My Round The World ride (inc top blagging at Spa & The Ring)

[neilski]

To save the show off your bike thread getting bogged down with too many posts about this, I thought I'd better start a separate thread here, and to keep HereBeMonsters happy, here's a picture of me just as I was about to set off, back when everything was immaculately clean and neatly packed, a sort of opposite to now!



As mentioned, I've finally set off to cycle around the world on March 8th and so far have cycled through France, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and am now back in Germany to the south east of Stuttgart, heading for the Danube to follow to Eastern Europe and The Balkans before crossing into Asia via Istanbul.

Before starting out, I had a "wishlist" of places to see and things I'd like to do and have been ticking them off as I go but what I didn't expect is how things have turned out so far.

I left my parents house on the 8th, catching the Newhaven - Dieppe ferry on the morning of the 9th with the first planned stop being Brussels to see an old mate of mine for a few beers & a catch up.

Still reading? It gets more interesting, honest!

With this being PH, naturally I have an interest in cars so the next planned stop was at Spa-Francorchamps where I was hoping to blag a passenger ride if I could. After a particularly heavy night on the beers the night before with the Dutch BMW GS motorbike club, I eventually dragged myself out of my tent and over the massive hill to the circuit where I got chatting to a guy called Dominic who owns a very rare Westfield FW400, and who very kindly took me out for two lots of 5 laps.



The acceleration, braking & cornering of this thing were just mind blowing with only a GT2 RS passing us and later on an R8 on the long straight which we soon passed again once the track got twisty again. Everything else on track just seemed like it was pootling round in comparison.

Now that I had a taste for having my internal organs rearranged, my next planned stop was The Nurburgring, where I arrived 2 days later, just as a closed track day on the Nordschleife was coming to and end but before they opened up the track for the touristenfahrten.

As it was getting late and I needed a bed for the night, I thought my best chance of getting a lap the next day was to go to the Pistenklause and get blagging. At the Pistenklause I met a couple of guys with GT3s who offered to take me out and a pair of owners of a Radical SR3 RS which is raced by one of them's son.





The GT3 had 450bhp and some trick suspension but the Radical was something else, nothing else on track was anywhere near as quick other than on the long straight where it was undergeared as it was set up for racing on UK circuits.

After Liam Doran stacked his GTR and the day got red flagged it was back to the Pistenklause for dinner with the Radical guys then I bumped into the GT3 guys afterwards and joined them for more beers with Tom & Roy from Ariel, Chris Harris and cameraman / photographer Neil Carey who were shooting a video of the Atom V8 and Noble M600. Chris said to come along tomorrow and if there was time he'd try and take me out for a lap in one of them so the next day I kept popping backwards and forwards to where they were setting the cars up for filming and even managed to squeeze in a lap in this M3 in the meantime. It was a proper trackday toy with a stripped out interior, rollcage, harnesses & slick tyres and while not as quick as the previous days rides, was still pretty quick and good fun.




Having a dirty great bike with me with lots of bags and a solar panel on the back does tend to attract attention so I also got chatting to Adam (head of R&D) & Pete (MD) from Noble who were interested in my trip and were fine with me going out in the Noble with Chris which I did mid-afternoon once they'd finished working.



Once again, it was just incredible how fast it was. 650bhp & 1100kg and driven by someone who knows what they're doing and was definitely the highlight of my trip so far.




Lucky? I still can't believe it myself!

Edited by neilski on Monday 19th November 19:49

[neilski]

CoolC said:

Wow, what a fantasic trip to make, and with some top blagging skills to match.

Do you have a track of the route you've planned at all? it would be interesting to see.

Good luck with the trip, and I look forward to reading the updates here.

Being a bit of a technophobe, no I don't but I use Google Latitude which only shows the last place I was at. If anyone can show me how to use Google Maps or similar to record waypoints I'd be happy to fill it in each day showing where I sleep or places I stop at that are of interest.

[neilski]

Minemapper said:

Let me know if you need a bed in Vienna. Might be able to arrange something for ya.

Epic adventure, btw.

Yes please. Drop me a line through my profile if it's something you can arrange. Cheers.

[neilski]

Watchman said:

The car stuff is really good (top blagging..!!) but I'm interested in your cycling too. Are you a regular long distance cyclist? Do any training before setting off? Any notable experiences whilst cycling? Did you ever try to hook-up with any mates go with or did you only ever want to go alone?

Good point. Maybe I should have posted the above in General Gassing and a separate thread in Pedal Powered more related to the trip.

