OneMillionRevolutions
Discussion
Afternoon all,
Its been 2 months since i began to ponder how to spend the 2 weeks of potential holiday when my other half is in Canada. Well things have snowballed rapidly since i came up with a plan.
I came up with the idea of riding back from Istanbul. It seems like the most interesting and different place i could get back from in such a short amount of time. So with that set in my mind i worked out that 100km a day backwards towards Munich would get me to about Budapest before i ran out of days. i thought i maybe able to push it out towards Vienna if i put in some long days. From Vienna its a shortest train ride back to Munich. Sorted...
Then things changed. I mentioned to my dad what my plans were. He suggested doing it for charity. I said id probably do it nearer the time but i didn't really think anyone would be impressed enough by what is essentially a long bike ride. Then i get a phone call saying my sister wants to do it as well. Now my sister maybe 7 years younger than me but she doesn't ride anything but horses so i was a little concerned, but Ok, it can be done i thought. Next, her boyfriend is on the band wagon and then 4 weeks later an old friend from the UK is now coming with us.
So in light of the new team format (i.e two non cyclists) i revised the finish back to Budapest and pushed it out to 3 weeks to give us some rest days. I planned our rough itinerary as:
Days 1 - 5 Istanbul to Sofia - 580km
Day 6 - Rest day
Days 7 - 12 Sofia to Belgrade - 500km
Day 13 Rest day
Days 14 to 19 Belgrade to Budapest - 500km
Days 20-21 Slippage and Sightseeing!
Then i got a bit of a shock when i was informed that they had actually booked their flights to Istanbul and out of Budapest.... s
t just got very real. I would have to plan this properly now that others were relying on me apparently being "experienced" at such things.... crap.
That was about a month ago now. Since then we have launched a facebook page so anyone can follow our progress. I plan to get a simcard in each country so i can add to the blog daily and hopefully make it an interesting read for people to donate their hard earned cash. I flew back to the UK at Easter and spend the entire weekend on the kitchen floor tinkering with their bikes so they were ready to roll. I also flew back with a suitcase full of spare touring equipment for them to use, and flew back to Munich with a suitcase full of brand new gear and toys for me.
Easter would be the last time we will see each other before meeting in Istanbul in just over 7 weeks time....EEEEK CRAP BUGGER!!!
We also chose our nominated charity. We are supporting Macmillan Cancer Support and set up a donating page with
Virginmoneygiving.com. I had no idea what to set the target as so i optimistically put in 1k. Then came the second biggest shock of the trip. With nothing but a facebook page and a virgin page we got our first sponsor within 12 hours of setup, within about 3 days we had cleared 200gbp. I was amazed. Typing this now 4 weeks later we are about to smash though the 1k marker with 986gbp! It is incredible. It is quite scary that we have almost raised 1k and we haven't actually done anything yet!
The fundraising team at MacMillian are brilliant. I called them to ask about t-shirts because i couldn't find out how to buy them (i thought a team photo in matching shirts on the bridge to Asia would look rather spiffing). They were very interested to hear about the trip. They sent me out t-shirts and collection jars and were generally extremely helpful. We have just had a email interview with one of their press officers who is going to issue a press release on our behave which i really didn't expect. What started off as a 1 man bike ride is now steamrolling like mad.
Ill try and keep this thread updated but for those who use that new fangled doodar called facebook our page is at
facebook.com/OneMillionRevolutions
I hope we can entertain you lot from the road with pain, sweat and adventures..
ps. If you are wondering about the name.. It took me a while, but with the aid of a bike gear calculator i worked out that with a lot of averaging we would between us push out pedals round almost 1 million times. So if we get a bit lost and take a detour we should be spot on One Million Revolutions.
pps. Here is a pic of my steely steed for the event on last weekends gear testing camp to Wolfsratshausen
Its been 2 months since i began to ponder how to spend the 2 weeks of potential holiday when my other half is in Canada. Well things have snowballed rapidly since i came up with a plan.
I came up with the idea of riding back from Istanbul. It seems like the most interesting and different place i could get back from in such a short amount of time. So with that set in my mind i worked out that 100km a day backwards towards Munich would get me to about Budapest before i ran out of days. i thought i maybe able to push it out towards Vienna if i put in some long days. From Vienna its a shortest train ride back to Munich. Sorted...
Then things changed. I mentioned to my dad what my plans were. He suggested doing it for charity. I said id probably do it nearer the time but i didn't really think anyone would be impressed enough by what is essentially a long bike ride. Then i get a phone call saying my sister wants to do it as well. Now my sister maybe 7 years younger than me but she doesn't ride anything but horses so i was a little concerned, but Ok, it can be done i thought. Next, her boyfriend is on the band wagon and then 4 weeks later an old friend from the UK is now coming with us.
