Two Wheels are Better Than Four » Uncategorized

Out of india

Administrator — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 17:40:12 +0000

Well I thought that I’d put a quick post up to say that we are out of india and are currently enjoying the relative calm of kathmandu.
The last while in india was typically fun. The package that we were waiting for was a massive problem as most things are in india. After 4 and a half hours in teh Kanpur post office and abusing the highest managers. I managed to find out that my package was in Delhi and it would take a further 4 days to reach Kanpur where I could then pick it up. After already waiting 6 days since it reached teh country I decided to get the 7 hour cattle class train to delhi and pick it up in person and then get the train back. The process there was a realtively simple 3 hours in the foreign post office to get the package but finally I did!!!!!!! WOOHOO. I nearly danced in the post office. I am still amazed at the complete incompetence of the indian postal staff and the lack of knowledge of their own system or care that they had no idea. They were on a par with the ethiopians, and that is saying something. But by doing that I freed us up to leave the god forsaken place and so after the usual hassle and crap we got an overnight train to gorakhpur and then the bus to the border.
My little adventure to delhi enabled me to have a few conversations with some indians about their country and their lives. It seems that I’ll never know all of india because the poor people can’t speak english and seem unable to communicate in even the most primative ways outside of their own spoken language. (even in the most rural parts of europe some form of communication was possible with no common words at all but that doesn’t seem possible in india) So I’ll never learn their point of view and the rich of india are completely oblivious to the fact that the country is full of disgustingly poor and reched people. They remind me of the world per columbus, they knew the world was flat because they refused to see the evidence. I could go on for hours how india is killing itself because the rich are convinced that the technology is the way forward and waste billions on sending probes to the moon when the poor can’t even afford paper to learn to read with let alone feed themselves. More than 350 million people in india live in extreme shit, beyond anything that I’ve seen anywhere else in teh 58 countries that I’ve been too and yet the rich classes are completely oblivious to any problem. They all need to do an AA course to get out of the denial stage.
But all that is behind us now. Also below is a photo of Nic in her indian outfit that we bought. It is typical of local cut and colour and looks pretty nice on her. The looks that she got once wearing it changed from teh drooling look on a sex object to looks of that on a novelty. that was an improvement but it was still intrusive and was too little too late.
I’ll blog about our entry to Nepal and post photos of Nci in her outfit soon.

Tc and Nic

The Stats to Tbilisi

Administrator — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 08:12:08 +0000

Countries visited = 15
Total Km = 6878.0
Total elevation gain = 51753 m
total days = 116
cycling days = 84
Highest point = 1864 masl
Days of rain = 30
Days with head wind = 36.5
Day with tail wind = 25
Injuries
-Trent = 10
-Nic = 3
-Christal = 3
-Road Kill = 1 poor little snake
Flats = 14
Repairs
- 2 chain breaks
- 1 new hub
- 2 new tyre
- 2 new sets of brakes
- 1 bag clip
Co riders = 9
Side trips = 6
Visas required = 1
Visas gained = 3
Passes 1000 m plus = 8
Passes 2000m plus = 0
Longest day = 148 km
Fastest speeds
-Tc = 68.8km/h
-Nic = 62.1km/h
Average time on bike per day = 4.5 hrs
Steepest grade
-official 11%
-unofficial 15%
Hottest day = 42 deg C in Greece
Coldest day max = 16 deg C in UK
Longest time without shower = 6 days
Days of free camping = 53
Days of hospitality accomm = 19
Wedding proposals = 2
Average km per cycling day = 81.88 km
Average km per day = 59.29 km

The last of Turkey

Administrator — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 08:56:17 +0000

So we are now in Georgia but more about that latter. For now I’ll fill in the gaps on the last few days in Turkey. Thankfullly the road along the black sea is flat pretty much all of teh way from Samsun to the border which is hundreds of Ks and thats awesome. The winds were variable but ever present. Some in front and some (yes) were behind. After trabzon and the hundreds of km of passing through hazelnut areas it was nice to pass through the tea growing regions. The terraced hills of tea are so beautiful. We dropped in and visited a mine that I worked at a bunch of years ago and apart from upgrading the road in there not much has changed. We got free Cay in Cayeli which was cool and had some nice free camping along the way. We met a polish cycle tourist near the georgia border and he gave us his map of the country which was awesome.
One thing I will say about Turky is that after 5 odd weeks the drivers of the country have really started to wear on me. Their constant use of the horn is excrutiating. They seem to have mastered 2 opperations of their vehicles only. Those are the accelerator and the horn. I mean why use indicators when you have a horn. Why use brakes when you have a horn, why use the radio when you can’t hear it over the horn, why use mirrors when everyone else (except cyclists, but they don’t matter) has a horn. They even took great pride at tooting at us while travelling through tunnels to let us know that they were there (idiots!!!) The turkish driving is pretty appauling. Not nearly as bad as the kosovans and a differewnt bad from the Australians but still bad. (I still rate the drivers of Australia in the worst 3 in the world) One Turkish example of great driving was that as we were cruising along a double highway, with not a car in sight in either direction, in good light and good road conditions we both jumped out of our skin as we heard behind us a skretch of brakes. We looked to see a car vear from the left lane across the right and hit the gutter and then roll over and slide down the road towards us. It happened about 200 m behind us and the guy couldn’t have been travelling at more than 80 kmph. I mean, how can you roll your car in perfect conditions travelling at 80. The thing that scared us was that if he had have done it 2 seconds latter he would have taken us out. The tool crawled out of the car ok and got straight on the phone to his family (bugger the police). We left when the crowd of onlookers and finger pointers blocked off the whole road and so that we knew that we’d be safe riding for a few hours.
Anyway gotta head but have fun and I’ll write about our georgia adventures (and wowo they’ve been adventuresa so far) soon.

