A bike ride around the world

I arrived safely in Beyneu yesterday afternoon after four days’ cycling through the desert of the Mangystau region of south-west Kazakhstan. Four epic days, whose memories I’m sure are going to take some time to fully settle in my consciousness. But I thought I’d share some perspectives while fresh in my mind.

I cycled out of Aktau on Thursday morning with a real sense of trepidation – riding initially between the Caspian Sea on my right and the sprawling manifestation of the rich oil and gas industries to my left, but fairly rapidly leaving that corridor behind and heading out into the desert. I was as prepared as I could be – carrying nine litres of water (six of them in a DromLite water ‘bladder’), plenty of food to sustain me, and all the kit I needed to wild camp as and when that became necessary. But I felt alone and truly vulnerable. It’s an act of great faith to set off on a bike into such wilderness. Faith in my capacity to ride it, but faith too in humanity and its preparedness to enable such an adventure.

Day one went smoothly, and I covered just under 100 miles to Shetpe. The ride took me out east alongside the Karagiye Depression – which falls to a depth of 132 metres below sea level (the deepest depression in Asia and the lowest point in Kazakhstan), before turning north at Zhetybay.

There was little drama for the rest of the day, but a moment of serendipity when an enforced stop to retrieve my water bladder (which was thankfully undamaged despite breaking free from its mooring on the bike and crashing to the road) bought some time for a group of boys (aged about 12) from the local village school to make their way to me across the sand. Mansur was the first to introduce himself, and the boys were a delight. So engaged and respectful. Their smiles and enthusiasm gave me as much fuel as any food could have done in that moment.

I’d known there was a motel in Shetpe where I could probably get a bed for the night, and so it transpired. I was grateful for a shower (albeit an icy cold one) and the chance to replenish my water supplies.

In the morning, day two began ominously, with a powerful cross-wind making its presence felt as soon as I headed out on the road towards Say-Otes, and before long it turned into a pitiless headwind. The conditions were farcically difficult (it’s never encouraging to see that you’re travelling at about five miles an hour downhill!), and at times there was no choice but to get off the bike and push it into the wind (with even that sometimes proving incredibly challenging). Strong and persistent winds are a defining characteristic of the Mangystau region, and they were a highly defining feature of my second day in the desert.

It took me almost ten hours to ride just 55 miles, and by the time I unclipped from the pedals (on reasoning that I’d found the best spot I could for my first night wild camping) I was exhausted. I’d got through most of my electrolyte-enriched water supplies along the way (a temperature of 32c barely noticeable given the extremity of the wind, but no doubt drawing vast amounts of moisture from my skin surreptitiously throughout the day!), and I was incredibly grateful to the family who thought nothing of giving me their water to top me up when I asked for their help.

Pitching the tent when so tired and with the prospect that it would take flight on the gusty wind wasn’t easy, but I felt a huge sense of satisfaction in getting it pegged to the ground and ready to envelop for me for some much-needed sleep.

When I woke up, after a surprisingly full night’s sleep, I was amused to see that the floor of my tent had been coated during the night in a thin layer of white sand. I’d zipped up fully for the night, but the pores of the air vent had obviously given enough aperture for the tiny grains of sand to make their way in.

Day three was breezy, but eminently rideable, and I covered about 90 miles before finding another spot to wild camp. The journey took me on a slight detour into Say-Otes to top up my depleted supplies of water, and another chance meeting with a group of boys from the village who wanted to know what I was doing and took a keen interest in all aspects of my bike and its set-up.

The desert felt relentless, with scenery that changed little for hour upon hour along arrow straight roads that pierced a pancake-flat landscape of sand and desert brush. I cycled all day under the beating sun (the tallest growing thing being no more than a couple of feet off the ground and providing no shade). The bus shelters that cropped up every 30 or 40 kilometres provided the only potential refuge, but for the most part I was happy to keep pedalling through the vastness of the landscape. Perhaps riding with Thomas (our oldest) through the plains of western Turkey last June, when the temperature had peaked at about 45c, gave me the confidence to know that I could cope!

