However, Tom joked when we were in Mongolia of a cycle powered bus! Joke he may, but someone already beat him to the idea. Looks like a lot of fun!

Picture from http://jagadees.wordpress.com/2009/06/18/busycle-a-zero-emission-vehicle/

With bicycle use on the increase, I find myself thinking often of the possible ways to completely transition from fuel-powered vehicles to either fully human powered/wind powered or electric battery & pedal hybrid machines. Such vehicles could exist as taxis similar to the image above. Not only would they be environmentally friendly but they would also make the population fitter. On another note, imagine attempting some sort of expedition on such a thing as the above vehicle. At the very least if you took it across Europe, it would be one heck of a party! On the topic of strange bikes, I am reminded of world record holding Georgian cyclist Jumbar Lezhava. He holds the record for the most countries visited on a bike. Tom and I met him when we first arrived in Tbilisi in spring 2008. He told us of his latest expedition which was to ride solo to the South pole on a quad bicycle. Read the blog post I wrote about meeting him.

Some other strange bike designs:-

See more here at Atomic Zombine – Extreme Machines

I love the idea of alternative bike designs because it brings into question the idea of the ‘experience’ of cycling, which Sheldon Brown mentions when he is talking about Singlespeeds on his website:

If you’re riding for sheer pleasure, or for exercise, you don’t necessarily place that high a premium on output results, as measured in speed, distance or vertical climb. Instead, you may care more about the actual experience of riding your bike. In this case, you may be a candidate for a singlespeed bike.

Riding a singlespeed can help bring back the unfettered joy you experienced riding your bike as a child. You don’t realize how much mental energy you devote to shifting until you relinquish your derailers, and discover that a whole corner of your brain that was formerly wondering when to shift is now free to enjoy your surroundings and sensations.

Paradoxically, a singlespeed is, in another sense more efficient than a multispeed bike! While the single gear ratio will not be the “perfect” gear ratio for all conditions, in the conditions which fit the single gear, it is considerably more efficient mechanically than the drive train of a derailer bike.

The experience of cycling links in well with the experience of bike touring and our recent trip to Mongolia when we decided to venture away from the daily grind of riding across miles of open Mongolian steppe and instead headed to ride near impossible singletrack (with a loaded bike) around Lake Huvsgul in the mountains- challenging but satisfying. The more effort you put in, the more satisfying the outcome!

David Bryne with one of his bike racks in NYC

In a conversational style, Byrne talks about the thoughts inspired by what he sees whilst riding his bike. I recently listened to a podcast of ‘the Bike Show’ on Resonance FM. There was a feature about how when you cycle, your brain is in an alpha-wave state, your conscious and unconscious minds are slightly better linked and thoughts are more easily able to bubble over from one into the other. This is interesting because I feel that when I am cycling I can think more clearly and I often have a lot of ideas when cycling. Bryne talks about how a city is a physical manifestation of human wants and desires in all their unadulterated glory. If you want to find out what makes humans tick then go and explore the surroundings. Human’s are a product of their environment and the environment, increasingly, is a product of the humans.

A bicycle is an optimal way to explore this physical map of human beings’ creativity. The bike, part human-powered, part gravity powered, assisted and coaxed onward by the topography of the landscape,  acts like the other person in a conversation between human and environment, which offers ideas and triggers to the rider as he/she moves about with a sense of curiosity.

Bryne describes the different uses for his bike journeys; exploring a new place, going to a gig, meeting up with friends, colleagues or artists. The bicycle journeys to these meetings seems to act as thinking space by which to reflect on his own thoughts and the new ideas presented by the meetings and activities. Certainly, as an artist, it seems like a very favorable way to develop his thought processes and offer inspiration for his own art and music.

Bryne’s thoughts, triggered by all of his experiences connected by the journeys by bike in between, create stories, intertwined with experiences, history and anecdotes. He is having a travelling experience, of sorts, throughout his experience. Travelling is not only an action but a way of thinking and a system for living.