So in light of the new team format (i.e two non cyclists) i revised the finish back to Budapest and pushed it out to 3 weeks to give us some rest days. I planned our rough itinerary as:
Days 1 - 5 Istanbul to Sofia - 580km
Day 6 - Rest day
Days 7 - 12 Sofia to Belgrade - 500km
Day 13 Rest day
Days 14 to 19 Belgrade to Budapest - 500km
Days 20-21 Slippage and Sightseeing!
Then i got a bit of a shock when i was informed that they had actually booked their flights to Istanbul and out of Budapest.... s
t just got very real. I would have to plan this properly now that others were relying on me apparently being "experienced" at such things.... crap.That was about a month ago now. Since then we have launched a facebook page so anyone can follow our progress. I plan to get a simcard in each country so i can add to the blog daily and hopefully make it an interesting read for people to donate their hard earned cash. I flew back to the UK at Easter and spend the entire weekend on the kitchen floor tinkering with their bikes so they were ready to roll. I also flew back with a suitcase full of spare touring equipment for them to use, and flew back to Munich with a suitcase full of brand new gear and toys for me.
Easter would be the last time we will see each other before meeting in Istanbul in just over 7 weeks time....EEEEK CRAP BUGGER!!!We also chose our nominated charity. We are supporting Macmillan Cancer Support and set up a donating page with
Virginmoneygiving.com. I had no idea what to set the target as so i optimistically put in 1k. Then came the second biggest shock of the trip. With nothing but a facebook page and a virgin page we got our first sponsor within 12 hours of setup, within about 3 days we had cleared 200gbp. I was amazed. Typing this now 4 weeks later we are about to smash though the 1k marker with 986gbp! It is incredible. It is quite scary that we have almost raised 1k and we haven't actually done anything yet!
The fundraising team at MacMillian are brilliant. I called them to ask about t-shirts because i couldn't find out how to buy them (i thought a team photo in matching shirts on the bridge to Asia would look rather spiffing). They were very interested to hear about the trip. They sent me out t-shirts and collection jars and were generally extremely helpful. We have just had a email interview with one of their press officers who is going to issue a press release on our behave which i really didn't expect. What started off as a 1 man bike ride is now steamrolling like mad.
Ill try and keep this thread updated but for those who use that new fangled doodar called facebook our page is at
facebook.com/OneMillionRevolutions
I hope we can entertain you lot from the road with pain, sweat and adventures..
ps. If you are wondering about the name.. It took me a while, but with the aid of a bike gear calculator i worked out that with a lot of averaging we would between us push out pedals round almost 1 million times. So if we get a bit lost and take a detour we should be spot on One Million Revolutions.
pps. Here is a pic of my steely steed for the event on last weekends gear testing camp to Wolfsratshausen
Best of luck Kieran, I'm already following you after spotting you on twitter and FB.
I covered a lot of that route last year when I rode from Belgrade to Sofia to Istanbul so if you need any tips on where to stay in terms of cheap hostels then let me know via FB or my email address.
The good news is that other than some gently rolling hills between Istanbul and the Bulgarian border, it's pancake flat so any noobs should find it easy.
p.s. Istanbul to Edirne can be done in a day. Don't ask me how I know.
I covered a lot of that route last year when I rode from Belgrade to Sofia to Istanbul so if you need any tips on where to stay in terms of cheap hostels then let me know via FB or my email address.
The good news is that other than some gently rolling hills between Istanbul and the Bulgarian border, it's pancake flat so any noobs should find it easy.
p.s. Istanbul to Edirne can be done in a day. Don't ask me how I know.
if your bikles have 1 1/8" Headset Caps & Spacers - we would love to do you a pair for your journey.
Maybe a motivating message on the cap and an "ICE Telephone Number" on the spacers.
www.kapz.co.uk - please let me know.
Khushy
Maybe a motivating message on the cap and an "ICE Telephone Number" on the spacers.
www.kapz.co.uk - please let me know.
Khushy
Probably worth a look here - http://ultralightcycling.blogspot.co.uk/
You have a lot of gear there to drag up those hills!
Good luck though - impressive challenge.
You have a lot of gear there to drag up those hills!
Good luck though - impressive challenge.
LotusMartin said:
Probably worth a look here - http://ultralightcycling.blogspot.co.uk/
You have a lot of gear there to drag up those hills!
Good luck though - impressive challenge.
