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Cycle around the world from scratch

September 27, 2018

The last week has been a frenzy of preparation, including building this blog (from scratch!), gear research deep into the night, spending £1000+ on gear (and I'm trying to buy only when necessary) and attempting to tie up loose ends of my life here in Bristol, UK.

I'm aiming to leave on my first cycle tour around the 8th of October (in just over a week), having left my job last week. I've never done any kind of cycle tour before (or any long distance cycling), so I thought it might be interesting to share my blind attempt at planning, as a complete newbie. Just as a note, I'm going solo and I'm open to the duration being in the years.

The 'plan'

The backbone of the plan is this: I want to 'escape' my predictable and (in my opinion) boring lifestyle, and try living in a way where I have very little idea what I'll be doing a week (or days) from now.

I like riding my (non-expensive) bike and keeping fit, and so from somewhere in my strange head, the idea of escaping on my bike arose - into mainland Europe and beyond.

Part of the 'escape' is an escape from technology, so I will have no laptop, no Garmin GPS, or any kind of Dynamo to charge stuff on the go. Tech will be limited to an iPhone 4S that is clinging to life (approx. 1 day battery life), an original Amazon Kindle and a 430g Minirig speaker, because I think it will be worth the weight. This will give me limited use of offline maps (when completely lost, hungry and broken), emergency 3G internet connection (primitively on the Kindle and potentially on the iPhone depending on SIM) and an emergency supply of music for when all else fails (edit: when all else fails, I won't have my phone to play the music, so this won't work).

I will have a small compass screwed into the handlebar stem of my bike, which I want to use as my sat nav as much as possible, for both fun and freedom. This will also force me to talk to locals, as I will be in a permanent state being lost.

Here is a rough idea of my route through Europe:

A line drawn on the map of Europe, going from Bristol, across the channel, down the west coast of France and traversing the coast around Spain (including Portugal). The line then follows the mediterranean coast and eventually goes down through Italy, then across to Greece, Turkey and then into the Middle East.

The gear

I will list all of the gear I'm taking below, from most expensive down to the 20-year old panniers my mum gave me (unbranded, I have no idea what they are, but they seem waterproof). Interestingly my bike itself is not the most expensive thing - I have opted to risk it on my £150 second hand city bike, in return for spending a little more on the add-ons, like a Brooks saddle, puncture resistant tires and decent camping gear (I will be cycling through one or more winters).

The gear I bought:

The gear I already have:

Stuff I was 'lucky' enough to be given:

So, place your bets, will I get past Taunton? Who knows? I've never been to Taunton. to find out if I get past Taunton.

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Left arrowHow to turn your bike into a tiger (13 steps) / Return to top / First report from first cycle tour (solo)Right arrow