The cycle ride is a way of meditating; the bike is the vehicle by which to enter the meditative state. This reminds me of a guy we met in Switzerland cycling who, other than rambling about how the American government was trying to control us all through criss-crossed patterns of cloud in the sky, talked about how cycling, after the first few kilometres puts you into a trance-like state. You notice the effort and pain of pedalling to a lesser extent and thoughts are left to wander.

Bryne talks about his surroundings in the context of his life and experiences; a picture of how he sees and understands the world. In a way he is creating a map of his own ‘data’, strung together, and categorised by what he sees and communicated to himself and the reader via stories.

I enjoyed reading some of the Bicycle Diaries, and I am looking forward to finishing the book when I get time. I feel that I have a different approach to the book because of my own experience of travelling by bike. I am interested to see how his experiences were similar to mine. Everyone has their own perspective on the world around them, but it’s easier to relate to other people who have travelled by the same means as you, because their experience is likely to be similar. If I read the book without having experience of bike touring, I think I would see events as a much more linear progression, and something unique or unusual to that individual’s experience. However, I know that anyone could have equally as interesting experiences by heading out on  a bike with an open mind.

You can buy the Bicycle Diaries here

enjoy.

1. There aren’t many people in the rural areas but you’re never far from a settlement of some kind.
2. Steppe is beautiful but it soon gets tedious to look at.
3. The weather is weird; snow, rain hailstorms,dust storms, lightning, strong winds and it changes in a moment.
4. Water sources; rivers, lakes are very clean and the locals drink directly from them particularly in the rural areas that we visited.
5. There are proper mountains in the north > 3000m bordering Russia and near lake Huvsgul.
6. The people are thoroughly nonchalent on the one hand and thoroughly curious on the other regarding foreigners- they would make good poker players.
7. The food is simple, some might say bland; dumplings, soup, pancakes, but good cycling food.
8. There doesn’t appear to be many police about in small settlements, rather they appear policed by ‘civil authority’.
9. Lake Huvsgul is a phenomenal place, mesmorising and addictive, it was difficult to leave.
10. You can eat a range of foods in the capital, Ulaan Baatar. Near the State Department Store is a good Indian Restaurant, Korean and Chinese places.
11. Don’t expect your GPS to be accurate with regards to the jeep tracks.
12. Ger dwellers live very simple lifestyles, and live off the the products of their lifestock. We ate fresh butter, yoghurt, and drank fresh milk and ate lots of mutton with thick noodles made from flour.
13. Mongolia’s environment is generally very unspoilt other than the mines and the growing cities. I hope that it’s wilderness areas can be preserved.
14. Horses are regularly used for herding lifestock and general transportation in addition to cheap Chinese motorbikes. People learn to ride horses before they can walk, I think.
15. The Ger dwellers look very healthy from being in close proximity to the elements and hard work. Their eyes are bright and skin healthy.
16. There are I Heart NYC bags floating around everywhere and used in multiple supermarkets. At one point there must have been an air-drop of them by the Americans or something.
17. Ulaan Baatar has excellent train connections to Russia and China.
18. There are a lot of smashed vodka bottles around the road-pass shrines- mind your tyres.
19. There are some fantastic rivers in Mongolia which would be excellent for river journeys.
20. Beware of mosquitoes in the summer especially near bodies of water.
21. It’s a good country for ignoring the Lonely Planet guide book because there is so much freedom to do what you like via wandering and exploring. It seems silly to use the guide book.

Ben Saunders is a polar explorer who I have been following since I met him very briefly at Explore 2006, the Royal Geographical Society’s expedition planning seminar. He was giving a talk about using technology on Expeditions and in particular blogging. In 2006 I don’t think anyone had heard of Twitter (for the record).

What impresses me about Ben is his attention to detail and it really comes through in his website. The writing is high quality and focussed and the photography is excellent, in particular the ones by Martin Hartley and Andy Ward; a  good case for having a specialist photographer on an expedition. The first thing you see when you visit the website is a high quality photo of Ben’s Frozen face; instantly informing you what the site is about- going to really cold places.

The website design is in a minimal style, with the focus on the photography and the content. It doesn’t need gimmicks, the challenges stand out and speak for themselves.

