Please refresh the page and retry. When we decided to cycle 15, miles from London to Sydney, neither of us had ridden in 15 years.
But, as we planned our expedition over beers in a south London pub, there seemed to be many more reasons for going than not. All we knew was that we wanted to meet amazing people and see incredible places, learning about local history and culture along the way. The starting leg of our journey, through Europe in the summer of , was an easy introduction to cycle touring: no poisonous snakes, nail-biting visa applications or extreme weather.
The first 3, miles educated us in wild camping and the joys of cheese sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and dinner. This built our strength for the mountains that lay to the east. Climbing up to the Anatolian plains in Turkey, we left summer behind and embarked on a bitter, six-month winter. Between Central Turkey and Eastern China the temperature rarely rose above zero. We spent weeks at a time suffering in β20C β4F , our bikes slipping around on icy roads, our feet and hands at first stinging, then going numb with cold.
We rejigged our route to go through the ex-Soviet republics and China, rather than a notoriously lawless part of southern Pakistan. The detour added 3, miles to our ride but, more significantly, meant we would be crossing the imposing Pamir Mountains in midwinter.
Temperatures dipped as low as β30C β22F during winter in Kyrgyzstan, where we had to cycle over five mountain passes that were up to 3, metres in height to reach Kashgar in China.
