Bird on Bike » Itinerary/Maps

Route Update

birdonbike — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 19:07:07 +0000

We have received several inquiries asking if we are running ahead of schedule and we feel a route update and explaination is in order.

The “schedule” got blown out of the water way back in Austria and we have been since flying, more or less, by the seat of our pants. Some days you wake up and decide to make changes; some roads take you in a different direction.

When we had arrived in Zadar, Croatia we were supposed to cut in land towards Bosnia, but the route was ridiculously mountainous and would have been frigid. We had met Tobias at this point and really enjoyed his company and the comforts of the Adriatic Coast. Then when we got nailed by wind and rain on the ride to Zadar, we decided to hop a bus to the south of Croatia. Since we gained five days time in about six hours, we decided to ride through Albania into Greece instead of taking the ferry in Bar, Montenegro to Bari, Italy, and then to Patras, Greece.

We were planning on riding through Albania to Greece, but then our road turned into a river bottom and we went through Macedonia instead. When we got to Greece and back to the Euro and pissed off sheepard dogs and crappy roads, we knew we wanted to get to Turkey quickly to find a place to take a vacation for a week or so.

So maybe we are head of schedule, but in reality, we took our proposed route and cut it into pieces. We have probably reduced the overall distance, but that was not our driving force to begin with.

The blue line is the Actual Route to date. Tomorrow we head north to Istanbul

Route Update

birdonbike — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 22:37:29 +0000

We seem to change our minds every other day. This route should stick a little while though.

Of Austria

birdonbike — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 12:41:33 +0000

We like Austria, we do. People are very friendly. In stark contrast to the Czech Republic, we are receiving lots of greetings, smiles and waves. When we set out to plan our trip and our highlighter came across Austria, we were never really interested in spending too much time there, but the highlighter traced a line that lasted for two weeks, in theory, but at our established limit of 70 km a day with or without climbs, the journey through Austira and its large mountains would last something like three weeks. Sorry, Herr Austria, but we are heading for Frau Slovenia, sooner than we had told you.

Here we go!

birdonbike — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 23:03:33 +0000

Our bags are packed, our tires pumped up, and we are ready to go! After some last minute issues printing out the homemade map to get us through the first 40km to where our nice maps begin, we are ready to go — we think. Tomorrow takes us along the Czech border about 75 km to Mikulowice, CZ for our first night’s stay. We don’t have any accomodations lined up and but know that there is at least one Pension (B&B type) and a hotel, however, it is unlikely that we will end up in the hotel. We always have the tent with us and we’ll try to use it as much as possible. Better to save our money for a few splurges here and there, not the first night.

We are bound to be sore for the first week, and from what we have read, the first week is always the hardest. We have been off our bikes for what seems like a century, but in reality is only a couple weeks. Our second day brings us to the first climb, and our only, for the rest of the week, that will surely test our bodies. Luckily, we have a comfortable place lined up in Olomouc that our new couchsurfing.com friend, Tereza, is setting us up with. For those of you who do not know of couchsurfing.org, it is a social network of travellers all over the globe that offer up there couch and hospitality, in exchange for the same. It has a very good system of checks and verifications, and we hope to use it as one of our biggest tools for meeting interesting people along the way, getting to experience differents cultures, and to save a bit of cash.

We have posted a new Map of our proposed route from Zabkowice, Poland to Istanbul, Turkey and it can always be found here, and will be posting larger pieces of this map, like the one below, throughout our journey. Wish us luck in our first few days here, and check in the next day or two (or three) for updates. For those of you who may be new to our Blog, Take a minute to read this and this, to get a little backstory. Hope you enjoy our adventure

Best

Chad and Jowita

Prepared for Departure

birdonbike — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 21:46:51 +0000

It is Monday. Our apartment has been packed up and moved and the keys are now in someone else’s hands. Our bicycles are packed into their boxes and our bags in varying states of disarray, concurrent with our minds as we try to wrap up the many loose ends expected when departing the country for four, maybe more, months. Tomorrow evening we board a plane to begin three days of displacement with the oddly shaped, two hundred pounds of possesions that will accompany us on our bike ride. We fly from Chicago to London to Prague were we will stay for one lovely evening prior to boarding a series of buses bound for Jowita’s hometown, Sabkowice Sl., Poland.

(One item we should get out of the way is how to pronounce Jowita’s name, repeat after me…. ‘yo-v-ta’. Some might also known her by her middle name, Marzena, pronounced ‘ma-jshay-na’. Use which ever you prefer. Really, they are both quite pretty names.)

We will stay with Jowita’s brother, sister-in-law, and her little goddaughter and visit the family, where we will be happily force fed too much food, and be challenged to drink another shot of vodka at Jowita’s cousin, Marcin’s, wedding by her uncles. After a couple weeks, the gluttony will end and we will struggle to keep our stomachs full as we burn more calories than we can keep up with as jump on our fully-loaded, bicycle shaped, semi-trucks towards the Czech Border.

Our first month will find us riding through the Morovia Wine growing regions of the Czech Republic, along the March and Danube Rivers through Vienna to the foothills of the Alps where we will be faced with a mountain range we find hard to know if we are prepared to ride through it. We continue through the mountains to the foothills of the jagged Julian Alps in Slovenia and then to the Slovene Coast for our first taste of the Adriactic Sea.

Our next two months are even farther from certain than the first. While the route is very thoroughlly planned for our first month, we can expect, and even seek out a variance. The next two are entirely tenative at this point. We know we will enjoy the islands in Croatia, but for how long? We know we want to see Sarajevo but don’t want to ride in snow. We know are going to Greece, but do we have to go to Italy first? The hard and fast is Istanbul. Our return flight is from Istanbul, but with all the variables, the date of that flight may change.

We look forward to sharing our adventure with you and hope you can follow along with us. Please send us emails, become our friend on facebook and check back often for updates. Our little 12″ Powerbook is joining the other seventy pounds of stuff straped to Chad’s bicycle so that we can update the blog as much as we are able.

Off to the HandleBar for one last drink with our friends for the year.

Enjoy the ride

Chad Tyler and Jowita Wyszomirska