Some design points of note from the North website:

• Technical graphic on the front page communicates attention to detail and is informative and artistic.
• The ‘NORTH’ font is clean, sans-serif, modern- no messing and technical. It is large and provides contrast against smaller text on the page.

• The colour scheme is a contrast of dark blue and white with plenty of ‘whitespace’ to let the content breathe. It’s not busy the blue colour instills a calmness.
• You are immediately presented with the ‘about’ section so you know what the point of the site is (on average you have 7 seconds to hold the attention of a visitor).
• Content is focused to only what is necessary – Photo, title, about, blog (capture and captivate the audience with the story).
• The typography clear and well-spaced (e.g. Capitalised main heading, space between the blog title and body text, Kerning on the sub-heading to differentiate, body-text is a serif font for readability).

• The blog post ‘excerpt’ – shows a teaser thumbnail photo to entice the reader to read the full post and give an idea of what its about.
• The sponsor logos are presented and in keeping with the design- uniform size, shape and positioning.

The website was professionally designed which is advisable if you have the budget for it. Seeing as the internet will probably be around for as long as human’s have industrialised society, then it is a worthwhile and long term investment. It is possible to put together a website yourself and there are many resources available on the internet for learning (search for Smashing Magazine on Google). If you would like to know more about web design, then drop me a mail; I made a number of websites to fund my travelling and I am now working on freelance website projects back in the UK.

Ben’s commitment comes across strongly from his website which serves as a reminder to me to be self-critical and true to myself in order to achieve the kind of quality that I ideally want to achieve in my own projects.

Polar expeditions are considered the most difficult and risky. Detail in the design and planning are of the utmost importance when the risk is at it’s highest and it seems to pull everything else into line.

Ben Saunder’s talking at the TED lectures:-

I first came across Lewis Pugh when I watched the TED lecture about his North Pole swim. When I first saw it, I thought it was madness and somewhat pointless but since I have experienced (albeit for an incredibly short time) immersion in near freezing cold water (Lake Huvsgul in Mongolia). I have a new found respect for his swimming endeavours which are utterly extraordinary and bordering superhuman.

However, his cold water swimming challenges are probably somewhat difficult feats to communicate because unless you’ve jumped in freezing cold water you have no idea how frightening it is! I think that his method of communicating the effect of climate change by swimming in the frozen glacial lakes is creative and a way to engage viewers further than just seeing pictures of receding glaciers and newly made alpine lakes. It creates a new perspective. The photography from his swimming was stunning.

Lewis Pugh’s TED lecture on his Everest Lake swim:

My cousin, James Peach, is partaking in an admirable challenge to cover the the height, width and length of Britain in 15 days.

The challenge starts in John O’Groats and heads, by bike, to Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the UK, which they will climb (coinciding with the 240th anniversary of it’s first ascent by James Robertson on 17th August 1771). They then continue by bike down to Bournemouth.

The final leg of the challenge involves kayaking from the mouth of the River Avon, along the length of the Kennet & Avon canal joining the River Thames at Reading and continuing on to the finish line at Putney Bridge, London.

They are raising money for the Enaikishomi Nursery school in kenya. Visit the website at http://www.britainintandem.com/ and follow their journey. (website appears to be down at the moment – contact  james peach on facebook for more info).

I find mind-mapping particularly useful for getting what I think out on paper. The nature of the process seems to bypass the evaluating of the thought processes and in this aspect coheres well with the technique of lateral thinking that involves generating alternative ideas quickly.

Basically there are two ways I normally approach a mind map. The first is to flesh out an idea (I don’t think mind-mapping is so good at this). The second is, as I said before, getting what’s in my head, out on paper.

So briefly, to create a mind-map in the first way, I put a ‘central topic / name of the idea’ and come up with a list of the first things that come into my head. I write these in the top right corner of the page. These are BOI (Basic Ordering Ideas). I put these in one column. In the other I ask myself the 5 Ws and 1 H (Who, Why, Where, When, What, How) and make another list (this doesn’t work well with all ideas). Then I select the first branches of the mind map from the two lists and I go from there.

