When we arrived in Turkey crossing the border to Edirne we followed our familiar pattern of settling in a reasonably sized town and hitting the streets to buy a map of the country before plotting our onward journey. After a few hours fruitless searching through bookstores, we got some advice from the local tourist information who told us that there would be no good quality maps available until we reached Istanbul. We decided it was worth Justin cycling back to Greece to pick up a map we remembered seeing the previous day in a gas station. At the time we thought this seemed like overkill but were also nervous of navigating without a map. The 1:800 000 Marco Polo brand map we purchased has turned out to be one of our most valuable belongings over the last couple of months in Turkey and we have often wished we purchased a few extra copies to hand out to other cycle tourists.

Our cycle trip from Edirne to Istanbul and then subsequent cycling to Cappadocia via central Anatolia was made all the more enjoyable knowing that we had a reliable and well produced map at hand. Even with the map we had we still managed to take what turned out to be a spectacular wrong turn but this is more down to our inattention to the map than any problems with its quality.

When we returned to Istanbul to spend the winter working on gear and plotting our onward route we began to host other cycle tourists and talk to them about route planning through Turkey. To date all of the cycle tourists we have met in Istanbul have been travelling with either no map or a low quality locally produced map.

We went map shopping with our first guest Mike, finally settling on a map with an 1:800 000 scale that seemed to show at least the minor white and yellow roads of our Marco Polo map. Mike has since reported that the map has not been all the great:

Mike Quinlan on November 2nd, 2010

In the digital map world, Google and Bing maps both seem fairly accurate however if you rely heavily on Google maps its worth noting that You Tube is blocked in Turkey and I have heard some reports that certain ISP’s implement the blocking in such a way that Google Maps is also affected. We had our Garmin GPS returned to us after it got broken in Serbia a few weeks back and so far our experimentation with its mapping of Istanbul has shown it to be accurate as you would expect from a mapping product with such a hefty price tag.

To our knowledge there doesn’t seem to be a good paper alternative to the low quality maps anywhere in Istanbul, but as this is of frequent frustration for cycle tourists we’d love to be proven wrong. Be in touch if you know of any secret map stashes or if you can think of a good conspiracy to explain for the poor map standards we’ve found.

We are off to Greece for a few days tomorrow (12 November 2010), so if you are a cycle tourist on your way to (or currently in) Istanbul and you need a better map please get in touch and we will see if we can pick up a few spare Turkey maps while we’re out of no-map land.

Balding Tyres

Worrying about bald patches on my front tyre (which I first noticed in Sarajevo), we decide to replace it with the folding tyre we’ve been carrying. One day after we’ve changed tyres and thrown my old tyre in the bin, the tread on Justin’s rear tyre starts to peel off. We curse our timing as my tyre might have lasted the distance.

Three days later we manage to replace his tyre with one pilfered from a brand new mountain bike for sale in Chenbeyli.

Rapid-fire loss of inner tubes

• We find that the cheap Chinese branded inner we purchased in Spain had a faulty value when fixing our first Turkish puncture in Inhisar. It is binned immediately.
• An inner tube blows up with a deafening bang while Justin is swapping Emma’s balding front tyre for the folding.
• A bike shop owner in Chenbeyli tries to help by fitting a new rear tyre for Justin, but in the process seats the inner tube badly and creates a snake bite which is larger than our patches.
• Our remaining spare inner tube plus the four on the bikes are now held together by many repair patches, after at least ten punctures over our last few days on the road.

Bicycle pump stops pumping

Our till now reliable Topeak RoadMorph bicycle pump slowed at first, then stopped working all together. We’ve checked reports online and our diagnostic is that the o-ring has probably disintegrated. We may have been able to fix it ourselves if we could only figure out how to pull it apart enough to reach the o-ring. Luckily we have been carrying a cheap mini-pump which does the trick in an emergency.

Lessons then?

1. Probably not a good idea to run Panaracer Paseala Tourguards for 11,000km before putting new tyres on. We should have sourced replacements in Istanbul.
2. Always carry a spare pump and learn how to service your pump before hitting the road.
3. Four inner tubes are definitely not too many to carry.
4. Basic 26” tyres are easy to source even in remote bits of Turkey.

Before we set out on our current cycling trip, my main experience of “big hills” was a few steep bits of our Lands End to John O’Groats trip and cycling up the hill to Luton Airport when commuting to work. Within our first week away we were cycling through snow covered passes at 1600m and I was swearing I would never climb another hill again. However ten weeks on we have climbed through countless passes and I no longer look with dread at approaching steep (or double steep) ascents shown on our maps. In many cases we actively plot our route to lead us through mountainous or hilly terrain as it seems we have somehow unknowingly become addicted to climbing hills.

Besides the scenic benefits of cycling through hilly terrain there are also other more practical advantages that attract us to hills:

• Often we plan our cycling routes to take in national park areas which include hills and/or mountains
• Roads that twist and turn their way up steep hills tend to have a lot less car and particularly lorry (or truck) traffic, than the straight busy main roads
• The opportunities for free camping are usually much better in hilly areas where the terrain and tree cover provide far more shelter than flat countryside which tends to have a lot more agriculture and people
• Towns in the hills tend to be smaller (a good and a bad thing) so finding shops is easier and approaching people for assistance is easier. However often the term “one horse town” is true and hill top villages don’t tend to hold our attention for very long

I think its safe to admit that I have become a bit of a bit hill-aholic as even if I sometimes complain and even suggest turning back from time to time. At the final pass or hill top all the discomfort and hardship is forgotten as you pause to drink in the view and then begin a well earned free wheeling descent, hopefully with the sun shining.