Round the world cyclist week 4: SE Turkey

As I write Globe cyclists, James Bowthorpe just notched up his 2800th mile on the 29th day of his journey with 140 to go if he is to achieve the record in the schedule he has set himself.

James is now into the Asian leg of his journey riding through south eastern Turkey hoping to reach the city of Erzurum by tonight (Sunday) from there he will be heading on to Iran and points east although the curret political instability in Pakistan means that James has had to alter his route to avoid that country and add more miles in to the US leg of his ride.

Last week's break in Istanbul gave him the chance to blog about the first three weeks of the trip – the longest continuous leg of the whole journey. Useful tips for any long distance cyclists tempted to follow in James' tyre tracks included how to get language lessons from border guards and the best ways of finding cheap hotels late at night. He also gives his thoughts on the performance of the kit he is using.

James also informs us that for the the first three week leg through Europe he didn't use padded shorts – they are on now though.

Since leaving Istanbul James has tackled mountains “Hmm. Today I will mostly be going uphill. Local just made mountain sign, pointed at bike and said Big Problem”, bought a hat, donned trousers because he felt shorts were becoming socially unacceptable, and more than once experienced the kindness of strangers, and had issues with his cycle computer, though aside from a temporary buzzing sound cured by some bees wax none with his Santo bike's belt drive. Oh, and he also started following road.cc on Twitter.

You can follow James' progress live at www.whereintheworldisjames.com which tracks his progress live by satelliete and updates every 10 minutes (he's done four miles since I started writing this).
You can also follow him on Twitter www.twitter.com/GlobeCycle and via his website www.globecycle.org.

He would also like to hear from anyone with a friend in Zahedan in Iran and/or Amritsar in India? If you do email: ontheroad [at] globecycle.org

James is also making videos as he goes and posting them to youtube – he's just uploaded 23 short vids which chart his progress so far here's one from the Bulgarian mountain leg of his trip.

James is making his round the world record attempt to raise money for research into Parkinson's Disease so far he has raised £33, 306.00 his target is £1.8m so head on over to his website and help him reach it.

He's done 2809 miles now.