I've always loved cycling since I was 14 when I got my first road bike and the trips have got longer and longer as I've got older. I've been to the Alps twice including doing the Marmotte, have done all three ascents of Mont Ventoux, ridden Raid Pyrénéen in 2010 and last year I rode from Windsor to the Midi-Pyrenees & back with full camping gear as a sort of warm up / practice run for my round the world ride. The toughest was undoubtedly Raid Pyrénéen as once we finised we rode back from the Mediterranean to the UK and did the whole lot in two weeks.

As for training, that took a bit of a back seat due to the amount of planning and preparation involved in getting this trip off the ground. I had to close down a business, get a flat up to a decent enough standard to be let, find a tenant and therefore become a landlord, put all my stuff in storage, sort out finances and mobile communications while I travel, buy everything I need to be able to live for the next 2-3 years using just what I can carry etc. the list is endless so I got out on the bike when I could but it was nothing like the amount of training I did for Raid Pyrénéen because I'm not against the clock this time.

Notable experiences, yes plenty but probably too many to mention for this thread. As for wanting to go with mates then of course I'd have loved my brother (who is also into cycling) or various mates to come along but it's not like going on a two week holiday so people who are willing to put their life on hold to cycle round the world for two to three years are few and far between!

If anyone wants to join me for a short stint then they're more than welcome.

[neilski]

GarryA said:

neilski said:

Being a bit of a technophobe, no I don't but I use Google Latitude which only shows the last place I was at. If anyone can show me how to use Google Maps or similar to record waypoints I'd be happy to fill it in each day showing where I sleep or places I stop at that are of interest.

You can 'star up' on google maps to record everywhere you've been.

Thanks for that. I think I might have got the hang of it and have created a route map of my journey so far which you can see here: http://g.co/maps/vjj5d

If it's not working, can someone let me know?

As of yesterday I've reached the Danube so I'll be following that all the way through Austria and Slovakia to Hungary before turning off for Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia and Bulgaria on my way to Istanbul to cross into Asia.

Once in Asia, the route is Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Timor Leste, Australia, New Zealand then Chile to Canada before crossing North America to somewhere in the east then I'll take a decision on where I fly to for the last leg. At the moment I'm thinking of either The Gambia or Sicily but I've got plenty of time to think about it!

[neilski]

Here's my passenger lap in the Radical, now on YouTube:

http://youtu.be/6bv5o5Sy1EM

Yes it was fast!

[neilski]

HereBeMonsters said:

You need to change the first pic to one of your bike. Every time I open this thread I think it's about some guy driving around the World in a Caterfield.

Done!

Quick update:

I've finished my "car museum tour" of Germany and visited Porsche & Mercedes in Stuttgart, Audi in Ingolstadt and BMW in Munich and as of yesterday I'm in Salzburg, Austria which is the fifth country since leaving the UK.

As I don't get the chance to post that often, for "near real time" updates, you're all welcome to follow me on twitter.

http://twitter.com/neilchurchard

Car museum photos will be online when I can be arsed!

[neilski]

So far I've made it to Linz in Austria.

If anyone wants a cycling holiday with smooth tarmac paths, little traffic, hardly any hills then you could do far worse than riding the Danube from Passau to Vienna. The scenery on this stretch is stunning and there are plenty of places to stop for a beer, lunch, camping, overnight stay etc. and plenty of things to see & do.

I'd like to come back here for a holiday and do this section again only really slowly and try and do every little side trip but if I did every side trip in every place I go to I'd probably still be in Belgium so I have to compromise between sightseeing and getting a few miles in each day but certainly nothing like Mark Beaumont or the guys going the Global Cycle Race. Sod that!

p.s. Map now updated. http://g.co/maps/vjj5d

[neilski]

Watchman said:

I really love this but I can't help but wonder how you approach the bike each morning knowing what a "truck" it is. I love cycling but your commitment/motivation is incredible. I doubt I'd have enough strength to punt that along for more than 10 mins.

Having said that, I have been known to tow up to 30Kg of daughter and trailer for up to 25 miles at a time but I am awfully slow when I'm towing.

I wonder, did you consider a trailer? That's quite a weight to carry on the bike. I know people are split between trailers and panniers but the weight your carrying seems to lend itself to a trailer in my eyes.

I see what you're saying and if I was back in the UK and had to drag myself out of bed each morning to ride 100km in a loop from my house and back I'd soon get bored but every day is an adventure and the cycling part has just become so normal I don't even think about it anymore. I ride at a comfortable pace so I never wake up the next morning feeling stiff or tired and the thing I love most about this trip is that I never know what I'm going to see from day to day or who I'm going to meet.

