It's a long haul this one. I've not measured it exactly but around 5,500km. I'm leaving Portugal at the beginning of February and planning to arrive in Beirut at the end of April. If I have a non-cycling day once a week then that's about 65km a day - sounds easy.
I think the challenges on this trip are down to the season. I'm geared up for survival in rain/snow and sub-zero temperatures (question mark over the tent) but how bad the weather is going to be is very hard to judge. Mentally it might be tough - cycling all day in grey cold drizzle is not very uplifting. Just had a look - Sofia has 8 snow days in March - oh dear!
I've roughly divided the route up into sections which end up in a major city every 5 days or so where I can get a shower, do laundry, get internet access and do some battery charging. (Techie note: Each section is about 400km as this equates to my limit of 10,000 trackpoints on the Edge 705 GPS). My GPS should end up leading me to the front door of a nice warm hostel.......I just have to hope they'll have a spare bed!
In between hostels I'll be wild/stealth camping, often in snow I guess, so my green tent should stand out well. The tent is a bit of a concern - the inner is almost all mesh, like a mosquito net. This is great for preventing condensation but is a dead loss at keeping a howling sub-zero wind at bay - I'll let you know! Out of interest I'm also taking a max/min thermometer.
I have gathered some little pearls of wisdom regarding winter touring. For instance:
1. When cooking your evening meal drain your pasta cooking water into a metal bottle and put it in your sleeping bag as a 'hottie'.
2. Put your water bottle inside your sleeping bag so it doesn't freeze up overnight.
Great! So I'll be sleeping with one hot bottle and one cold bottle.
I found this useful formula on the Pedal Powered Family blog
If I plan a to ride 100km a day (ambitious!) for 6 days a week that gives me a tour duration of 64 days so if I start on 01 Feb I would arrive in Beirut on 05 April. So there's a bit of time to rest up if I get frostbite!
I think the challenges on this trip are down to the season. I'm geared up for survival in rain/snow and sub-zero temperatures (question mark over the tent) but how bad the weather is going to be is very hard to judge. Mentally it might be tough - cycling all day in grey cold drizzle is not very uplifting. Just had a look - Sofia has 8 snow days in March - oh dear!
I've roughly divided the route up into sections which end up in a major city every 5 days or so where I can get a shower, do laundry, get internet access and do some battery charging. (Techie note: Each section is about 400km as this equates to my limit of 10,000 trackpoints on the Edge 705 GPS). My GPS should end up leading me to the front door of a nice warm hostel.......I just have to hope they'll have a spare bed!
The pins are hostels in Leon/Pamplona/Toulouse/Avignon/Milan/Ljubljana/Zagreb/Belgrade/Sofia/Istanbul/Kyrenia
In between hostels I'll be wild/stealth camping, often in snow I guess, so my green tent should stand out well. The tent is a bit of a concern - the inner is almost all mesh, like a mosquito net. This is great for preventing condensation but is a dead loss at keeping a howling sub-zero wind at bay - I'll let you know! Out of interest I'm also taking a max/min thermometer.
I have gathered some little pearls of wisdom regarding winter touring. For instance:
1. When cooking your evening meal drain your pasta cooking water into a metal bottle and put it in your sleeping bag as a 'hottie'.
2. Put your water bottle inside your sleeping bag so it doesn't freeze up overnight.
Great! So I'll be sleeping with one hot bottle and one cold bottle.
I found this useful formula on the Pedal Powered Family blog
If I plan a to ride 100km a day (ambitious!) for 6 days a week that gives me a tour duration of 64 days so if I start on 01 Feb I would arrive in Beirut on 05 April. So there's a bit of time to rest up if I get frostbite!
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