Life in such desolate conditions can be a rare thing to detect, and at times it felt like I had only beetles and lizards for company. The latter, with their exaggerated reaction to the sight and sound of my bike, appeared to take on almost human guises at points, but perhaps such anthropomorphism is just the imagining of a lonely cyclist on a fast-track towards hallucination!

Occasionally, I encountered desert voles, who’d shoot out across the road at lightning pace, and most excitingly caravans of Bactrian camels and herds of wild horses. I initiated conversations with most of them, but the camels looked especially puzzled by my presence!

The end to day three pitched me deep in the desert, about 52 miles from Beyneu. I rode my bike discreetly for about half a mile away from the road – the land being so flat that any closer would have advertised my presence more visibly than I was comfortable with. I put up my tent, rewarded my day’s efforts with a tin of tuna and a tortilla wrap, and marvelled at the beauty of the sunset and the sheer majesty of the desert.

Day four was more desert graft – softened, as during the previous three days of the ride from Aktau, by the numerous acts of kindness that peppered my ride. A couple of men stopped to check I was ok and thrust literally their entire collection of food at me, and there were endless offers of water from car, van and lorry drivers who pulled over to see how they could help me.

Support has continued to come too from the regular hooting of horns, waves and fist clenches. It’s been amazing, and so often the motivation that makes the rough times a little smoother.

There are all sorts of arbitrary lines that can be drawn to demarcate the Earth’s ‘west’ from its ‘east’ – arbitrary because, while our planet rotates counterclockwise around the sun, what constitutes west and east is really a matter of perception. The Greenwich Meridian establishes longitude and separates our western and eastern hemispheres, but it’s just a human construct.

Over the 55 days of cycling from home to Baku, there were various points that felt like a transition of sorts from west to east: riding into Hungary (given the country’s former Eastern Bloc alignment), reaching the Black Sea, and crossing the Bosphorus in Istanbul – the great ‘meeting point of the world’ and the boundary between Europe and Asia. But, in the context of this latest part of my adventure, the Caspian Sea makes a strong claim to be a bigger frontier, and I felt it powerfully as my flight left the Azerbaijan coastline last night and headed out over the darkness of the water bound for Aktau in Kazakhstan.

Perhaps that claim is amplified in my mind because the Caspian is the first proper expanse of water I’ve had to cross by means other than my bicycle since the English Channel some 4,100 miles earlier. In truth, my thinking is shaped too by the fact that it also marks a threshold to a phase of my ride that feels particulalry formidable. There was always a sense about my itinerary that it was split between what was entailed west of the Caspian (a very large logistical puzzle, but riding to a fairly fixed schedule and sleeping in a bed each night) and the undertaking east of it (a less convoluted set of logistics, but the prospect of a much looser schedule). The first eight days across the desert – split roughly evenly between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan – will involve little civilisation and some nights wild camping.

From the top floor of my hotel, there’s a 360° view of the surrounding cityscape of Aktau. To the west is the Caspian, and to the east an urban sprawl which, once the sun had set and the lights of Aktau sparkled, had a discernible perimeter. Beyond that perimeter lies a vast expanse, and some significant trepidation!

I’m in Baku, on the Caspian Sea, and I made it here by bicycle. It’s a long way from home. My journey here totalled 55 days of cycling, covered 6,718 kilometres (4,174 miles), and threw 58,360 metres (191,470 feet) of elevation at me – something like six and a half Mount Everests.

As a measure of how far east I now am, Turkmenistan is not far across the water from here – just a 287-kilometre (178-mile) ferry crossing. But, given the practical challenges of securing a visa to enter Turkmenistan, the better-trodden route for touring cyclists lies further north – into Kazakhstan via Aktau. I’ll be flying there, across the Caspian, on Monday night.

