and there were certainly a few triathletes doing so on TT bikes. I take this from there being specific signs when bikes were barred and these were not present on most roads. However there was widespread use of the network even by roadies (such as Andreas) which I saw as frankly a bit strange.

Most of the time drivers were courteous while I was using the road but there was a few roads I got a few beeps which may have been cyclist-prohibited but I didn't notice.

The German cycle network is grand, but not for every cyclist. And in the back of my mind I do recall where it came from in the 1930s.

Hail 2 Da Thief

Enjoyable read! Thanks for posting!

I'd love to do some long distance touring some day. The only worry I'd have would be encountering a serious mechanical issue [like the broken rim you suffered] in the middle of nowhere! I'd imagine you'd have had difficulty locating bike parts in some of the places you passed through!

Lumen

blorg wrote: »

The German cycle network is grand, but not for every cyclist. And in the back of my mind I do recall where it came from in the 1930s.

"Deprived of both company and internet access, Blorg pedalled on km after km, muttering darkly and occasionally Godwinning his own monologue to break up the monotony".

christeb

Brilliant account blorg, and a genuine "page-turner."

Ant

blorg wrote: »

The niggle was there for the first one but completely gone for the Marmotte.

Glad to hear that the knee pain was sorted for La Marmotte.

yes, I was keeping a diary (with varying amounts of detail, some nights I got in and just had to go to sleep.) I then spent a fair amount of time re-writing it initially in a country by country format before deciding to go back to the page a day format. I think in future I will just stick it up as I go along and not worry so much about it.

I could tell from reading you account that you put a fair effort into writing it. I'm a slow writer myself so I understand how it can be better to not worry too much about the quality of the prose being perfect and to just publish it as it is. But as a reader, I really appreciate the care that goes into the writing as it results in a much more enjoyable read. Chapeau!

FWIW, I'd tend to agree that an account for each country probably wouldn't have expressed the epicness (if that's a real word) of your trip half as well as the daily entries.