In mind maps you are supposed to only put one word on a line, but for fleshing out an idea I find myself wanting to make a lot of side notes written out in full which is where I find the mind-mapping process falls down.

In the second way, I would write the BOIs (first branches) as before, and I would then extend each new branch (second-level) based on the first things that come into my head. It is important that the thoughts are spontaneous. You can record 5 or 10 items or however many you like.

You continue doing this until you create a root or tree-like structure. On the Tony Buzan website (the supposed creator of mind-maps as they now exist), he recommends drawing lots of pictures and using colours which is nice but I find I don’t always have the time for this. Therefore, it is cool to use a program like Xmind where I can include pictures, web links and whatever media I like into my mind-map. It has a nice user-interface and the performance is good. The mind-maps can then be exporting in a number of formats.

It’s a useful program which lends itself to expedition planning.

Other open source mind-mapping software

Cheers,
Andy

I was reminded about the documentary when I came across this video of a seemingly suicidal cycle courier race through NYC.

Found on this page. http://www.facsimilemagazine.com/2008/05/index.html

Trailer for ‘Pedal’ documentary. Outstanding stuff in filmmaking and content.

I met David, and Merabi and they knew many routes around Tbilisi and further afield in Georgia. I was thrilled at the prospect of exploring some of the country with them.

Merab

David

A bike trip in Khevsureti

Descending from the Shatilli pass at dusk

Read the full blog post about the Khevsureti bike ride.

I accompanied them on many bike rides local to Tbilisi and further afield. Georgia is an ideal destination for mountain biking. It has mountains and trails right next to the city and the Caucasus mountain range only a short drive (or cycle) away.

David told me he had occasionally taken out groups of tourists on bike tours so I offered to build a website (http://www.mountainbiking.ge) ‘Georiders’ – with the idea of further helping to promote the mountain biking community and attracting more people to visit Georgia and go biking. The website has gradually grown in popularity and receives an increasing amount of interest. Recently David sent me a couple of videos where Georiders has appeared in the Georgian and Russian press:-

If you would like to visit Georgia and book a bike tour please contact David and Merabi on georidersmtb@gmail.com or visit the website at http://www.mountainbiking.ge.

If you would like to work for Georiders and contribute to this growing mountain biking collective please contact us! We are looking for an additional volunteers to help develop the website, marketing, guiding, training, and exploring new routes.

If you live in Georgia and ride there or have been biking there before and have photos or video footage we can add it to the flickr and Youtube accounts.

“In November 2008, Simon Evans and Fearghal O’Nuallain began the first Irish circumnavigation of the globe by bicycle. Their unsupported expedition will cover over 30,000km, passing through 30 countries and some of the highest, lowest, driest, coldest, warmest and loneliest places on earth. In doing so, they will be promoting the positive contribution that cycling can make to mental health by encouraging people to get on their bikes, and by raising funds for Aware.”

I had massive respect for their plans and little was I to know then that they would be enjoying Christmas dinner in Yerevan, 2009 courtesy of Tom and his wife!

Congrats on finishing the ride. Their blog is an entertaining read with a good dollop of humour. They are now getting on with the next adventures.

http://revolutioncycle.ie

I’m also slightly jealous of Simon’s BMX skills:-

Simon BMXing from revolutioncycle on Vimeo.

But my travelling mind was shouting ‘what the heck are you on about? Of course I would like to eat a roast’. I know from my travel experiences that this demonstration of hospitality was not a strange thing. It doesn’t matter whether I am in England, Iran or Mongolia.

On Sunday morning I waited for a text or phone call to confirm or motivate me to leave the house. I sat in the living room when my girlfriend’s housemate walked in. I said I’ve been invited to a roast by someone I had never met before and he instantly said ‘woah! A roast, of course you should go’.

The bottom line is that there is nothing to be lost from accepting these sort of invitations and meetings. They are the way that serendipitous occurrences happen. I went to the roast; it was delicious, and made some new friends. My host at the end of the meal said that it almost didn’t happen as he was a bit drunk the night before, but the point is that it did, and he was a very good host. He created a situation that brought a group of people together who previously didn’t know each other.

