Our route, the only existing road, led us all the way up into the mountains. Since we hadn't seen snow in a long time, it was kind of exciting. But the most amazing part of being there was smelling the cool, fresh air without air pollution from cars and trucks. Although it looked on the map like it should have been a big road, there was barely any traffic. When we arrived at the mountain pass (2250m), a very nice downhill awaited us. Wow, this was great 🤩
Around midday we reached Yüksekova, where we had lunch and bought a Turkish sim card. In the afternoon we cycled on with the idea of finding a nice campspot and finishing the cycling day early. It turned out to be super difficult to find a spot to pitch our tent. We cycled along the Nehil river. The land around the river was extremely wet and muddy, not a good idea to pitch the tent. Then the landscape changed from wide swampland and farm fields to a narrow valley with steep rocky mountains on both sides, also no possibility to pitch the tent. So we kept pedaling and pedaling. Finally, we saw a flat and grassy place 20m away from the road. We pushed the bikes up there when we suddenly realized we were being watched from the mountain peak. Armed military men shouted down to us 'yallah, yallah,' sounding like 'get your butt off here...' and that's what we did. We almost lost hope. Finally, we found a place where we saw no military posts or guards around and where we could set up a bivouac (no tent).
We cooked a very delicious meal with lots of veggies and fell asleep immediately 😴
Retour #velotaf tranquille ce soir. J’étais chargé du nouveau kit cadre pour mon fiston. Et puis ça fait aussi passer la barre des 7000kms à mon cargo. #bikelife
The small island of Kish (91.5km2) was quickly traveled around by car. In one of the typical Iranian picnic huts right on the seaside, we took a late lunch break. Behnam made fries and Marc cooked lentils with babaganoush. We already know, the Iranians always eat the national bread 'lavash' with everything. And of course, we are always offered the bread over and over again. But since we are gluten intolerant, we have to constantly decline. It is really difficult to make it clear that we will not try a single bite of the bread...
Just before sunset, suddenly a lot of people appeared. Everyone was taking selfies, photographing their posing partners and tried to capture the perfect shot while the sun sank into the sea. It was truly a beautiful sight and Marc and I were fascinated by the spectacle. As soon as the sun was gone, all the crowd had disappeared as well. Only us and our Iranian friends remained, drinking tea, chatting, often with the help of the translator, and went to sleep a little earlier than the night before, in Bandar Charak. #cycling#bikepacking#biketouring#biketravel#travelbybike#bikelife#cyclinglife#adventure#traveling#nature#sunset#photography#photo#capturethemoment#focus#photographylover#behindthelens
From Bandare Laft we took the ferry to Iran mainland. Our plan was to pedale along the coast northwards, to stay a bit longer in the warmth. The weatherforcast for the inland regions (Shiraz, Yazd etc. ) is still a bit chilly, espeacially at night...
May we proudly introduce:
Pauline and Madmax ❤️🚲🚲❤️
Wow, look at these beautiful bikes! 🥰Even though the bike assembling is now almost 2 years ago, we are still so in love with them, like we had finished them 2 days ago 😍
Let's highlight some special gear and parts:
First, our frames were built by mawis-bikes in Germany - like you already know from the previous post!👍
Second, we went with a 1x11 drivetrain from Garbaruk, and we are really impressed with the quality 👌 To keep our smartphones charged while riding, we chose the 'Son' dynamo hub and 'Sinewave Cycles' charger. Very stable an reliable 💪 And to give a bit of comfort to our buts we selected the 'Infinity Seat' saddles 🫶
Let's look back 🔭
Some weeks and months before we sat off on this journey - this new stage of our lives - we had a lot of preparation to do.
Besides selling and giving away all our belongings, we built our own bikes 🚲🚲 Special thanks to Mathias - mavis-bikes - for the beautiful frames 🫶
Marc welded in our one-room flat gorgeous racks and bottlecages. Fiona prototyped and sewed bags, sleeping bag inlays, buffs, and other useful stuff...