From Cardiff to Istanbul and back, on a bike –via We Are Cardiff

In 2012, John Chick decided to cycle from Cardiff to Istanbul and back to raise some money for a couple of local charities –£1 per kilometre to be precise.

Of course, if you are going to undertake such an adventure, a book or a feature-length documentary is par for the course. John opted for the former.

I had kept brief notes on my smart phone during the trip which could possibly form the basis of a book but converting the excited ramblings of an endorphin-fuelled and occasionally drunken cyclist into any sort of coherent order was another matter. Most cycle-touring books are written by cyclists who write, as opposed to writers who have cycled. Unfortunately, I am neither cyclist nor writer, but that wasn’t going to stop me. I envisaged knocking off the novel in a month or two, then kicking back and watching the royalties flowing in.

Source: From Cardiff to Istanbul and back, on a bike | We Are Cardiff
We’ve not read the book yet, but it’s only £2.49 in eBook form, so it is bound to be worth a punt.
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Of course, if you’d like to try some other books about riding epic distances, two by adventurer Mark Beaumont are worth a look. The Man Who Cycled the World is the pick of the two, as it was the first one –it was more earnest and interesting. The Man Who Cycled the Americas isn’t bad, but rather like Ewan McGregor & Charlie Boorman’s “Long Way Down” it had lost some of the charm of the first adventure once the corporate interests realised they were onto a money-spinner.