Cheers, i shall take a look. i wasnt too worried about the hills compared to my last two trips which were straight up and over affairs!You have a lot of gear there to drag up those hills!
Good luck though - impressive challenge.
2012
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
2010
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
Lord said:
said: neilski - I am planning on that taking section 2.5 days! What the hell were you doing, holding onto truck bumpers?
khushy - You have mail!
The hotels in Edirne all wanted €30 - €40 so I ended up sleeping at a petrol station. The next morning I got up and cycled 225km to Istanbul in a day so I could stay at a hostel that wasn't taking the piss on price.khushy - You have mail!
Next day was pretty chilled.
Holy crapola.. 8 days to go. where the hell has the last month gone?
for those of you not stalking the facebook page, i have been trying to ride back from work (90km) at least once a week. Ill manage one more ride on Tuesday and that will be my last one before we fly to Istanbul.
A few photos of the prep so far.
This is me learning a valuable lesson in not following walking directions on the gps with a road bike.
Yet another ride home cut short by bike failure.
I hope this works.. boxes for getting all the gear together
Success. Test packing of the panniers tomorrow morning to follow.
More updates tomorrow..
for those of you not stalking the facebook page, i have been trying to ride back from work (90km) at least once a week. Ill manage one more ride on Tuesday and that will be my last one before we fly to Istanbul.
A few photos of the prep so far.
This is me learning a valuable lesson in not following walking directions on the gps with a road bike. Yet another ride home cut short by bike failure. I hope this works.. boxes for getting all the gear together Success. Test packing of the panniers tomorrow morning to follow.More updates tomorrow..
Afternoon chaps.
Yesterday (bank holiday in euroland) was spend wandering around the flat in a daze clutching my precious packing list and trying to make sense of the piles laying about.
My previous idea of having stuff put into boxes so i could get everything together was good, right up until the point where i remembered i would have to fly with this kit so i had to rearrange it so at least 1 pannier was cabin friendly
So, here is everything in the almost ready to go state.
Flying the colours...
Final shakedown ride with all the gear. 10k around the english garden trying to find any remaining issues
All is well with the bike, apart from the front left pannier being 2kg heavier than the right. Ill sort that out once i get to Istanbul as its pretty much all down to the tool kit. Ill share that around the others once we meet up.
So, with only tonight and tomorrow evenings free to prepare (i fly back to UK for a wedding until Sunday evening) i think everything is under control....
except i have to fit a new bottom bracket tomorrow evening now. A friend was doing some final tuning on the front mech for me over the weekend and asked what size bottom bracket i ordered when i replaced the old one. i replied i ordered the same as what i had. I had also just replaced the chain-set and i didnt know they have to be matched to get the chain line correct. So a hasty next day delivery of a bottom bracket 10mm shorter was placed. Fingers crossed its a smooth install tomorrow evening. With the current one, the front mech barely reaches the outter ring and the chain line is quite far out.
Yesterday (bank holiday in euroland) was spend wandering around the flat in a daze clutching my precious packing list and trying to make sense of the piles laying about.
My previous idea of having stuff put into boxes so i could get everything together was good, right up until the point where i remembered i would have to fly with this kit so i had to rearrange it so at least 1 pannier was cabin friendly
So, here is everything in the almost ready to go state.
Flying the colours...
Final shakedown ride with all the gear. 10k around the english garden trying to find any remaining issues
All is well with the bike, apart from the front left pannier being 2kg heavier than the right. Ill sort that out once i get to Istanbul as its pretty much all down to the tool kit. Ill share that around the others once we meet up.
So, with only tonight and tomorrow evenings free to prepare (i fly back to UK for a wedding until Sunday evening) i think everything is under control....
except i have to fit a new bottom bracket tomorrow evening now. A friend was doing some final tuning on the front mech for me over the weekend and asked what size bottom bracket i ordered when i replaced the old one. i replied i ordered the same as what i had. I had also just replaced the chain-set and i didnt know they have to be matched to get the chain line correct. So a hasty next day delivery of a bottom bracket 10mm shorter was placed. Fingers crossed its a smooth install tomorrow evening. With the current one, the front mech barely reaches the outter ring and the chain line is quite far out.
We are on the road. No time or data to update this thread unfortunately. . Its all on the Facebook page
Www.facebook.com/OneMillionRevolutions
Big thanks to Khushy with kapz.co.uk for our engraved spacers. We are fitting them now with a few beers in our Bulgarian campsite
Www.facebook.com/OneMillionRevolutions
Big thanks to Khushy with kapz.co.uk for our engraved spacers. We are fitting them now with a few beers in our Bulgarian campsite
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