The ride today (from Şərədil to Baku) was tough. It was no longer than my other days so far on the journey from Trabzon in Turkey, and it involved no more climbing than any other day. But my body was definitely seeking details for the complaints department this afternoon! My legs continued to feel strong, but elsewhere there were various niggling pain points! As I navigated central Baku and experienced the euphoria of reaching the Caspian, the sensory signals from those areas of pain did seem to fade reassuringly. But perhaps that’s just the wonder of dopamine?! If you’d like to see my Instagram reel of today’s ride (or any of my other daily reels), do check out my Instagram handle: @ed_worldbikeride

When I set out initially to ride my bike from home in West Sussex to the top of Mont Ventoux in the south of France, I harboured very vague thoughts that the adventure, while at the time feeling like a big undertaking in its own right, might prove to be a ‘prologue’ to a grander plan. That plan never crystallised in a single moment of awakening, but through continual recallibration of what was feasible (and a few further trips that took me further and further east along an unbroken route from home), it’s a plan that’s grown in conviction. After leaving the Mediterranean coast of France, I wended my way through Italy, Slovenia, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Georgia, and latterly through Azerbaijan (thanks to some land border closure-defying logistics). Now that I’m on the western shores of the Caspian Sea, it doesn’t feel quite so intimidating as it did previously to eye the sea’s eastern shores and what lies beyond them.

Reaching this point, with the vast deserts of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan next on the itinerary, certainly feels momentous. Tonight, I’m celebrating the journey that got me here. From tomorrow, my thoughts (and logistics!) will turn to the next chapter of this adventure – a chapter that will be very different from the ones that went before!

I felt a sense of elation as the wheels on my sleeper train started turning at Baku railway station at ten to midnight on Tuesday. It had been difficult dealing with the disappointent of being prohibited from travelling with my (fully constructed bike) 24 hous earlier. And it had been especially tough dealing with the uncertainty of whether I would be turned away again (this time with a bike deconstructed across two makeshift carboard boxes!) and forced to enact a ‘plan C’ for getting back up to the Georgia/Azerbaijan border.

My apprehension about my second appointment with the Azerbaijan Railway authorities was eased considerably by Elzamin, one of the staff at my hotel in Baku, who accompanied me to the station after his evening shift had ended in order to act as my interpreter and try to help me overcome any issues that might arise. It was an act of pure kindness, and I was incredibly grateful for it. In the event, it helped that a different roster of railway staff was on duty at the station on Tuesday night, shorn of Monday night’s particularly inflexible manager (who, in fairness, appeared to be traumatised by the fact that my request to travel with the pariah of a bicycle was captured “on camera” and thus presented a threat to his continuing employment prospects).

There is a romanticism to sleeper trains that always animates me, and I delighted in being onboard. I stayed up late to watch the lights of Baku fade into the distance behind and the largely dark and indeterminate landscape of south-east Azerbaijan assert its role as the backdrop to the early part of the journey up to Balakan.

The train was hot (uncomfotably so for sleeping), but nonetheless I felt fresh and alert arriving in Balakan on Wednesday morning. There was a sense of mission accomplished, despite the fact that I was every bit the passenger rather than the pilot that I am for most of the assignments on this adventure.

At Balakan station, I rebuilt the bike (in front of an audience of fascinated local men) and caught a taxi up the border; having lost a day in the schedule, I felt no compunction about avoiding distance on the bike that doesn’t count towards the overall mission I’m on to cycle a continuious route from home. But don’t ask how the bike fitted into the boot of a modestly sized Lada!

The ride from the border down to Sheki was beautiful, but was surpassed by the landscape that unfolded between Sheki and Gabala today. I felt an enormous sense of privilege to be able to see the spectacular world I was navigating – framed for most of the day by the Caucasus Mountains to the north of my route.