These days I try to make a point to speak to random people if I can. When I am cycling I ask people for directions. Even such a small interaction can provide a satisfying experience. The experience of travelling by bicycle and the way I act whilst travelling by bicycle can be applied to everyday life. It’s kind of a nomadic existence but within a specific location. A city like London feels like more of a miniature country than a city anyway, especially when you move around by bike.

When Tom and I were  cycling in Mongolia we took a GPS. It was terrible for showing the location of tracks accurately. This was because when one track becomes too rutted then people drive over the steppe and a new track is formed. The GPS was useful for the location of settlements which were accurate and we therefore still used it. Nevertheless, there was a realisation that perhaps without the GPS we would have relied more heavily on the local population and our map and compass for direction.  Perhaps the GPS had detracted from our experience in regard to meeting locals.

Often there seems to be a lot of emphasis put on being ‘certain’. We are used to having access to so much information that can make us feel surer about our decisions. However, we can’t know fully the accuracy of the information if it is from secondary sources. There has to be space for using our intuitive skills and allowing serendipity into the equation. Perhaps the problem with the web, incredibly popular iPhones and other such gadgets is that they are too focused on giving us access to the information and cut out the process of getting to the information. Does it take away our ability to search out the information we need through other means other than using google maps or looking on wikipedia? Does it make us shun doing things that we are not 100% sure about? Does it make us worse at working out the information we really need?

On Saturday I met up with a uni friend I hadn’t seen for 5 years. I always found him to be an incredibly inspirational person. He was filling in what had been happening with since I last saw him. A few years ago he had been applying for jobs after completing his masters. He attended a job interview and was successful in getting the job however, it turned out that his success was partly a product of a shared interest with his interviewee and future employer, in the sci-fi television show Star Trek, in addition to his skill-set.

Later in the day he said a couple of things that made me think: ‘people don’t leave enough room for serendipity’ and ‘people aren’t intuitive enough’.

I say accept invitations especially from people you don’t know. Surely it’s only going to expand your friendship group and spread good vibes. Being a good guest is a skill as is being a good host. Interact with other people to find out the information you need to get to your destination. Respect the process. There is something magical about people interactions which can’t be replaced by technology.

“Utility cycling encompasses any cycling not done primarily for fitness, recreation such as cycle touring, or sport such as cycle racing, but simply as a means of transport. It is the most common type of cycling in the world”

I recently cycled from Dover to London and from London to Stevenage on the way back home to Leicestershire. I then cycled from Leicestershire to London last week. There is something satisfying about biking a route which you already have a strong pre-conception of but in fact have ‘no clue’ (from a cyclist’s point of view) about. I had always previously traveled the route by car, train, or bus, and therefore paid little attention to places situated along the way. Biking gives you a sense of the places and the geography. I can visualise the landscape of the areas which I cycled. ‘Personally’, I have discovered those places. They exist in my consciousness. I am reminded how easy it is to ‘get to the countryside’ and just how small England is.

Before I went cycling touring for the first time, I judged whether to make a journey to visit somewhere in England by how expensive it was to get there (I have been frustratedly reminded of this fact talking to people planning their summer holidays with the main reason people take flights instead of overland transport being the cheap price of flying).

I am surprised that I didn’t venture out more by bike especially considering the price of train tickets. A couple of days ride from my home in Leicestershire at a good pace, I can cover 150 miles. With the prospect of staying in the UK for a while, that gives me quite an area to see. The weather this summer has been great (so far). Perfect for exploring some of England.

I had never cycled from my home to London before and as I am planning to study there I am considering the general logistics of moving to the city (and how to get out into the countryside when I need to).

The traffic, in particular private cars, in Central London has decreased whereas the amount of cyclists have most certainly increased. It is not that difficult to pedal out of London. There are many ways to exit London on small routes and cycle paths.

I found this out when I cycled from Hendon in Greater London to Southwark, in Central London. I cycled on quiet residential roads, along a canal and on cycle paths beside the Thames until I was in Putney when I had to take bigger roads. There are many painted cycle routes which are at least there a reminder to motorists to be aware of cyclists, even if they don’t provide any protection.

