The Commonwealth Challenge Blog

100 days down 200 to ago and a lot still to Achieve for Expedition World Cycle.

So that is a hundred days down and over 10,000km covered….

I am in Dhaka, Bangladesh, my leg is a little swollen from a rickshaw going over it and I am near breaking point with Indian embassy officials.

Today has been another fine day of filling out pointless forms, making countless photocopies, waiting in nonsensical queues only to be told by the power tripping officials that it is “not possible, Sir”. But if I go to another office it will be possible. I have now been to five separate Indian embassy offices, in three different cities in two countries. They had varying levels of power and information. This involved spending up to eight hours waiting for the simple answer to a question. Can I return to India?  

Now I have a visa, it has multiply entries and it hasn’t expired yet. So what is the problem? Well there is a stamp on my Indian visa saying that I should have a two month gap between visits to India. So I should stay in Bangladesh for two months then right!? “Not possible, Sir,” comes to mind. I have met countless people that have the same stamp yet have returned to India without a problem. But this is not a guarantee  

The office in Delhi told me to sort it out in Kolkata. In Kolkata they said it should work if I get a stamp in Dhaka. But the office in Dhaka wouldn’t give me one. So the only option is to go back to the border and see what happens. I wouldn’t write off the requirement of a bribe just yet! Oh you can’t beat a good bit of Indian bureaucracy!

Now you are probably wondering why I am returning to India? Well two weeks ago I hade to make a big decision. I was nearing the end of the road when it came to visa access to South East Asia. Myanmar is a no go and North India is a permit nightmare with no foreigner border crossing to China, leaving only one overland option. This is the original planned route via Nepal and Tibet. The problem is that it is just too expensive due to the need to hire a car and guide for Tibet. I have been priced out of that option. So here is an overview of the changes to the route:

So here is what is happening:

1. Dhaka (Bangladesh) to Chennai (India) via Kolkata (as long as I get in again!) 

2. A lap of Sri Lanka then flight to Chiang Mai (Thailand)

3. Chiang Mai to Singapore then flight to Perth (Australia)

4. Perth to Darwin to Melbourne to Sydney then Flight to New Zealand

Check out the map for rest of route. http://bit.ly/9VgBGr

The positive is that I get to add another commonwealth country to the route; Sri Lanka. I am really excited about the Australia route changes. It is going to be an awesome 5000 mile/8000 km challenge taking me from the West coast to the North coast then crossing the middle of OZ to South coast and the finishing on the East coast. Now I am not even sure it is possible. But I think that is what I find most appealing about it.

After the race to Delhi for the closing ceremony the cycling section of the challenge has become rather easy, even a bit dull. It has lost the edge. The focus has shifted onto the harder parts of the challenge. Most notable the task of getting people to join for 8km/5miles. Now this was always going to be the hardest task of the challenge. To be honest it hasn’t exactly been going well.

The team at home has been doing a great job at getting me media attention in the UK. But on the road it is my task to try get some coverage. This is something I have no experience with. I did my first ever press release in India and not surprisingly it got no attention. I have contacted numerous cycle clubs resulting in very little response.

So the suggestion is to try something a bit different. Just trying to meet people on the road to hit the 10,500 mark just isn’t working. So the idea is to try and arrange mass participation cycle events. I believe that nothing is impossible so it is just a matter of interest. So I have contacted numerous sources to find out what they think about the following ideas.

1. Sydney or Melbourne/ London GWR mass participation cycle event. This will be contested again when I arrive in London. This will be a sort of England/OZ mass participation cycling Ashes with the possibility of a world record at the end of it.

2. Santa Claus mass participation cycle event in Kuala Lumpur again with possibility of GWR.

These are only at the research stage and unless there is significant interest they won’t go any further and it will be back to the drawing board to try and hit the target and achieve this goal. Feel free to contact me with any suggestions. It would be a little disappointing to return to Glasgow having covered the miles but having failed this objective.  

Oh and on that note did I mention I tried to become a Scotland Ambassador?  I got in touch with Bangladesh government under the guise of “Scotland Commonwealth Games Ambassador” to try and arrange a flag handing over ceremony. Not sure if that is illegal but in many ways I am an ambassador for Scotland I suppose. It just is not official.

I am collecting flags from each commonwealth country and intend on raising them on my return to Glasgow. So in an attempt to make it more official I am trying to get the flag presented to me. Now it didn’t work for Bangladesh, I was maybe contacting the wrong people, I started with the president, haha, but I am going to persevere with this task. After all the presidents of India or Sri Lanka might be big cycling fans.  

Last thing, there should be some changes coming to the website. I now have a webmaster dealing with this so things like the blog etc are going to be changed and become more regular hopefully.

So there is a lot happening and a lot coming up. You can help out by suggesting this to your friends letting them know about the Commonwealth Challenge. After all trying to get more people following and involved with the challenge is likely to increase the chances of raising a good amount for UNICEF. That is not a bad thing!

Wish me luck for Getting back into India!

Leave before Moscow makes you soft.