I met some lovely people today, and interacted with hundreds more along the way. They will never know how much it meant to me to receive their constant warmth and encouragement – the day being peppered with constant waves, fist pumps and “salaam, salaams”. I stopped to chat to a shepherd, Jamal, whose flock occupied the full width of the road until he cleared a path between them for me. He spoke enough English for us to be able to introduce ourselves, explain where we were from, and share reflections that were so powerful for the soul. We shook hands and wished each other well as I rode off along the valley.

Crossing the border from Georgia to Azerbaijan was already a long-winded undertaking, which was scheduled to involve:

1. Cycling to the Georgian side of the border (to the north-east of Lagodheki)
2. Returning from the border to Tbilisi
3. Flying from Tbilisi to Baku
4. Taking the overnight train from Baku to Balakan
5. Cyling the 16 kilometres from Balakan to the border
6. Setting off from the Azerbaijan side of the border on the ride down to Baku as though steps 1-5 above had never happened!

Step 4 – the overnight train from Baku to Balakan – was a critical part of the logistics, but not without some marginal uncertainty. Although the Azerbaijan Railways website explains fairly clearly that trains on their networks will carry up to two freestanding bicycles (and indeed the owner of a very good local bike shop told me that it’s actually mandated for them to do so), my varied experiences of taking bikes on trains over the years made me somewhat apprehensive. In some countries, it’s a cultural and logistical doddle; in others, it’s treated on a par with trying to board a train with a tiger or a bomb. The response from the employee at the information desk at Baku railway station to my query during the afternoon about my plan to take a bike on the train to Balakan (he was “hopeful” everything would be fine) didn’t do much to lessen my apprehension.

I arrived at Baku railway station about an hour before my train’s scheduled departure time of ten to midnight last night to try to ensure I had ample time to resolve any issues. But, with the help of a translator drafted in over one of the station staff’s mobiles, I was made aware pretty quickly and abruptly of the “impossibility” of taking my bike on the train. The mood was amiable, but my attempts to find a solution proved fruitless. Even completely deconstructing my bike would, I was told, serve no purpose.

With the phalanx of railway staff and police whose nightly job it is to usher people on to the sleeper train from the Azerbaijani capital to the north-west town of Balakan (eight and a half hours away), eye contact became a scarcer and scarcer thing – other than with a very young member of the train dispatch crew who took it upon himself to be something of a guardian angel. He explained to me that he was hoping to improve his English (which was already strikingly good!), and he calmly advised me how to go about getting a refund on my now-unused ticket and how to get information about rescheduling my journey (if I could find a solution for my outcast bicycle).

I secured the refund (less an immodest admin fee), but, at midnight on a Monday night in Baku, I was thrown a challenge – with no bed for the night and my whole itinerary for the week obliterated. I’d already found the Easter weekend very isolating (it’s my favourite time of year back home, and I’d missed my family and friends hugely). Standing outside the station, I felt alone and at a very low ebb.

The only viable response to this latest blow has been to get on the front foot and try to find solutions to the challenges posed. After what cannot be recognised as a night’s sleep (albeit in the last available bed back at the hotel in which I’d spent my first night in Baku), I spent the morning in Baku sourcing cardboard boxes, and using the hotel lobby to construct some makshift, cut-down containers that now hold the various pieces of my once-again deconstructed bike. I’m giving the train another go tonight, and hope the dimensions of my improvised boxes will satisfy the railway authorities on my return to their evaluation this evening. They’re the best I can offer given the rigid dimensions of my bike’s frame, and they comply with the guidance given to me by the very helpful lady who sold me the replacement ticket.

I’ve rescheduled the hotels on the route back down to Baku, and hope to lose just a single day from the schedule…which would still allow me to catch the flight I’ve booked for 28 April across the Caspian Sea to Kazakhstan. If I’m barred from boarding the train again tonight, it seems possible that I could get a car to take me the 600 kilometres from Baku up to the border…but some of the logistics around that potential solution are not ideal.

