On day 3 of our #Brompton tour we bicycled from Arboga to Eskilstuna, Sweden. On the picture you can see Lake Hjälmaren. The lake's peaceful surface perfectly mirrors my state of mind after three days of touring through Sweden's countryside: All the world's noisy nervousness and merciless madness, amplified to the extreme by all the media, is far, so far away from me.
je pars dans un mois pour un premier petit voyage #velo#bikepacking (250km autour du golfe du morbihan).
Et donc vous avez des recos de matos, des conseils ? j'avoue je pars à l'aventure...
D'ailleurs j'ai regardé rapidement chez D4 et il y a un petit budget en sacoches... Donc si tu es sur #rennes et que tu veux louer tes sacoches... ca pourrait m'intéresser ! :)
Honestly, our two-day stopover in Patmos was a lucky coincidence that came about through a name mix-up 😂 patmos, piraeus... 🧏♀️ I don't know... thanks to my legastenic brain and the stressy situation at the ferry ticket office 🤷♀️
The ferry crossing was already amazing 🤩, but when we arrived in Patmos and were warmly welcomed at the vegan restaurant 'Pernera' with our loaded bicycles, we were very happy about this confusion 🥰 !
Sidenote: The neighboring shop initially wanted to send us away and said we should park our bikes in the parking lot at the harbor... yea of course... not!
In the beautiful 'Pernera', we enjoyed a vegan and gluten-free menu, prepared with love from organic and local ingredients 🫠. And besides the delicious food, our souls were nourished by the inspiring and motivating conversations we had with the people there 🫶
The search for a campground in the picturesque small bays was a bit challenging. Either the beach was too narrow for a tent or private. Fortunately, it was still off-season, and we were able to set up our inner tent in the bay 'Kampos Beach' next to the beach bar, as the beach taverns and sunbed rentals were not yet active.
The last test and recent rides have been useful in the sense that I realized I simply can't have a backpack on my back for three weeks while trying to do long daily rides. I already occasionally suffer from shoulders being tense due to weight on the backpack while riding, so probably not a good idea for longs rides over many weeks.
So, new plan, don't buy a frame pack and instead buy a rear rack and a pannier which converts into a backpack, thus allowing leaving the backpack at home. Due to time being limited, options were limited to local shops, which basically meant a combo of Ortlieb's Quick Rack + Vario PS QL2.1 26L. The Quick Rack is simply amazing, literally can be attached and detached in seconds. The Vario PS is very functional. It does the job of being both a pannier and also a backpack. This is a difficult thing to achieve and given that Ortlieb have done a good job. However, it's somewhat ugly and uncomfortable actually wearing as a backpack. But hey, we're going riding, not walking, right?
This ride told me I do need another pannier, if I'm going to skip the frame pack and backpack, otherwise the single pannier is just going to have too much weight in it. Basic model panniers are available second hand quite well luckily so hopefully wont need to buy that one new.
Setting up the tent was really easy! At least without rain pouring down 😅 I do love the functionality of the MSR Hubba Hubba NX 2. Also got to test my Klymit inflatable sleeping pad and the super awesome FLEXTAILGEAR mini-pump, which also functions as a light for the tent. Really nice find.
Our campsite in the middle of Rhodes...
When we found this place in 'Rodini Park', there was not a single person visiting this deep green park. So we thought we could go to bed early and spend a quiet night. However, we did not expect a group of teenagers who had come to play 'hide and seek'. As soon as they spotted us, they started throwing stones in our direction. So we got out of the tent to show them who we are and to talk to them. Finally, they understood that we are travelers who just want to spend a peaceful night here. After exchanging some famous football players and some curse words in different languages, they finally ran away.
