The life of Trek

Based on the previous two posts by my team mates, you might be thinking that Blue Trek (aka. my one) is unsuitable for this epic journey across two countries; over mountains, through jungle and across a salt pan. While being the oldest, and possible most lovingly used bike in the group, I have no doubt that Trek will not let me, or the team down. 

Trek could not have been a much better birthday present to a 12 year boy living in Aberdeen -  a “proper” mountain bike. After a few years of splashing through muddy Scottish highland trails, Trek moved with me to Oman, where the desert dust compacted the joints, and the heat annealed the frame. During this spell Trek was stolen once (and chased after, and recovered), crashed several times, and picked up a pair of (admittedly crap) cheap tires - the kind that wear out faster than brake pads. Most recently Trek moved to Bath, where it has enjoyed an easy few years town riding, and a short holiday to Morocco. 

Now entering its 11th year, Trek is still going strong, and is raring to go for its next adventure. While some say Trek’s pannier rack is held together with string, and that it’s back wheel is about to fall off....and this is admittedly true....it will not be for long! A amazing touring upgrade will be revealed soon!

Planning, planning and more planning

As promised in my last post, planning for this trip has been providing plenty (probably too much) 'constructive' distraction from working on my final year project.

We've now got a rough outline route planned, internal transport booked and should be getting accommodation for the the first few days in Peru sorted soon. The rough plan at this point is to fly into Lima, spend a day there, ostensibly to look at the many and varied sights on offer (including several museums full of Inca pots and a water fountain display) but in probably in reality just to sleep off the jetlag of the flight over there. On the subject of our flight over to Peru, it has transpired that Iberia (who we have ended up flying with) have somehow still not fitted seat back TV screens on their planes despite it being the year 2013 which looks like it could make the 11 hour transatlantic flight even more of a feat of endurance that it already will be. I think I have at least partly solved this problem by acquiring a huge memory card for my phone to load up with films. I could even duct tape it to the seat in front to recreate the personal tv screen experience.

After our day sightseeing/sleeping in Lima, we fly on an internal flight from there to Cusco so we can go and see Machu Picchu. Although MP will obviously be very touristy and expensive, we though that we can't really fly half way around the world and bypass it. After a night in Cusco we are getting an early morning train into the mountains to a town called Aguas Calientes at the foot of the mountain that MP is on. After a night here we'll do the whole looking round MP/climbing a couple of the surrounding peaks thing before getting a train back to Cusco where after one more night in a hostel we'll start our cycling tour! I'll leave Sunny to explain the route of the bike ride because he's done more planning of it than I have.

Apart from all the planning, there has been a certain amount of kit purchasing which has caused me some cash flow issues recently (I had to ask the Bank of Mum & Dad for a loan the other day, wuh oh). Did a big online order this morning to kit out the bike with new pedals, cables, bar tape etc.

All getting very exciting.

Toby