Hello fellow tourers,
Just a quick celebration post : today we biked our first 1000 km on our way to Istanbul (and back) !!!
We (gf and I) left Le Mans three weeks ago and it is a blast. It is our first long tour and everything is going well. We are now in Provence and the weather is already getting hot but we experienced wintery conditions in the Massif Central : hard to believe that a week ago, we were camping in negative temperature (in Celsius, obviously) !
Very happy with our choices regarding gear so far : we are travelling on fahrradmanufaktur bikes fitted with Rohloff hubs. I spend my day happily resting in my aerobars. Also, as you can see, the Big Agnes Salt creek's front door is a pleasure to use.
As for the rest of the trip : Nice-Roma-Bari-ferry to Albania- Greece-ferry to Izmir – Istanbul, and back through the Balkans! If you have any tips, any question, or would like to meet on the way, don't hesitate to message me!
…and keep on pedaling!
by Cute_Sand3701
4 Comments
Looks like a great time ! Enjoy the rest of your trip !
Have a great time! Living vicariously through you both.
Awesome!!! I wish you the best time! Your setup looks and sounds excellent!
Love the foto of you too on the terrace!
A few ideas for tips I had when thinking about your route:
Don’t cycle through Monaco there’s a way that goes above it through La Turbie and its well worth the climb! Beautiful views and you avoid the pests that are Ferrari drivers down in the city.
The small streets high above cinque Terre are surprisingly calm and have beautiful views of the coast and the villages, but dont go down in the famous villages there with bikes you won’t enjoy it.
the bike path Framura- Levanto through old train tunnels is nice. They have windows out onto the ocean, beautiful…. But then its climbing again.
After that i can recommend the via francigenia into Tuscany, though I deviated a little left and right from time to time
Albania and Greece will be feral dog country. My girlfriend unfortunately is afraid of dogs, so we made it work like this: she’s always in front because the dogs world most of the time come out of a side street or a court yard. So she would pass them and the dogs would either bark at me right behind her and if a dog would follow her aggressively I would speed up and surprise the dog from behind and block him. 90% of the time they would run away. 5% I would spray water out of my bottles on them to scare them. Very seldom i would have to use my decoy stone, if they see a stone in your hand they know what could happen. I only threw it once ( on the street) only once I really had to sream and fake to overrun them.
Don’t want to scare you it will be fine
Wow! That sounds like an amazing trip!!