It also never fails to amuse me the reaction I get from people when I tell them what I'm doing. I'm about as far removed from being a "celebrity" as it's possible to be, just a normal bloke riding my bike from place to place each day, minding my own business but I constantly get asked "Why all the bags?", "What's the solar panel for?" followed by "Can I take your picture?", "Can I have my picture taken with you?", "Can you come and stand in front of my restaurant and have your picture taken with me & my wife?" etc. etc.

I didn't fancy a trailer because they always come with a weight penalty and the need to carry two different sizes of tyre unless I go for an Extrawheel with a 700c tyre but they have a high C of G. A two wheeled trailer is harder to fit through narrow gaps and I really don't fancy being overtaken by a trailer on a fast descent when I slam on the anchors!

[neilski]

pbarlow0032 said:

Incredible! I'm sat reading this wondering how someone could set off on such an adventure and it not be remotely publicised? Do people do things like this all the time and we just never hear about it?

Can't wait to see more pics and hear some stories!

Amazing

You get the odd cyclist that sets off on a trip that tells the local paper but why a paper would be interested in someone going off on a glorified holiday I have no idea!

[neilski]

As of yesterday I'm in Hungary which is the seventh country in seven weeks. Somehow, I think the relationship between countries & weeks is going to drop off soon!

Eastern Europe is strange to me in that Slovakia & Hungary are the first two countries I've reached where I don't speak the language at all and seem quite different culturally to the other countries I've passed through where any cultural differences were gradual instead of being immediately obvious from the moment I crossed the border.

On the plus side, I can't get over how cheap it is. A half litre beer in a bar is roughly a quid but the downside to this is that on Wednesday night in Bratislava, every time I tried to leave the bar to go to bed the Irish guy I was drinking with kept on buying us one more beer each except he didn't have to get up and cycle the next day!

I've also had my first encounter with a snake and a couple of wild dogs yesterday.

[neilski]

scottri said:

Following this with interest. I'd love to do something like this but funds are lacking. Unless I get made redundant....

Do you mind me asking what sort of budget you have set yourself? How much planning about where to stop / sleep did you do in advance?

A few years ago a guy called Alastair Humphreys cycled around the world by saving up his student loans and managed it for about £3700 and in September this year there's a "guided" RTW ride you can do on a road bike where your luggage is carried for you which costs £34,000. My budget is somewhere between the two.

I have a route in my head of the countries I'd like to see but just take each day as it comes, adding little bits on to the route all the time if they sound interesting. Sometimes I ride a lot of km and others I do more sightseeing than cycling and I never know where I'm going to sleep each night until I get there.

[neilski]

F

B1G GK said:

I would fancy doing something like this, but as youve said its putting your life on hold....

What life? I used to sit in an office looking at a computer all day!

[neilski]

From today, I'm doing the rest of my ride for charity but I won't post any direct links up due to "the rules" so you'll have to find the donation page yourself (if you want to that is).

I've also created a Facebook page so that I can separate the shenanigans I've been getting up to in the cities from the more serious cycling stuff. If you're interested in seeing more content than will fit on twitter, the page is here.

https://www.facebook.com/IWereRightAboutThatSaddle...

It's a bit light on content as the rest of the stuff I've posted is on my personal page but it should get filled up from today onwards.

What you'll see....

Kite surfers on Lake Balaton at sunset.


What you may or may not see, depending on how I feel!

Dressing up box night at Budapest Bubble.


Yes I do like a beer from time to time after spending lots of time in the saddle by myself!

[neilski]

Ouch!



For those not following me on Facebook yet, this is what happens when you get forced out of your lane onto tram tracks and the bike starts to handle like it's on rails. (Because it is).

So that's one accident in about ten weeks of cycling. Hopefully it'll be the only one on my trip and I've got it out of the way early without too much damage to me or the bike.

I'm starting to get epic tan lines too!

[neilski]

It's a jungle out there! Not Asia, not Australia but Slovenia.

[neilski]

Minemapper said:

Concur.

A another cycle touring buddy once told me; "the coldest, wettest, loneliest day on the bike is still a million times better than one spent sat at a desk."

Keep the updates coming.

So true!

[neilski]

So how was London to Brighton? I couldn't make it this year because I was doing this instead:



The view of Kotor Bay from the top:



I hope the sun shined as much for you as it did for me!

[neilski]

And while I think about it, I hit the 5,000km mark the other day.

[neilski]

I worked as a bike mechanic for 7 years in my yoof and can do most jobs with just a Topeak multitool & a Leatherman and can replace broken spokes with alarming regularity with an NBT2. I think the only jobs I'd struggle to do would be a bottom bracket or headset swap so I'd leave those to an LBS.