So I’ve been planning to do a #gravel ride from Berlin to Budapest (or Vienna) this May, but after 5 days of partially offroad #bikepacking in Hungary I have some doubts whether I want another week of Eastern European Offroads :D Any suggestions for a long gravel or cyclepath-only, mostly nature route not too far from Berlin or Budapest? (Also somewhere not too hot:) #cycling#touring
After a nice but very long cycling day with lots of altimeter in addition, we reached Fethiye. Our plan was to book ferry tickets for early next morning and search a campspot near the port. The officer at the port told us the ferry was canceled because of bad weather. Oh, with this situation we didn't calculated. And we couldn't see bad weather on our wetherforcast website... The next possible ferry was sceduled for 3 days later.
We felt a bit disapointed, because we passed some nice places without stopping, but ok...
The two days we had to wait for the ferry we stayed in a hostel room. The two days the air was full of the sahara dust, it was super foggy and had zero visibility. But ok... we took these day to make laundry by hand and to relax a lot... #cycling#bikepacking#traveling#travellife#restdays#break#turkey#fethiye#saharadust
We came to Kas exactly when they closed all streets because of the famous roadcycling race through Turkey. Lucky us 😅 so we came to the ancient amphytheater when a group of teenager held a huge flag of Turkey for the media helicopter. Actually the theater is so nice. Its in a very good shape and look that view! While searching for a campspot we cycled on and on and on. everywhere it was too steep or too densely populated or directly next to the busy road... finally we found a nice, hiden, flat spot surrounded by nature.
We left Çıralı with its beautiful beach and the ancient site of 'Olympos' behind us and enjoyed a great day of cycling off the main road. Several kilometers before reaching the coastal town of Finike, we battled against the very strong headwind. It was no longer fun to ride, so we decided to look for a campsite. The weather forecast indicated that a terrible rain and thunderstorm will approach the next morning. Therefore, we searched for a sheltered campsite to avoid getting soaked... Yes, we found a roof under which we could set up the tent. The night was peaceful, the wind even stopped. And in the morning when we woke up, we thought the weather forecast had been overly dramatic... But suddenly it started to rain and then the storm began... coming directly from the sea, straight towards our small tent! OMG! The roof was no longer helping, the rain was coming horizontally. We feared that the storm would damage the tent, so we took it down while the rain soaked us...
After about two hours enduring the storm, the wind suddenly shifted and 10 minutes later the dark rain clouds were swept away. The sky was once again bright blue, the sun was shining as if nothing had happened. Only the wind continued to blow like crazy. We took our time, dried the tent, sleeping mat and the wet stuff on the deserted playground...
The coastal region after Antalya was not only full of operating hotels and resorts, but also many empty and completely rundown facilities. The same situation existed with plantations and greenhouses, on one side there were many new, modern ones, and on the other side dilapidated nostalgic glass greenhouses... - and a stranded submarine?! - 😂
Tainan resident Mark Tovell has written a guide to cycling off the beaten track in Taiwan. According to this review in the Taipei Times, the book is "aimed directly at the class of traveler that unboxes their velo at the airport... and pedals directly towards the high hills."
On the road D400 we had to go through 4 tunnels. There was no possibility to go around 🤯
Who knows us a bit, cycling through a tunnel is the worst, we hate it!
Never before we've seen these buzzers 🖲️ to start the blinking lights around the 'attention, there are cyclists' sign. Actually, we dont know if this helps a lot, at daylight... But of course we pushed the buzzer! In the end of that day we found a campspot, not a magical, romantic nature surrounded spot, but ok...
The bay of Antalya with the mountains in the background reminded us so much of Lake Thun in Switzerland, where we grew up... 🤩
We had heard a lot from other cycle travelers about the coastal route from Antalya to Fethiye. So, we decided to spend some days on this road in the hope of finding nice nature, calm roads, beautiful ancient sites, and secret places to pitch our tent...
At a coffee stop not far from Antalya's city center, we met Rob, a charming cycling enthusiast senior from the UK. We chatted together before leaving the Turkish tourist hotspot behind us 😎
Antalya... time to take a hot shower, time to chill, time to make laundry, time to chat with other travelers in the backyard of the hostel, time to stroll without bicycle through the old town and time to realize a little bit how fast we've traveled since we are in Turkey...