Iran: Cycling towards Turkey

Cycling through Iran, towards Turkey

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Grassy ass!

Iran: Hospitable and Hot

I can confirm that August is the wrong month to cycle through Iran! Hot as the flames of hell!

Our Donations page is still open until June if it tickles your fancy to donate to a cause which needs more focus in Ireland.

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Grassy ass!

Part Two of the Pamir Highway

Part two of the Pamir Highway.

I didn't use music in this video as I felt it gives a better sense of our weeks in Tajikistan

Tajikistan: Pamirs Part 1

The start of our climb to 4,655 meters through the Pamir Mountains

The Shit that Goes Wrong

I’ve been dying to write a blog post for ages but I’ve been stuck in the debilitating conundrum of either making a video, or sticking up a written piece.  So, in an effort to make up for my lack of writing I’ve decided to write a short post about everything of immediate interest, all in one fell swoop and with a focus on keeping waffle to a minimum. I believe I have a tendency to maximise waffle!  Think of it as a running roundup of the trip’s quirkier events. Like Sport Sunday, but with bicycles and a romantic subplot. I think I’m already starting to waffle! Anyway, I’m also sometimes going to work backwards. Partly because we’re in Iran and they write backwards, and partly in order to jog my memory. So apologies if it reads like were going in the opposite direction. And, just to confuse things even more, this time I’m going to work retrospectively forwards.

I’m going to focus on three themes: shit that goes wrong, people who are gas tickets altogether, and meltdowns! As it's difficult to write about everything that goes wrong in one go I will write about one of each theme when possible, and update additional shit going wrong etc. as the weeks go by. Everybody always wants to hear about the shit that goes wrong. Just part of the human condition I suppose.

My Experience with Depression.

Since we’re doing this cycle for mental health I thought it fitting to write this post about my personal experience with mental health challenges.

In my early twenties I suffered from depression for about 2 years.  It was rotten.  Every morning straight after the blissful haze of awakening, I would feel a kind of hollowness, that nothing was right. However, I was lucky.  Breda, my mum, was amazing.  She understood that what I was feeling was complex, and that it needed to be addressed by a person who understood that particular type of complexity.  She understood that I needed to be helped by someone who was qualified to help.  But beyond her understanding of the need for that help, she also held no stigma about mental health issues or about opening up and accepting that sometimes getting help is necessary.

 

My problems were relatively minor in the scheme of things, and some of it had to do with the social anxiety associated with the processes of discovering my own identity.  But that is not to belittle how I was feeling. The difference between the angst of identity development and the continuous deadening feeling from depression are now clear and discernible in my mind.

Inappropriate Saddle Positions and Floating Potato Angels

Inappropriate saddle positions, gammy knees, heavily dusted eyeballs, sudden and explosive meltdowns over melted chocolate, Delhi belly, – well not really but Xuzhuanglaozhaowanghe belly just doesn’t have the same ring to it – freezing temperatures, and a general waft of combined stinkiness have all been part of the experience up until now.

But what an experience it has been so far!

Taking a wee break as we entered the Liupan mountains

A one minute video from Qingdao to Yishui

From Qingdao to Yishui

A one minute clip of some bits from our journey between Qingdao and Yishui. The quickly changing and constantly contrasting landscape and level of building development we're travelling though is jaw dropping. We've only begun our trip through China and we are already suffering from tennis-audience-neck from trying to look at everything all at once, all the time!

Goodbye Korea, Hello China

So here we are in Qingdao.  We had planned to be on our way out of here today and heading towards Xi’an but we decided to take another rest day instead so here we are!

Leaving Hongseong on Wednesday was so exciting and the start of ‘Bike Back Home’ but the enormity of the trip didn’t quite hit home I don’t think until we rolled off the boat in Qingdao and found ourselves in the midst of a completely alien city, with no knowledge of the local language and no ability to read the local script.  We weren’t long discovering the extent of the Chinese governments fire-wall either which only added to our feelings of disability and vulnerability.  Neither of us had even contemplated that our email accounts wouldn’t work, nor had we thought that we’d be blocked from accessing our travel blog.  Not major problems, but stumbling blocks that we’d like to get over all the same, so we decided to stay put another day.  The weather forecast says that tomorrow will be milder too so that’s an added bonus because right now its bloody Baltic!

We've Hit the Road!

A little video we took just as we set off from Hongseong last Wednesday....

Bike Back Home Grand Departure Extravaganza Extraordinaire!

A quick one minute video edit of our departure for Bike Back Home on February 24th. Away we gooooooo. Wooooohoooooo!

Cycling 150km in Minus Seven Degrees is a Terrible Idea

I had been building myself up to cycle from Hongseong to Daejeon for a while. Stef had deserted me and swanned off to the sunny shores of the Philippines for ten days with her friend Aisling who flew over from Ireland, so this seemed as good a time as any.

Without Stef's company and in a fit of desperate loneliness I committed myself to what I thought was about a 100 kilometer cycle. It ended up being just over 150 kilometers and almost 9 hours when taking into account my creative "shortcut" detours, crashes, angry dog evasion and honestly, just getting lost! Also the entire journey was almost entirely in sub zero temperatures! What an idiot!

Sun rise start. I'm pretty sure if you touch this picture on your screen you'll be able to feel the cold! Minus 7 with a "real feel" of mius 11.