I’ll get to the loopy logistics in a moment, but first a quick perspective on the last two days on the bike.

The ride from Tbilisi to Saghnaghi was supposed to be relentlessly wet, but the inaccuracy of the weather forecast was a relief. After about 20km, having cleared the eastern outskirts of Tbilisi, the roads suddenly dried, and they stayed dry for the rest of the day. Given how dire an accumulation of wet weather can be on a bike (even the explicit promises of the manufactures of my cosy overshoes were broken over the last few days), this unanticipated desiccation of my riding surface was a cause for celebration.

But the greatest joy was to come at the end of yesterday. I’d finished my last of ten climbs for the day (in itself a happy thing), when in a split second the levelling tarmac revealed the most stunning view I think I’ve ever seen so unexpectedly in my life. No photograph will do justice to the feeling that rushed through me in that moment as the vast expanse of the Alazani Valley appeared to roll out a carpet to the splendour of the vast, snow-encrusted Caucasus Mountains.

Perhaps it was the extent and starkness of the geography that took my breath away – Russia visible to the north in the outline of those mountains, and Azerbaijan awaiting me off to the east. The hills that comprised the last climb of the day hadn’t been without their beauty – in particular, wave after wave of budding vineyards pointing to the famed viniculture in this part of Georgia. But the majesty of the scene that revealed itself at their summit struck me with incredible force.

I woke up early today in Saghnaghi to soak up some more of the beauty of the place before heading off on my bike. The early-morning light did nothing to undermine my first impressions. The sights and sounds of this gorgeous hilltop town were reminiscent of a Tuscan or Umbrian counterpart, and the views out across the valley to the Caucasus Mountains were every bit as impactful as they’d been the evening before.

The ride to the Azerbaijan border across the valley floor was sun-drenched and liberating. For the first time since setting off from Trabzon last week, I felt the warmth on my back, with only a base layer and a short-sleeved cycling jersey between my skin and the world around me. Until now, the inclement weather has necessitated multiple layers, as well as an almost constant bracing against the elements.

I reached the Azerbaijan border at about 1pm today, and thereby began a phase of this trip that’s going to convey me an effective 100 metres in five days. The three-toed sloth is apparently the slowest creature on the plant, moving at a speed of a foot a minute (so slow that algae grows on its coat). At that rate, it’d reach the Azerbaijan side of the border crossing some 19 times more quickly than I will.

Azerbaijan closed its land borders to inward travellers during Covid, and has never reopened them (apparently on grounds of national security). To cross from Georgia into Azerbaijan without surrendering my claim to a joined up journey from home, I’ve returned to Tbilisi, from where I’ll fly to Baku, catch the night train up to Balakan, return to the border, and begin cycling to Baku. It’s unorthodox, I realise, but I would never willingly have had it any other way!

It was at Gori – birthplace of Stalin – that my three-day diversion route reacquainted itself with the original route I’d planned, and there was satisfaction in that. Being back on track I mean. Not the Stalin connection.

I’ve lost a day from my schedule, which will have only a minimal impact on the logistics that will get me to Baku and across the Caspian Sea. All told, it feels like a great outcome in terms of what seemed possible as I stared mournfully into my mountain broth on Friday evening and wondered whether I’d caused greater damage to my ambitions.

The last three days have brought further challenges, and today was difficult in a meterological sense. Really cold. Really wet. I stopped at a supermarket in Mtskheta to get some food (including drinakble peach yoghurt, which is becoming a much-loved staple for me!), but had to wait ten minutes in the relative warmth by the checkouts to be able to retrieve my currency card. Riding for five hours in the bitter cold, even with gloves on, had led to my hands ceasing to function as desired!

Over on Instagram, where I’m posting a daily reel with some video highlights of each ride, my status as a budding influencer (yeah, right) may have taken a hit today given that I was physically incapable of operating my phone at a number of points when the landscape warranted attention. If that doesn’t put you off, and you’d like to check out my reels, you can find them at @ed_worldbikeride. Alternatively, they are feeding through to the ‘#VIDEOS’ tab of my Follow My Challenge web page (but usually with a lag of a day or so).

