Amy and Kyle's Around the world challenge

[Ming the Merciless]

What are the particular issues with cycling India, out of interest?

In 2023, India recorded over 480,000 road accidents, resulting in more than 172,000 deaths, averaging nearly one death every three minutes.

Plus the roads and cities are not quick for record purposes.

 

[matticus]

What are the particular issues with cycling India, out of interest?

It's clearly a massive country, so routing* could change everything (I think they stuck to the coast more-or-less). The problems seemed to be endless! Just from memory:
I suspect - linking to Ming's post above - India was where they were lucky to survive a hit-from-behind with (mainly) just damage to panniers (and a lot of shock).[EDIT: actually that may have been in Malaysia ... ]
Nowhere was "touring friendly" - they wasted hours on locating suitable accomodation+food**.
Steve got sick. Frankly many riders wouldn't have pushed through his problems, and it certainly cost them days on their schedule overall.
Debilitatingly hot for two Brits.

*I think this was also the biggest section of re-route forced on them - may have missed their planned flight into the country? Ooops! From Wiki: "Their trip took them through Czechia, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey and Georgia before closed land borders to Azerbaijan forced them to travel directly to India."
**This is stuff that more planning might have helped with; but consider how long this ride is, two people couldn't plan everything.

 

[matticus]

And another 20% exposes them to Australian drivers :-\ Everyone doing this seems to feel compelled to cycle across Australia though.

Having looked at a lot of maps today .... I suspect everyone goes through either NZ or AUS just to satisfay the "antipodal points" rule. NZ is a huge draw for Brits travelling abroad, so why not go there?!? And Australia has a long history of long-distance riding, so maybe the wealth of tips and info makes it attractive?
\speculation

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Part of Guinness rules is that you have to return with a Koala Bear.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Watched the equipment and mechanic videos yesterday. They have a Garmin Inreach, 4 GPS and must record heart rate or power in their gps files. The latter bit no different to the most miles cycled in a year records.

 

[DCLane]

I've not read that book, but may now. Jenny Graham's circumnavigation wins for me as being 'most impressive' (124 days, solo, unsupported).

I bumped into Jenny Graham in a petrol station of all places - we were both wearing LEL T-shirts. She seems an impressive lady from the short chat we had.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

The current record is, I believe, just under 205 days. That's 142km per day, so call it 150km per day to allow for the flights and for their scheduled days off for bike maintenance. Amy wants to do it in an arbitrary 150 days, whilst Kyle is merely aiming to go well under 205. So Amy's fast, 150 days, target is 205km per day (flights / days off allowed for).

The first two days were necessarily restricted to 360km in total by the inconvenience of the English Channel. Now they're in the flatlands of Gaul they've significantly upped the daily distance to either 260 or 270km today. I'd have thought that if they focus on staying uninjured, rather than going as rapidly as possible, then they will have quite a bit of time in hand at the end.

Their 'cycling journey' in the last four years has been pretty remarkable!

Ah, I was thinking they were targeting 150 miles a day (not days) which works out approx 240km a day average. They have plenty of contingency anyway, only riding half the day. At 150 miles a day, you are looking at around 120 days + flying days completion.

 

[T4tomo]

Having looked at a lot of maps today .... I suspect everyone goes through either NZ or AUS just to satisfay the "antipodal points" rule. NZ is a huge draw for Brits travelling abroad, so why not go there?!? And Australia has a long history of long-distance riding, so maybe the wealth of tips and info makes it attractive?
\speculation

Not for the first time, I've have no idea what the point is you are making? Or is it just Aus & NZ are good places to include on such a route?

(excluding the odd outlying island) Australia has no Antipodal points on land, New Zealand however matches up nicely over Spain (both relatively civilised countries to cycle across), which I suspect is why virtually all these routes include NZ and thus AUS by default - as its also relatively flat and has decent roads across the southern edge of it, so good for ~3000 miles of your journey

The other main Antipodal points are Argentina / Chile & Eastern China, and South East Asia (Indonesia philipines and surrounds) and Brazil/its neighbours which both present some significant cycling challenges on one end or both. They really need to up the amount of Cycle paths in the Amazonian rainforest....

if you were feeling very avent garde you could cherry pick a bit of Africa and a remote pacific island for your antipodals....

*The RTW "rules" have a part where you must cycle thru antipodal points and cover 18000+ miles

 

[DCLane]

This. He already looks fed up. He's lost alot of weight too. Amy isn't my favourite, but hats off to the challenge. T

He was smiling last week. This week I've noticed he isn't, or he's grimacing.

I do wonder whether at some point it'll become just her on a solo event?

 

[matticus]

Part of Guinness rules is that you have to return with a Koala Bear.

Well done clever clogs!

Do you want another challenge? What's going on with their route thru Bulgaria:

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Well done clever clogs!

Do you want another challenge? What's going on with their route thru Bulgaria:


View attachment 807324

Do we need to call the Wombles in?

Most likely a couple of GPS tracks not properly joined together when creating a big track for the tracking. Their navigation will likely be a track for each day and unaffected.

 

[chriswoody]

Do you want another challenge? What's going on with their route thru Bulgaria:

They seemed to be following national cycle route BP5 through that part of Bulgaria.

Then zooming closer into the area just east of Pirdop, it seems their routing software randomly stops, then starts up again south west in the town of Dushanti. No major dramas, they can just teleport across the gap, or ignore the glitch and keep on riding down BP5.