Henry, Dom & Fred cycle from London to Istanbul - 3 blokes, 3 bikes, over 2000 miles, 6 weeks, 0 common sense. 

If you think this sounds tough please direct any sympathy to those more deserving... we are just idiots that claim to gain enjoyment from sweat, saddle sores and sunburn. MSF provide emergency care across the world: to refugees that have been forced to flee their homes and to victims of war, famine or natural disaster. 

Follow @LDN_IST as we make a bee-line (https://beeline.co) for Asia.

A Final Update:

Apologies for the tardiness of this update, military coups, luxury hotels and relaxation in Cyprus somewhat got in the way!

Let's go back to where we left off, having entered Croatia it soon dawned on us we had no water, so a desperate search into a town of around 10 people began. With no grasp of the language the kindness of some locals came to our dehydrate aid, supplying us with ample frozen and ice cold water.

The ride through Croatia was pretty if fairly uneventful.

We soon swept back round into Serbia for some lovely countryside cycling soon approaching the major city of novi sad.

Some serious bowel trouble affecting master Blauth was the 1st sign of illness shown on the trip. This was probably due to a suspect sausage based pastry. After the end of the long day we were forced into a fairly hefty ascent that left us a top a ridge with a gorgeous burning sunset and some sort of vague bus stop esque shelter to sleep in.
Not for the 1st time we were kept cautiously awake by the never ending howling and patrolling of local dogs.

 The next stretch of the trip to Belgrade was probably the most boring cycling we had to endure with a nice 30km stretch of motorway cycling to find us in the capital. Here we began a frantic search for the ever illusive 'chamois' cream that thus far had kept the trip sliding smoothly onward. Unfortunately this was to no avail and as thus we left a local chemist with experimental creams of various varieties, including one that appeared to be fish based.

From Belgrade the next section of the trip was far more impressive. Toward the Bulgarian border we came to a series of canyons and valleys known as the iron gate, whilst giving us a few 10% climbs the section was largely flat, incredibly beautiful and had the added spice of some pitch black tunnels that carved through the hills.

After a good day of this we camped up before a short ride the following day to a lovely little hotel in negotin for our rest day.

Following on we pushed into our penultimate country of the trip in the form of Bulgaria. A country that began in an oddly shabby way and with some peculiar items in the local shop (namely a rye based drink that I would not recommend to a friend).
But after it ascended into rolling hills and countryside that seemed to exist in a series of plains separated by sharp valleys. We had some difficulty finding a spot to sleep the 1st night before finding a spot of land outside a locals house. They (evidently having a party) took pity on us and brought us homemade raki and wine, both of which enabled us to drift off despite the pounding music next door. Unfortunately the clear night sky, whilst providing a cornucopia of stars to gaze at gave us a bitterly cold nights sleep in the rather thin sleeping bag liners.

Groggily moving on another day if similar hills followed, which whilst beautiful was admittedly quite tiring. We arrived sweatily in the evening to a small town just off the main road and sat on a wall enjoying a cold beverage. Little did we know the wall belonged to 3 delightful expats who hearing our mutterings invited us in, giving us camping refuge and a sterling breakfast (including English tea) the following day to boot!

The following day included some beautiful hills in the evening that really kept us going, eventually after a very long day and some glorious scenery finding ourselves in a small mountain town just past a goat herder who we presumed to have sun stroke as he had Lost all of his goats. In the town we stopped for food at two bar-come-shops which seemed to be the social hubs I the town where a couple of young guys spoke English and were fairly impressed with our endeavour. Sadly they didn't offer us anywhere to sleep as such so we attempted to set up camp by the side of the road near a water fountain. As we loitered waiting for a boy and his father to move off so we could lie on the floor and nest for the night they looked at us perplexed. Correctly assuming we were going to sleep right there (fairly near some discarded rubbish and on pretty rocky and weedy ground) the diagnosed us as insane and chose to take pity on us. They gave us a bed in a small old caravan, food (more than we could eat which was saying something at this point in the trip) and raki and the offer of beer and home grown fruits and syrup made from the fruits and the list went on. The kindness was a new level for the trip, we managed to have a very blunted conversation via the medium of google translate on their 10 year old sons phone. Universally considered our best nights sleep of the trip, we also awoke to breakfast of traditional pancakes/roti style things with cheese.
From this we managed to cycle to next section to the coastal town of Burgas with utter ease and with this the end and Istanbul seemed painfully close, just a short stint over the oh so flat Black Sea.

Unfortunately for us the land route wasn't quite as flat with the rolling end of the Bulgarian mountain range creating the border and surrounding area.
Needless to say some long and sweaty climbs and falls followed over the next few days as we finished one day atop a peak that looked out a long way toward Istanbul, even the border crossing into turkey itself was on top of a hill, spurred on by the 1st road sign for Istanbul we raced up it allowing us to be the sweatiest and most disheveled of the tourists crossing the border.

The immediate Change of landscape having reached turkey was marked with the landscape becoming markedly more desert like and oddly Martian at points. Another section of steep descents and ascents followed (letting us clock a new top speed of 73 kph), we finally reached our first Turkish town and immediately tucked into kebab and chai aplenty.