Passing the (fairly unobtrusive) ‘Tblisi’ sign on the way into the Georgian capital was rewarding. Reaching cities doesn’t excite me on quite the same scale as arriving at seas or country boders, but they are nonetheless exhilarating markers of progress.

First impressions of Tbilisi are great – a hugely vibrant city with a clear sense of its own identity and history. I’ll be leaving here in the morning to ride up to Sighnaghi, from where I’ll be performing some logistical gymnastics (more to come on that), but I’ll be back in Tbilisi in a couple of days and hope to get to know the city better then.

The last 48 hours have been pretty tough. When local people up in Khulo let me know on Friday night that the pass through the mountains just beyond their town was blocked because of heavy snow, I felt for a little while as though my plans were in tatters.

I realise that there are plenty of people who take a less dogmatic approach to cycling around the world than I do, and I know that fun can come because of the lack of dogma rather than in spite of it.

And yet this concept I have of joining every dot from home matters to me. There will come a point where the unbroken chain has to be broken – it’s just not feasible to ride every inch of every road in a deglobalising world that’s increasingly xenophobic and fractured. But for now there’s huge joy for me in knowing that, solely through my own pedal power, I’ve connected home to all these new places I’m visiting.

I was naive to press ahead through the mountains on Friday, having seen the weather conditions, but in mitigation the total failure of the eSIM I’d bought to allow me to research my routing while on the go really didn’t help. I’d tried to ask some local people for advice along the way, but the language barrier proved insurmountable.

On Saturday morning, I took a minibus back down the mountain to Batumi; even at 1,000 metres, the snow had settled prohibitively from a cycling perspective, and the wintry journey downhill was unrecognisable from the spring-infused ride I’d done uphill just a day earlier.

Once back in Batumi, a stomach issue that I’d been nursing since the previous day worsened, and it was a relief to get an early check-in to my newly booked hotel.

At a fairly low ebb, everything is an opportunity for upside! And so it proved. I planned the rerouting of my ride north of the Ajara mountain range, booked hotels in the new intermediate stops that I’m now making before Tbilisi (Kutaisi and Surami), and bought a fully-functioning replacement eSIM!

None of this improvement in my fortunes would have been as effective without, once again, the striking kindness of strangers. The staff at the hotel I’ll be staying at in Tbilisi, in particular, have been exceptional in reshaping my booking and offering to help me source – with less time to play with now – a cardboard bike box and packing materials for the flight I’ll need to take to Baku. I’ll take that flight after having ridden to the Georgian side of the border with Azerbaijan, and in readiness for the logistics that will allow me to pick up again on the Azerbaijan side. More to come on that little escapade!

Today’s ride from Batumi to Kutaisi (140km) went well. I decided to take it as easy as I could given my stomach issues, and that paid dividends – in terms of my health and in terms of really being able to enjoy the passing world around me.

I cycled 87 kilometres (almost entirely uphill!) from Batumi on the Black Sea coast to Khulo in the Ajara mountains today, but have been hit with news this evening that, in a very literal sense, it was a journey in vain! The pass just east of here that I was set to ride over tomorrow morning is closed because of very heavy snow fall. Frustratingly, given how close I am to getting through these mountains, there is no alternative route through to the town I need to get to (Akhaltsikhe – just 81 kilometres away). The only viable solution is for me to return to Batumi and reroute north of the mountains, which will be a three-day detour.

What to make of today then? In the near term, there’s a temptation to dwell on the sense of futility, but there was so much to be thankful for today that I can’t really see it as a  waste! And I think, in time, I’ll come to find the whole debacle quite funny!

