Turkey

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Thursday 24 September.
I have been planning this trip with the CTC for some time now. I came to prepare my trustworthy Pendle Tourer on Tuesday and weighed it in the bike bag. It came to 24 kg and I had yet to put in my shoes and helmet and one of my panniers. I thought of the times in the past when I have been surcharged for it being overweight and thought that it could go a long way towards a lighter bike. I bit the bullet and went to Pendle cycles and Stephanie kindly bought me a new Specialized Tricross. I picked it up last night after having the gearing altered. It now has 30/42/52 chain rings and 11/30 cassette, giving me a direct drive (27") bottom gear, which should cope well with panniers on steep hills. I spent last night untill very late kitting it out and today I loaded it up with 10kg of panniers and tested it out up whalley Nab, which is 1 in 5, and we coped well, despite the heavy downopour. The brakes are now bedded in and gears set up so off we go tommorrow for two weeks in the Middle East to explore Cappadocia and the Taurus Mountains. We stay n Istanbul tommorrow night and then the following day we fly to Kayseri ready for our first ride and a visit to the churches and Troglodyte houses hewn out into the cliffs formed from volcanic ash.

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