I was talking to a guy from the Netherlands in Mongolia who mentioned that people in the Netherlands don’t just use bikes for getting around in the cities, but also for utility journeys over longer distances.

Last week I went to an interview for the design degree I applied for. The lecturer I met said (in jest) that they should get rid of the motorways and replace them with cycle lanes. This may be going a bit far, but when Tom, Mark and I cycled in the Netherlands, we often used the long distance cycle routes and some of these followed parallel to the main trunk roads or to the rail tracks (this was also the case in Switzerland).

I think it makes sense to offer cycle paths alongside trunks roads and railways which are built to provide the path of least resistance route to their destinations. This may encourage more people to use bikes for long distance utility journeys and tempt people off the roads when they are sitting in traffic jams.

Last week I was able to get a lift back home from London with my dad as he was on the way back from working on the South Coast. He was delayed because of jams on the M25 over 5 junctions. I finally met him in Redbourne, and we took the M1 which was also stop-start traffic. The huge amount of people stuck in traffic jams was sheer lunacy. It defies logic, is a complete waste of time and money and this is not an unusual occurrence.

The bike is a real alternative to the car for certain journeys. Certainly the bike is better for inner city journeys and the government is responding to this. Boris Johnson’s cycle superhighways are a start towards further helping people to transition to getting on their bikes for commuting. Could cycling be a feasible alternative for some motorised business journeys? Of course there are cycle couriers, but what other applications are there for bikes for business journeys? Perhaps long distance light-weight freight journeys? A quick check on Wikipedia revealed:

“In cities, the bicycle courier is often a familiar feature, and freight bicycles are capable of competing with trucks and vans particularly where many small deliveries are required, especially in congested areas. Velotaxis can also provide a public transport service like buses and taxicabs.”

“Utility cycling is believed to have several social and economic benefits. Policies that encourage utility cycling have been proposed and implemented for reasons including: improved public health ^[5][7], individual health and employers’ profits^[8] a reduction in traffic congestion and air pollution^[7], improvements in road-traffic safety^[7], improved quality of life^[5], improved mobility and social inclusiveness^[5], and benefits to child development.^[5]“

It is clear that in this area England are perhaps somewhat behind countries such as the Netherlands and Germany, but change is certainly in the air. The infrastructure in Central London may not be ideally conducive for making space for designated cycle routes. The ideal environment is a motorised-vehicle free city-centre. This certainly has many obvious benefits such as health, noise, and overall safety. When I was in Amsterdam many of the city centre areas were pedestrianised. People used bikes or the tram system to get around. It looked like high street businesses were also benefiting because there was room for many more people who were not just constrained to the pavements.

“In richer countries, where people can have the choice of a mixture of transport types, a complex interplay of other factors influences the level of bicycle use. Factors affecting cycling levels may include: town planning (including quality of infrastructure: cyclist “friendly” vs. cyclist “hostile”), trip-end facilities (particularly secure parking), retail policy, marketing the public image of cycling, integration with other transport modes, cycle training, terrain (hilly vs. flat), and climate. In developed countries cycling has to compete with, and work with, alternative transport modes such as private cars, public transport and walking.”

To conclude, there is certainly a distance to go to get more people, if not all people, on bikes in the city centre of London (and other English cities), in order to catch up with cities like Amsterdam. However, I think that it has to be the most logical solution to gradually pedestrianise certain areas of the city centre, spend more improving public transport and separate public transport lanes from cycle lanes where possible. Easy, direct and safe commuting routes from Greater London to the centre are a hugely positive step.

Using bikes for longer distance utility journeys may be somewhat wishful thinking in a world where people seem often to desperate to get to their destination before they have left. However, I will certainly be considering using my bike when I have got the time. It is excellent for fitness (putting in a full day of cycling). It is cheaper than using the trains, it turns the journey into a mini-adventure and it’s a great way of seeing some of this small country.

