Biking from Barnet to the Bosphorus

When Nic, my husband, asked if I fancied a trip to Istanbul, I assumed he meant by train. “Let’s cycle, it will be an adventure!” Having never cycled more than five consecutive days, our planned 50-day trip was going to be quite some challenge – we would average 80km a day. On 1 Sept 2025 we set off from our home in Barnet to reach the Bosphorus carrying everything we needed. I was on my Kinesis pedal assist bike and Nic on his 20-year-old road bike. Crossing London was an experience, however, I soon got into the rhythm of things. Each day we would arrive at our accommodation and then book for the following night according to where our route took us. The Komoot cycle app took us on bus lanes, roads, paths, country lanes, across fields and even through a 40cm deep river!

We only planned one day ahead as we wanted our journey to be flexible.  We discovered Warm Showers, an organisation where fellow cyclists host long distance riders. It was exciting arriving each night at a new destination. We stayed in a variety of places from log cabins to 2-star hotel and small apartments. Our only two-night stopover was in Budapest and Plovdiv, and other than that, we cycled every day. We crossed 12 countries completing 3455km in total, including 20km of climbing, visited six capital cities and crossed the River Danube 20 times. Amazingly, we had no punctures! 

The highlights of the trip were the lovely and helpful people we met along the way in all the countries we crossed. The lows were being chased by stray dogs in a couple of countries. I left St Helen’s 50 years ago, back in 1976, so this shows one can have adventures at any age! 

Thank you to Sarah for sharing the story of her cycling adventure. What an experience and what an inspiration to anyone thinking of taking on a new challenge at whatever stage of life!