Who & Why
Singapore!?? I thought you were doing the Americas?
The benefit of this route, as opposed to the Americas, is being able to cycle away from my front door, without all the hassle of having to dismantle the bike, flying off to another continent, worrying whether the bike will arrive at the destination and in one piece! Having cycled through France several times before, I felt a change of scenery was in order. Hearing Germany had much to offer in the way of river routes, such as the Danube – said to be one of Europe’s best cycling destinations – I started to plot.
My bike’s Rohloff hub-gear was due for a service, so with my professional background as an engineer and having previously visited many U.K. motor-vehicle factories, thought I could continue that interest on the tour. I could stop en-route through Northern Germany at the Rohloff head-quarters to get the hub serviced, and hopefully have a nosey around, then there’s the Mercedes factory museum in Munich, the Victorinox (Swiss army knives) visitor centre in Switzerland, and DRC bicycle rims manufacturer in Italy, which I use on my bike. Hopefully they would be happy to let me have a look around. So in essence, the path through Europe plotted itself around my interests and wishes to follow some river routes, like Berlin to Prague via the River Elbe, and Budapest to Austria via the River Danube. Having visited Austria snowboarding many times and loving the mountains so much, I thought it would be great to cycle through, seeing it in the summer after the melt of winter’s white blanket. Continuing into Switzerland, mountain passes galore - with its nationwide-cycle-network meant one country that I wouldn’t need a Michelin map for! - Continuing towards the Italian Dolomite mountain range, via the border, so called Switaly.
So agreed, not initially the straightest of routes but should offer some awesome sights, with big cities - which I would normally circumnavigate - offering a contrast between the open countryside and hussle ‘n’ bussle of a typical city. I’ll be making more of an effort this time to use the cyclist’s hospitality website warmshowers.org along with couchsurfing.org, both of which require a certain amount of pre-planning, but the benefits of meeting local cyclists proves a good way to acquire local knowledge of any off-route sections that maps don’t show. As a member of warmshowers myself, in the past 18 months I have hosted cyclists from South Africa, America, India, Hungary, Wales and Malaysia.
So, on with the route. From Southern Italy a ferry crossing takes me to Greece, then on to Istanbul, the European / Asian gateway. Iran should prove interesting as the Roman alphabet gives way to the Persian alphabet; needless to say I have bought a guide book to make things easier! The hospitality of Iran is said to be second to none, hopefully I will experience this and may it continue in to Pakistan and India. If Myanmar (formerly Burmah) keeps its arms open to westerners then I’ll heading through it, leading in to Thailand, Malaysia, then the finish line, Singapore!
The tour route and the destination were my choice and therefore up to me to plan and plot. However, we cannot always plan everything, especially meeting someone! In October 2012 I met an amazing girl. Meeting this side of the tour presented a dilemma for both of us, especially as we both clicked together rather well. This was un-plotted terrain for which I had no map, and navigating across was something we had to work out together. Thankfully Elena was prepared to wait for my return and in the meantime, we planned to meet up at several places along the route, the first being Budapest, as neither of us had been there.
A Mexican lass, Elena is a Spanish-native speaker, yet only holds a bloody Masters Degree in English Literature (!!). Having noticed that my African blog had silly school-boy grammatical errors asked if I could employ her as my present blog’s proof reader / publisher! Signing on the dotted line a deal was struck....also available for private hire ;-).
The blog’s header came about after a brain-storming session. Initially wanting a screen-wide cartoon-like mountain-range image with a cyclist in the middle, but I started seeing this as a rather popular style on other blogs, so instead decided to use a theme based on iconic buildings, managing to maintain (I hope!) the comic-like theme through the colours and fonts. Most of the icons should be self-evident, well, apart from anyone not familiar to Milton Keynes. The Point was the town’s first multi-screen cinema, along with a bar, a bingo hall, and night-club. A neon-illuminated miniature pyramid for the trendy crowd of early MK, which back-in-the-day was the place to be seen… I never qualified as Mr Cool so would enter through the side door! But now it is a rather run-down place, with few of its neon lights working and serves little use, sadly, with the likely possibility of being sold to ever hungry land-developers. All the same, it seemed to make an excellent choice to start my chosen theme from.
So for now, the relative ease of several European countries await me, as I once again slide out from my comfort zone on the 26” wheels. Jump along for the ride, on the easier side of the screen!
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