Trans Siberian long distance train

Here are some of my findings from this recent trip:-

I boxed up my bike and trailer into a frame box. I removed the forks from the frame and let the air out of the tyres. The box was bulging slightly but it was well packed with no holes or protrusions from stray quick releases, bolts or pointy bike parts! It was quite a feat to get all of the bike and trailer into one box, but it was indeed possible after plenty of beard scratching. In order to make it easier to move the box about, I attached a skateboard truck wheel to one end so I could roll it over the ground.

Eurolines are the main long distance bus service in western Europe. From what I understood, one piece of luggage can be a maximum size and shape of 100 x 70 x 50 cm. You can take 2 pieces of luggage plus one piece of hand luggage. The guidelines I read on the Eurolines website imply that they may agree to take things which are larger than the given dimensions if there is space. On the bus between London and Riga on the outward journey no questions were asked about the bike.

The onward bus company from Riga to Moscow was Ecolines. These are the equivalent of Eurolines in Eastern Europe I believe. When putting the box onto the bus at the station the driver mumbled, in Russian, something about thirty Euros  but showed me nothing to officially confirm this and he didn’t insist on charging me so I was able to get on the bus and nothing else was said about it; I wasn’t charged anything.

Tom and I took the Trans Siberian train from Moscow to  Ulan Ude in Russia. Although you are technically supposed to inform the train company in advance so they can put stuff in the baggage cars, a frame box will fit nicely into the luggage rack above the beds in the 4 birth train sleeping compartments. Our train was at 12 midnight and so the train attendants were less concerned about arguing and more with getting everyone on the train and going to sleep. This definitely helped.

In the 3rd Class coach on the Trans-Siberian

In Asia it is a lot easier to take bikes on public transport because there is much more of a ‘can-do’ attitude compared to western  Europe and particularly the UK where it’s more about sticking to regulations. However, having done a bit of reading about putting bikes on trains in the UK, I think if you are sensible and take the bike outside of peak travel times you can take a bike with a bit of smiling and negotiation. If you are able to pack the bike up, or even better use  a folding bike (which you are officially allowed to take on trains) then you’ll have less trouble.

Apparently the Chinese trains coming from Beijing to Ulaan Baatar and onward to Moscow are more fussy about taking bikes and you have to book in advance. However, we met 2 Fins and an Aussie who managed to take all their bikes (boxed up) on the train but they said that the staff were then grumpy with them for the entire onward trip.

On the way back from Moscow to Riga on an Ecolines bus I was presented with a laminated document which indicated I should pay £20 for carriage of my bike which was over half the price of the ticket itself. I considered this to be astronomical so I refused to pay it, although I wasn’t rude about it. My quiet persistence to not pay eventually lead to the bus staff giving up. My bike was well packed and weighed about 20kg. It was comparable in size to some of the other luggage being taken. In the Ecolines-specific guideline document I was shown details for extra charges levied particularly on bicycles packed in boxes. Personally I don’t understand why bikers get a raw deal compared to other people taking luggage of a similar size, shape and weight. My thinking is that planes are somewhat to blame with their often expensive charges for taking bikes and usually the bike-owner is a tourist and therefore an easy target for money-extraction.

The bus between Riga and Dortmund was a Eurolines bus and one of the drivers, on seeing the box decided it was a television and got rather angry, developing a strange twitch in his face. I countered this with a deliberate calmness. I repeatedly affirmed that ‘it was ok’ and ‘the box would fit’, and I corrected him that it was a bike not a telly. He wanted 30 euros for the bike, but he showed me no documentation and his fellow bus driver didn’t appear to be bothered. I decided it was an attempt to extract money from me for his own pocket. Nevertheless, I refused to pay again and all was forgotten. I even got a sticker which allowed me to take the bike on the next journey unhindered.

The rule of thumb is not to extract the michael when taking bikes on buses and trains. Pack the bike well and as small as possible, adhere to regulations if they make sense and be super-polite and calm.

I leave you with Tom’s excellent advice. “Just nod, smile a lot, put on a charming grin and say spaseba, spaseba, spaseba, sorry I don’t understand, everything will be fine, I’ve done this a million times before. Oooh looks it fits perfectly. Thank you!” and then walk away as inconspicuously as you can.