Turkey - Georgia

Going to discover Turkey and its history

De Küçükkuyu à Ayvalik

13 mai

A late start after a splendid breakfast.
But bad luck, my bike, which had spent the night outside, had a punctured front tyre. I made the mistake of not changing my front tyre before starting the trip. It’s a puncture-proof tyre, but with so much wear it’s just like any other !
I met up with my hostess Sibel on arriving in Ayvalik and we met up with Hayati, the man in charge of the cycling club that found me accommodation, as well as other cyclists, and we had a quick tour of the town (…)

Çanakkale to Küçükkuyu

12 mai

A rest day in Çanakkale gave me a chance to overhaul the bike at a small mechanic I found by chance. In fact the spoke wasn’t broken but everything had come loose, including the wheel. I didn’t have a launderette here, but I took my clothes to a small laundry and got them back clean and dry a few hours later. I hesitated quite a bit when making the itinerary : I’d like to avoid coming back to roads as bad as Friday’s ; but it’s impossible to know in advance. This morning, at the last minute, (…)

Sarkoy - Canakkale

10 mai

Last night, as I was checking the itinerary, I wondered what the road conditions would be like. It turned out to be a pleasant surprise, as the first few kilometres were quite pleasant. In particular the ’climb’ to the highest point of the route, 101m. But just after that I had to turn off onto a road that quickly turned into a horror. On this kind of road you need a mountain bike, preferably with a good electric assist ! For me, it was a case of braking on the way down and pushing the bike (…)

Tekirdag - Sarkoy

9 mai

At last we’re no longer following the main roads, but a small coastal road. I had left an inland route on the itinerary at the start, but in the end I preferred to stay along the coast, thinking that it couldn’t be much worse... I just added about thirty metres of positive difference in altitude and... a few slopes : on the climb it was at least 5% and several times it reached 13%. On the last climb it was even 14% (Komoot marks 15 but I didn’t see it on the speedo).
See the description of (…)

Silivri - Tekirdag

8 mai

I leave my host’s house a little early, as he is still asleep. I’m still following a very wide dual carriageway. At one point my route suggests an alternative, so I follow it. You have to be prepared for a change of scenery, it climbs to 6% at the start, then climbs to 9 and I stalled when my computer showed 12% ! After that, for a while, the route was in peaceful surroundings. But there’s nothing very bucolic about it : the landscape is eaten up by factories, you cross streams of stagnant (…)

Istanbul - Silviri

7 mai

I left Istanbul this morning. The route was a bit chaotic, and I shouldn’t have trusted Komoot : it seems to me that the cycle path I took after about ten kilometres started closer to my hotel... Luckily there was a nice lift to cross the dual carriageway, so I didn’t have to carry my bike.
At first the sea is really full of cargo ships, then they disappear and the sea makes you want to swim again.
Then, apart from a few kilometres along the beach and a few times when my route diverged, (…)

Istanbul

I didn’t mean to start my trip with the first weekend in May... but frankly I wouldn’t recommend it now. Endless queues at all the monuments. Lots of French people taking advantage of the bank holidays. Tourism wasn’t very well organised, which meant that at Hagia Sophia I spent more time queuing than visiting ! The queue for tickets is very slow and all along the queue there are signs encouraging you to buy tickets online "to skip the line". It costs €34 instead of €25, and you have to (…)

Turkey- Georgia

After a few days in Istanbul, I’ll follow the Dardanelles Strait, then skirt roughly the coast to pass through Izmir and Antalya before heading up to Cappadocia. Then I’ll head back up the Black Sea to Georgia, where I should be before the end of June.
Initially I wanted to go as far as Azerbaijan, and leave from Baku. But it seems that Azerbaijan’s land borders are closed. So I’m stopping in Tbilisi and from there I’ll see how I get around the region.
A route that will be hilly, but in (…)