Do you know the Baz Lurman song: Everybody’s Free? You know he reminds us to wear sun cream? Aside from reminding us of the importance of protecting our skin from the sun he also suggests a list of experiences to try in life. For instance, do one thing every day that scares you. Oh and of course get plenty of calcium. He also suggests something along the lines of living in New York once but leave before it makes you hard and live in London once but leave before it makes you soft. Well Moscow is like London.
It is time to hit the road again. The appeal of going back out into the tent in the cold and riding each day in the rain is starting to thin. Not because that bothers me. No it is because the welcoming I have experienced in Moscow has been so great, I don’t want to leave. My expectation of arriving at a grey, cold, paranoid city of Russians that dislike the west has been shattered.
Everyone is friendly, helpful and welcoming. Each day I have been treated to amazing Russian cuisine and traditions. I have been given a warm bed and had countless warm showers at no cost. I have found out a huge amount about a culture that is so similar yet different to my own. The city itself is so easily accessible by metro that in the short time that I have been here I have seen a lot. The Kremlin, Saint Basils Cathedral, Victory Park, VDNKh, the war museum, Catherine the greats Palace and the must see Red Square. I could quite happily stay here for a lot longer. Learn Russian, ride the metro some more and maybe get a Russian bride!
I have been almost disappointed that I haven’t been able to find much of the cities’ relatively recent communist history. No instead I have been treated to a modern city of contradiction. Lamborghinis drive along side Ladas. Modern sky scrapers stand aside communist era blocks of flats. This is a city that has many, many, many (US) dollar billionaires but a monthly minimum wage of just over $180. This does not mean by anyway that this is a cheap city, anything but and it far exceeds my budget. So how have I managed to stay here?
This is all due to my good friend Irina. Strangely we met on a summer camp in America some six years ago and since then haven’t really had much contact. If it wasn’t for social networking I doubt we would have made contact again. When I found out that she now calls Moscow home through Facebook. It didn’t require much thought to make this a dot on the map on the route to Delhi.
Why come to Russia? The obvious answer would be to see the country. The more in-depth answer is to experience a different Commonwealth System. The majority of the previous U.S.S.R nations are part of the Commonwealth of Independent States (C.I.S). This is the closest to a contrast between the Commonwealth of nations that Scotland is a member of. So far it has been interesting with some wanting to be part and other wanting nothing to do with it. I have the feeling the same will apply to the nations I will visit during the Challenge.
Since the challenge took to the road from Poznan I have been surprised that I have managed to continually do the miles day after day and arrive here on time as planned. It was all maybe a bit straight forward. Dare I even say easy! But of course each day there was a new challenge. From the off in Poznan the sun beat down on me like I had never experienced before on the bike. Then in Lithuania and Latvia they offered me some tough roads with a lack of surfaced roads. Russia followed this up with roads almost as bad as their driving. The language barrier has been huge imprisoning me in a world of silence. But you get on with it.
The motivation to get here was maybe the key. As far as I can work out for me fitness only plays a very small part in the ability to achieve the goal. For me it appears to be more about the mental attitude to the situation. The facts are simple prior to the expedition I had very little time to train. By that I really mean very little at all. Yet here I am. How much further this will get me I can’t say.
I will find out on the road. I have chosen the best time to find out, during the first ever race I have ever participated in. Sure there are no other competitors, strict rules or prize for finishing. But I am against the clock. It is counting down to October 14th and the Glasgow handover ceremony at the Delhi Commonwealth Games. From here to there it is some 3400 miles and I have just under 50 days to get there.
So can I do? Well it is time to find out. Delhi here I come….
…….oh and remember wear Sun cream!

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Follow the Red Brick Road

The crossing from Harwick to the hook of Holland was a straight forward journey. From there on it was a case of learning how to use the bike roads. But to be fair the first 700 miles have been mostly straight forward. A few navigations problems and problems finding somewhere to camp aside. As you would expect.

It has been a little dissappointing being wet nearly everyday and took a bit of getting used to. But now I expect it. Not quite the summer I thought that I was going to be chasing though!

Now I complained about the cycle roads a lot to begin with. I actually found them hard to navigate. This is the first place that I have come across in the world that has such fully developed facilities for bicycles. From the Holland to Poland I must of cycled nearly three quarters of the distance on these roads. No cars, very few bicycles and in general a good surface.

Though I was never too fond of the bumpy red brick sections in towns. Also I couldn't understand why they went to the bother of making these paths and not lowering the kerbs properly? The time that a car almost hit me at a junction wasn't great either. It resulted in the crown jewels making a very hard contact with the top bar. The price I made for not letting a car hit me! To be fair the driver did the right thing by apologising and laughing at my pain like anyone would do in that situation.

So maybe it is an idea that could catch on. The only problem I had was when I would ride on roads to bypass a town. The bike paths would always take a longer route through towns which after seeing a few housing estates the appeal of avoiding them on the road grew. This quite often led to abuse from drivers. Good for learning German swear words though. But the further east I went the less a problem this seemed but I think that was me just getting better at navigating in Germany. So maybe the abuse was due.

Germany is without doubt the greenest country that I have visited to date. From the first morning of riding in Germany until arriving in Poland no matter which direction that you were to look you would see a wind turbine. There were that many of them that I even had to camp underneath one of the beasts. I felt like I was on a beach beside the sea. Each swoosh of the blades sounding like a gentle wave rolling on to a golden beach. It made for a good night sleep.

I have lost track of time and now work out days by miles. Today 80 tomorrow 100 and so on. Although each day is exactly the same: pedal, stop eat, pedal, stop eat, camp and sleep. Each day is of course different as the further I chase my shaddow around the world the greater the cultural differences from home become.

So next stop Moscow........