Tc and Nic

Turkish delight

Administrator — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:26:18 +0000

Just had one of those great moments where you look around you and then think to yourself, “damn, I’m happy with my life”. It was as I was sitting in the seventh story window of a very interesting club in istanbul. The band on stage was playing a punk cover version of “I kissed a Girl”. On my level and above and below were some of the hundreds of roof top bars that blanket the upper portions of every building around the Taksim square region of Istanbul. The roofs were seething with life. Below a snake of people slithered its way along the laneway between cafe tables and the harleys of the local bikie gang. The crowd of the bar bopped around me and I felt like a separate entity from the world. Looking out over a city of 15 million people and feeling part of it and not is amazing.

Tunnels… to love or to hate

Administrator — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 10:14:33 +0000

Tunnels pose such a problem for us. If there is a tunnel on the road then it is obviously helping you avoid large steep and nasty hills or long and arduous detours, which is awesome but they are so dodgy. It helps now that we are in greece and they have started using lights in teh tunnels again but we’ve been through tunnels upto 750m long that have ZERO lighting. That’s a little harsh for a bike. We don’t ride at night and so don’t really need the lights and I’m really lucky that I’d changed the batteries in my front light the day before teh long dark tunnel (at that there was no traffic at the time) or we would have been screwed. Also my little accident 2 days ago in Bulgaria happened in a tunnel where i got a front tyre flat and lost control and a bit of skin but more about that in the bulgaria sum up. Then there was the experience in Italy just before Cinque terra where we had 10 km of one way tunnels that we had to do at 40 plus km/h to avoid the on coming traffic entering the tunnels before we left them. Wow that was scary and exhausting but it did save 30 km of riding in some seriously steep terrain. I think that overall we will cope with tunnels but could quite easily live without them.
Tc

Slovinian Awesomeness

Administrator — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 10:04:34 +0000

So after my slightly scathing attack on italy I figured that I should post some positive stuff and basically its impossible to say negative stuff about slovenia.
From the second that we hit the border it was spectacular. The countriside was gorgeous and it seems that they have been handing out free house paint for years and so all the houses are beautiful. All of the industry is hidden behind nice clumps of trees and even the rubbish dump that we passed looked kinda pretty. The drivers were so far the best that I have encountered in the world and seemed be actually aware that cyclists exist and didn’t want to run us over. In fact they deliberatley tried to get out of our way all the time. Even the slight waynes world feel to the mens fashion in the countriside had a certain charm. The people were the most interested in talking to us than anywhere else so far with random strangers trying to say hello at every turn. We stayed in Ljubljana with a great couchsurfing family and they even put on a slightly less than legal fireworks show for Nic for Canada Day. Even the fact that it rained every day didn’t dampen our enthusiasm for the place and its beauty. Cycling through Slovenia comes highly recommended by us and you can even avoid riding up most of the mountains and still see lots of the country.
So thanks to Slovenia and to the people that we met Tone and his family and Andrje and everyone else.
big hugs
Tc

our routine

Administrator — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 09:51:58 +0000

the day usually starts with us waking between 6 and 7 but usually 6:30.
I unlock the gear and cook breaky while Nic packs the tent and bedding.
We usually hit the road between 8 and 9 and ride in the cooler morning air.
We need to stop so Nic can snack around 25 to 30 km into the day and then continue on to have lunch somewhere around the 50 or 60 km mark.
then its push to where ever we are aiming for the day with usually less sightseeing in the afternoon.
The number of hills detirmines the number of afternoon breaks.
We usually hit 80 to 100 km for the day but start looking for a camp spot around teh 80 km mark.
We try to free camp as much as possible and thats been really easy to do except along the coast.
Then we set the camp up and I cook dinner while nic does the other chores around teh camp and then we eat and chill and sleep.

Leaving venice

Administrator — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 20:58:30 +0000

leaving venice tomorrow for Slovenia and my 50th country. running out of internet time doh!

how the gear is surviving after a month

Administrator — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:24:58 +0000

The bikes seem to be holding together well after a month.
I had some troubles because I damaged my chain but thats fixed now.
The tyres and teh brake pads are wearing out fast and will need replacing by istanbul.
I’m still happy with my seat which is the one off of my specialized road bike. Nic’s seat is going ok but she is having more back end problems than me.

The keen sandals are going really well but the tan lines from them are hilarious.

Our tent has been great so far.

the sleeping mats both have holes in them and so really now are just insulators to the ground rather than matresses but we’ll hopefully be able to pick up some patches if we can find a camping store.

our stools were a great idea but they were pretty cheap and so probably won’t last much longer.

the msr stove is really good and we’ve been using unleaded petrol to power is and it is going well. It is the most widely available fuel and we use about 1 euro in fuel per week.

the tioga panniers are very waterproof but they aren’t likely to make the entire journey without problems.

The pack safety mesh that we use to lock up the bags at night is a great peice of mind and has kept the gear safe.

the bikes came with a 48 tooth big ring on the front of the bikes but I up graded it to a 50 tooth ring and I’m happy that I did as we have had the need to push the big ring a few times and its been good to get the speed when needed rather than overspinning.

italian maddness

Administrator — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 10:52:14 +0000

we’ve made it to italy. just a quick update as time is very limited on the internet. the pace of life here is so much more hectic than france. the country of france seems to wake up with a nice stretch and a croissant and then cruise off to what ever they feel like doing. Italy wakes up to a loud alarm, takes several shots of espresso and then scretches out the door to its scooter and then buzzes all day from the caffine. hilariously different to france.
anyway time is up.
Tc