Michael Tyler

When I was looking at the roads on Google maps, they all looked so level. Nothing spectacular to see on ‘terrain’ view.

The reality was it was 4 hours climbing, 1 and a bit hours down hill at the end.

As some consolation, the wind was behind me on the climbs. By the time I had reached the coast, it had switched direction. Still. You don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

I’m holed up in my hotel now which seems pretty new. It’s not a great big chain, but having been here a couple of hours, it seems pretty functional.

Beaches

There’s quite a lot of beaches here now, all of a sudden as we have hit the Aegean. With the beaches come beach front bars and eateries, many of which have failed and fallen derelict. Others just mothballed for the winter with workers busy bringing back to life.

Continue reading “Çanakkale to Altınoluk”

Probably the easiest day on my trip so far.

A meagre 30 miles or so.

My muscles will be thanking me for this time off.

Boutique hotel

Didn’t think much. If I’m honest. Breakfast was good. Room was noisy. TV has less working channels than all the other hotels I stayed in, (all 2), still. No English speaking channels when the others did. There were other things which were lacking the attention to detail which is the essence of the ’boutique’ experience.

They tried to charge me for an orange juice. That was with breakfast. Not really happening is it? First hotel ever where they’ve tried to charge me for the juice I’ve had with breakfast.

Got off quite swiftly.

Continue reading “Gelibolu to Cannakale”

Very testing. Wind in my face. Lots of hills. Significant hills which were long, steep and on winding roads.

After the first 12 minutes of so getting out of Kumbag, spent the entire morning stood on the pedals.

This really didn’t go away, or at least the wind didn’t. It was joined by a hailstorm later on!

The hills did improve in that the bends went away. When you’ve got bends like that, it’s impossible to sit down and just cycle normally.

In terms of the geography, flora and fauna, things were much more interesting.

Breakfast

Was late at the hotel, service started at 9.

It was a nice breakfast.

Kumbag is the first sea level area for quite a distance, which I guess is why it’s got the port.

The hotel, Novo Port Hotel, tried to fleece me a little on the dinner. When I arrived at 20.00, the idea of eating in and just being able to relax made me ask, ‘how much is dinner?’. To which she said €8, fish and chips. I thought, this is a good deal, but I didn’t really want the chips so much, so she said salad. So I said, ‘ok’.

Continue reading “Kumbag to Gelibolu”

Yes, there is a place called Kumbag!

I thought I should visit… More seriously, it was the only place with a hotel that I wanted to stay at on the peninsula that was a reasonable distance from Istanbul.

Continue reading “Day 1 Istanbul to Kumbag”

Tomorrow I will begin the cycling part of my journey. It was a lucky thing that I decided to visit some of the galleries and musea on the other side of the river.

Derailleur trouble

It turns out the front derailleur was not functioning too well and it took me around 30 minutes to sort it out. I ended up having to take it off the frame entirely and reset it’s position.

It must have taken a knock somewhere, either in the hotel or in transit, meaning that it wouldn’t reach the higher gears 17 – 24.

Better to discover it now. Get it out of the way.

Cycling around Karakoy

After that I cycled down to Karakoy which is on the other side of the river.

Continue reading “Cycling around Korakoy and Dolmabahçe palace”