Bicycle Touring The World: Turkey, Trabzon to Findikli

My latest bicycle touring around the world update, cycling through Turkey. Trabzon to Findikli. 89 miles. I noticed today when I turned over my map that tonight’s going to be my last night in Turkey. I should be in Georgia tomorrow night.

My next three countries, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, are a bit of a mystery to me. I know very little about them. And they’re certainly not in the holiday brochures back home. The only thing I know about any of them is that Russia invaded Georgia a few years ago. And at the time, my good friends, the Barrs (who I met up with in Bangladesh), were on a trekking holiday. And they had to get out of the country pretty quick! It should all be good fun and hopefully a bit different!

My last night in Turkey, and I seem to have found the most expensive hotel yet. Ninety dollars they charged me! If they’d charged forty dollars, it would have been too much for what it is! But I suppose I didn’t have to stop here. I could have looked for another hotel!

In one respect, I’ll be glad to leave Turkey. Ramadan has been a real pain when it came to finding places to eat. I’m pretty sure Georgia isn’t a Muslim country.

Tour Information

It’s been years since I took this ride, but the memories (and the data) are all archived:

• Photos: See my photos on Flickr
• The route: View my journey around the world
• Videos: Check out my YouTube videos
• Tour page: Ride overview

Follow My Bicycle Touring Adventures

Subscribe to my blog and follow me as I continue to travel around on my bike. Plus, as a subscriber, you’ll be among the first to receive news and updates on future tours. If you’re enjoying the ride and want to fuel my next mile, you can always buy me a beer. And, of course, you can always follow me on social media: Facebook, Bluesky, Threads, X, Instagram, YouTube and Pinterest. I’m also on Flickr, where you’ll find pictures from all my tours, along with regular photo updates that I generally publish each month.

If you want to find out if I’m away touring at the moment and check my location, visit the Where’s Garry page. For a look at the gear and logistics that keep me on the road, see my “Life at 10mph Guide.”

Bicycle Touring The World: Turkey, Ordu to Trabzon

My latest bicycle touring around the world update, cycling through Turkey. Ordu to Trabzon. 108 miles. A grey, overcast start to the day, which kept the temperature down. And I even had some rain at one point. So I took sheltering in a bus stop. It’s amazing how much the body temperature drops when standing around. I got quite chilly and was glad to get moving again.

There were more tunnels today, but nowhere near as long as yesterday’s one. I think the noise in the tunnels makes them more intimidating. Even the smallest of cars makes a huge racket. You can hear them coming from a long way back. As I cycle through the tunnels, I try to guess what the vehicle is by the sound it makes, whether it’s a car, pick-up or lorry. I got pretty good at it by the end of the day.

I had trouble understanding the menu in tonight’s restaurant and, in turn, making myself understood. So I had to resort to miming and making animal noises, which always brings a smile to everybody’s face!

Tour Information

It’s been years since I took this ride, but the memories (and the data) are all archived:

• Photos: See my photos on Flickr
• The route: View my journey around the world
• Videos: Check out my YouTube videos
• Tour page: Ride overview

Follow My Bicycle Touring Adventures

Subscribe to my blog and follow me as I continue to travel around on my bike. Plus, as a subscriber, you’ll be among the first to receive news and updates on future tours. If you’re enjoying the ride and want to fuel my next mile, you can always buy me a beer. And, of course, you can always follow me on social media: Facebook, Bluesky, Threads, X, Instagram, YouTube and Pinterest. I’m also on Flickr, where you’ll find pictures from all my tours, along with regular photo updates that I generally publish each month.

If you want to find out if I’m away touring at the moment and check my location, visit the Where’s Garry page. For a look at the gear and logistics that keep me on the road, see my “Life at 10mph Guide.”

Bicycle Touring The World: Turkey, Samsun to Ordu

My latest bicycle touring around the world update, cycling through Turkey. Samsun to Ordu. 93 miles. It’s been lovely and flat today. I seem to have lost a lot of the hills I’ve had over the past few days. It’s also been overcast today, which has kept the temperature down a bit. But the humidity has been through the roof. For a while, I thought I was back in Malaysia!

With it being so flat today, I had a nice, fast ride, covering my ninety miles in less than seven hours. I had a nasty tunnel to go through about thirty miles from my finish today, which made me speed up even more. I was already on a busy dual carriageway, but happy riding along in my own lane on the hard shoulder. But then, when this tunnel came up, the hard shoulder disappeared, and I found myself in the same lane as the trucks and cars. It was a nerve-wracking ride, and I was glad when the four-kilometre tunnel came to an end. And I was able to get back on my hard shoulder.

Ordu seems to be a very touristy town. I had no problem finding a hotel or somewhere to eat tonight. Restaurants were even open before Ramadan had finished.

Tour Information

It’s been years since I took this ride, but the memories (and the data) are all archived:

• Photos: See my photos on Flickr
• The route: View my journey around the world
• Videos: Check out my YouTube videos
• Tour page: Ride overview

Follow My Bicycle Touring Adventures

Subscribe to my blog and follow me as I continue to travel around on my bike. Plus, as a subscriber, you’ll be among the first to receive news and updates on future tours. If you’re enjoying the ride and want to fuel my next mile, you can always buy me a beer. And, of course, you can always follow me on social media: Facebook, Bluesky, Threads, X, Instagram, YouTube and Pinterest. I’m also on Flickr, where you’ll find pictures from all my tours, along with regular photo updates that I generally publish each month.

If you want to find out if I’m away touring at the moment and check my location, visit the Where’s Garry page. For a look at the gear and logistics that keep me on the road, see my “Life at 10mph Guide.”

Bicycle Touring The World: Turkey, Merzifon to Samsun

My latest bicycle touring around the world update, cycling through Turkey. Merzifon to Samsun. 67 miles. Ever since I’ve been back in Turkey, I’ve not had to worry about an alarm clock, although I still set it. The call to prayer that goes out at 4 am every morning has been waking me up before my alarm goes off. But typically, the one day I forgot to set it, I didn’t hear the call to prayer either. And didn’t wake up until gone six o’clock. I was still on the road by eight, though.

It’s been a very colourful ride today. I’ve been cycling past miles and miles of fields full of sunflowers. The road surface has improved today, but there have been a lot of roadworks. And I’m not too sure whether I prefer a rough road or all the roadworks. At least on the rough roads, I felt pretty safe. Going through the road works is a nightmare. The road narrows, but that doesn’t stop or slow the lorries down. They still come thundering past me, so close you couldn’t squeeze a hair between us!

I’m definitely getting back into my cycling again and feeling much happier. If I’d hit these roadworks earlier in the week, I probably would have quit. I was feeling so down!

Tour Information

It’s been years since I took this ride, but the memories (and the data) are all archived:

• Photos: See my photos on Flickr
• The route: View my journey around the world
• Videos: Check out my YouTube videos
• Tour page: Ride overview

Follow My Bicycle Touring Adventures

Subscribe to my blog and follow me as I continue to travel around on my bike. Plus, as a subscriber, you’ll be among the first to receive news and updates on future tours. If you’re enjoying the ride and want to fuel my next mile, you can always buy me a beer. And, of course, you can always follow me on social media: Facebook, Bluesky, Threads, X, Instagram, YouTube and Pinterest. I’m also on Flickr, where you’ll find pictures from all my tours, along with regular photo updates that I generally publish each month.

If you want to find out if I’m away touring at the moment and check my location, visit the Where’s Garry page. For a look at the gear and logistics that keep me on the road, see my “Life at 10mph Guide.”