It was a beautiful day. Most obviously it was a privilege to be so connected with the stunning mountainous landscape in this part of Georgia – particularly on a day when the sun came out to bathe it. Spring was bursting through everywhere – trees festooned in blossom, magnolia trees in full flower, and pockets of purple iris punctuating the roadside. It made me happy.

There were meaningful connections too in the happenstance of crossing paths with people during the ride. I always find it deeply moving to feel shared bonds with individuals in vastly different parts of the world whose lives are notionally so different from mine. I don’t think we can go too far wrong in remembering that any two humans have about 99.9% of their DNA in common, and we share a very similar percentage of our hopes and fears too.

A boy (perhaps aged eight or nine) lovingly clasped the hand of his grandmother – hunched at such a right angle that her back was parallel to the ground – and held a bunch of flowers in the other hand as they climbed the steps together to a solitary grave perched above the road. It was a scene so universal in its love and simplicity.

Elderly men waved and gave me encouragement as I passed them – just as they’d so kindly done in every country between home and here. Friday markets in the little mountain towns bustled with activity. A young girl shouted “hello” from her school playground, and broke out into a beaming smile as I waved back enthusiastically. And it wasn’t just humans who provided the connections! I encountered a lot of beautiful animals today too – none more so than a wonderful dog who ran with me for two kilometres (very respectfully and with remarkable road savvy), keeping up even as I hit some respite from the mostly relentless climb and upped my speed to 35kph!

Now then. Some rerouting and planning to be done!

Ahead of the finish to the last leg of my ride from Istanbul to Trabzon in November last year, my son Thomas had suggested that a fitting end would be the beautiful old Zağnospaşa Bridge in the shadow of the city’s castle. It was indeed a very special location to finish that ride, given its elevated position and views out to the Black Sea.

By virtue of my attachment to the concept of an unbroken route from home in the UK to wherever I can get to, the same bridge became the starting point this morning for my ride from Trabzon to Almaty.

One of the symptoms of wanderlust (for me at least) is a propensity to do somewhat geeky things that help keep the connection with lusted-after places strong, even when physically they’re a very long way away. I have a Chrome bookmark tab just for webcams of places that I miss or long to see one day, and I felt a child-like delight to find when returning from Trabzon in November that the city has a webcam of the Zağnospaşa Bridge. A bit of frivolous fun once back home, but this morning an opportunity too for my family to watch my ‘grand depart’ live from the bridge.

And, thanks to Henry (our youngest), the moment was recorded for posterity. Check out my Instagram reel of today if you’d like to see some of the footage!

Further serendipity unfolded just a few minutes after I’d disappeared from view on the webcam.

Leaving Trabzon, I entered the first roundabout of the trip at exactly the same time as another cyclist. Taking a look at his fully loaded bike, it was obvious that he was touring…but what were the chances that he’d also be from Sussex and also riding to Almaty?! Neither of us had passed another cyclist for the last 1,000 miles of our respective journeys to that point. The coincidence was remarkable. Oliver and I rode together for the rest of the day, and sat down together for some lunch in Rize (pilau doner chicken, which hit the spot beautifully).

Oliver was a superstar during the morning, helping me sort out a couple of punctures inflicted by a small but devious shard of glass that breached my rear tyre wall. By default, I’m optimistic that I’ll get on with people who make a choice to ride their bikes crazy-long distances (a bit like my positive bias towards dog owners!)…but Oliver really was one of the good guys. 

I’m staying in a hotel high up in the tea plantations above Çayeli tonight. Not the most rational decision given the closeness of the contour lines in this little enclave, but a beautiful spot to spend the first night of my ride, and it’s been a joy to be smothered in the boundless kindness of the staff here.

The weather forecast for tomorrow doesn’t make for pleasant viewing – a high of 6c and torrential rain for the last leg of my ride across Turkey (mirroring the conditions experienced for most of today). But there’s nothing quite like the carrot of a border crossing to compensate for such trivial hardships, and I’ll have Georgia on my mind when I set off tomorrow.