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November 20, 2009 | 18:11 GMT
Jamie Woodward
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Club Member Jamie Woodward is cycling to Nepal, so far he has made it to Turkey; catch up with him now as he takes some time to chill out in Istanbul.
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I left Bedford in early September for Harwich. From here I caught the ferry to the hook of Holland. The first few weeks were all about getting touring fit, and getting used to carrying a heavy load. I went through Holland and Belgium in a week, and then went down into the Alsace in France . I accidentally unintentionally crossed into Germany for a campsite, on the other side of the Rhine . I went back into France the next day and followed the Rhine down into Basel Switzerland . From here I went down to Zurich , and followed Switzerlands uber cycle paths! I met my missis in Zurich , and from here went for "the pass". I headed for Andermatt, where I overcooked the day and ended up pushing the bike uphill through alpine tunnels! From Andermatt I got a new back rack, the weight from the panniers had busted the welding on the old one, so i bought a tubus rack.
New rack and all I headed for st Gottard pass, at 2100m, and its cobbled roads. A bit like paris-roubaix! 15km up hill and then countless kms down! For the next few days I headed towards and into Italy , past lake como and back up towards the alps. Several 1000m plus passes later and I ended up in southern tyrol, in Bolzano . It was here whilst 20km into an uphill pass that my back wheel died. I suppose it was only to be expected on a road bike which is 10 years old and was used to commute back and forth various jobs! The bearings bled out and everything fell apart! Bus back down to Bolzano for a new wheel. 3 puntures later that day.... a spoke is too long in the wheel, so i popped into a factory for some tape, and it did the trick! I slept in the woods that night.
Proper cycle touring - watch out for the bears mind!
Hit Liez in austria the next day, and prepared for the biggest pass ive ever done. The pass I had planned to do was 2500m. It was hell. Id been cycling for 20km, mostly uphill, when I saw a sign that read, next 30km at 12 percent! Im not ashamed to say that I pushed for a good 20km!
From here I went into Bavaria in Germany for a day and passed through some stunning alpine vistas. I met Huw my friend in Salzburg , and we cycled to Graz together. Following this, I carried on east, popped into hungary during some biblical storm! I had enough of this and decided to head for the med, So i went south and into slovenia . It was at the border between the two countries I had one of my strangest encounters yet. After having my lunch at the border and crossing around a bend in the road 10m ahead, facing forward and on either side of the road were two police marksmen with guns. What had I stumbled into???? I slowly road forward and one turned around, and gestured me to carryon, as I did there were about 30 more police cars and SWAT type trucks, tv cameras and numerous police men in balaclavas and all that gear! To this day I have no idea what it was all about.....
I passed from Slovenia to Zagreb in a day and plan to cycle down the coast to croatia, then into montenegro, bosnia and then serbia, meet my girlfriend for halfterm in Sofia, and then over to istanbul. From here I fly to Mumbai and cycle upto Kathmandu, and hopefully there wont be too much snow (its late in the year for trekking), and im going to trek to one of the 8000m mountain basecamps, probably Annapurna .
Now I'm chilling out with my girlfriend in Sofia, I asked her to marry me and she said yes! Its about a week of cycling from here to Istanbul...
More to follow.
Fully laden and taking in the miles.
Many thanks to Jamie for sharing his experiences, we look forward to reading more. If you have a cycling tale that you'd like to share, then please send it to results@bedsroad.org.
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