Welcome to 2wheels: The Return

Edward Genochio's China - England bicycle expedition

September 2005 - November 2006

Greetings! Thanks for dropping in on 2wheels.

Let me show you around.

• NEW! 14th July: 2wheels photo archive
  
  For the low-down on 2wheels: The Return, start here for maps, routes, and other information on the bicycle expedition from China to England.
  
  
• To follow the progress of the expedition, check the 2wheels blog. To get 2wheels updates by email, subscribe to the e-mailing list.
  
  
• Read some of Edward Genochio's (mostly cycling-related) writing, and check for latest information about his book.
  
  
• If you're a journalist, have a look at the media section.
  
  
• Take a moment to stop by the 2wheels sponsors' websites, and to find out about the 2wheels charities.

Edward Genochio - "the man whose bike was stolen by a Mongolian horseman".

That happened on the original 2wheels expedition, from England to China in 2004-2005, during which I rode around 20,500 km through 17 countries from Exeter to Hong Kong, all on my bicycle. I followed the "northern route" from Europe to China, crossing Siberia and Mongolia before slipping through the Great Wall down to Beijing and south from there.

Now I need to get home - hence "2wheels: The Return". This time I'm going to take a more southerly, and more difficult, route, across the Tibetan Plateau and through Central Asia.

Beginning in Shanghai in September 2005, I aim to arrive in England around 14 months later, in November 2006.

As on the original 2wheels expedition, I will be going solo and the aim is to ride the whole distance, unsupported, on my bicycle. This "Return" route is going to take me through 27 countries, or thereabouts - and some of the most exciting expedition bicycling terrain in Asia, including jungles, mountains and deserts.

You will find route information here.

Most of what you find on this part of the 2wheels website is pre-departure information. I will post on-the-road updates, reports and photographs on my blog.

To keep yourself updated with 2wheels news, join the 2wheels e-mailing list.

If you are looking for information about the original 2wheels expedition, from England to China in 2004/5, go here for the old 2wheels website.

If you have a moment free, you might like to read a little about CereCare, Sustrans or Force Cancer Care, and, if you can afford to, please consider making a donation to one of these charities.

Thanks for visiting 2wheels.

Edward Genochio

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Search engines may like to know, if they haven't guessed already, that this site is about cycles, bikes, bicycles, cycle touring, bike touring, bike expeditions, and cycling, from Shanghai in China in Asia to Exeter in England in the UK in Europe, by bike, overland, through Chinese provinces including Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hunan, Guangxi, Guizhou, Yunnan, Sichuan, Qinghai, across the Tibetan Plateau (though probably not Tibet itself - that's the Tibetan Autonomous Region to you), Xinjiang (or should I say the Xinjiang Uyghur (or Uighur) Autonomous Region), and a number of other countries including Vietnam (wherein you'll find Hanoi and Dien Bien Phu, amongst other places), Laos, home of Luang Prabang and Vientiane, Thailand, especially in the north-west, home of Chiang Mai, back into China - we've already done that - over the Irkeshtam Pass, most likely, from Kashgar on the Silk Road (yes, cycling on the Silk Road, Mr Google, or call it Silk Road Bike if you prefer), into Tajikistan, which some might spell Tadjikistan but probably shouldn't, a country, however you spell it, that contains the Pamir Mountains, across which the well-named Pamir Highway runs, so add bike ride Pamir to your database, Alan from AltaVista, and Mikey from MSN - oh, and while we're on mountains, I suppose I should mention, however briefly, the Kunlun range (you might call them the Kunlunshan if you're Chinese) and the Tian Shan (Tienshan or Tien Shan or Tianshan to some) too, plus a scattering of place-names like Golmud (aka Germu, Geermu) and Yushu (aka Jyekundo) and some that I can't spell like Taxkorgan on the KKH (Karakorum Highway), where I'll be passing through on my bicycle on the way, and some like Mekong and Yangtze and Jinsha Jiang that are really rivers not places, and - ooh, I'm going in circles now, but not to worry, I'm sure Gary from Google can cope, and Jeeves from Ask too (if you're a real person, you really shouldn't be reading this) - then back to a few countries, I think I got as far as Tajikistan but possibly missed out Kyrgyzstan, which is a shame because I'll be going there on my bicycle/bike/cycle ride/tour/expedition too, though not to its capital Bishkek, and then on from Dushanbe into Uzbekistan, through Samarkand and Bukhara to Turkmenistan, home of the Karakum desert, an unconventional president, and a city called Mary, or at least it used to be called Mary until some Aussie guys turned up and started taking the piss, so now it's got a nice new butch boy's name instead (Merv), and I suppose I should also mention its gleaming capital Ashgabad, before whizzing off on my bike over the border to glorious Mashad, though I've seen it spelt with two aitches thus: Mashhad, but is neverthless in Iran (Islamic Republic Of, great place to Ride a Bike, I'm sure you'll agree), along those pesky Elbruz mountains and the shores of the oily Caspian Sea -- ARE YOU LISTENING, Lucy from Lycos? This is for your benefit, you know?-- over to those hard-to-find trans-Caucasian (or cis-Caucasian, really, depending on what side of the Caucasus mountains you happen to hail from) post-Soviet republics of Azerbaijan (that's right, Baku) and Georgia (yup, Tblisi) over into Turkey, along the Black Sea coast of Anatolia towards Istanbul (fka Byzantium, Constantinople, but not necessarily in that order), seated on the Bosporus, which I must cross before re-saddling myself on the European side, waving a tearful but brief farewell to Asia, and making for Greece, Thessalonica, more-or-less, and then through a succession of newish countries in the Balkans, many of them formerly part of Yugoslavia and generally falling into the eastern Europe camp - PAY ATTENTION THERE AT THE BACK, Johann from Yahoo! - namely Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro (formally part of Serbia and Montenegro, I suppose), Bosnia, Croatia and the Dalmatian coast, Slovenia and its lovely-sounding capital at Ljubljana and forgive me if I put too many, or not enough, js in that, and finally into all those prosaic places in western Europe that are hardly going to register on the search engines but I will mention here anyway for completeness' sake, Italy, Austria perhaps, Switzerland certainly (over the Alps), France, Germany, up the Rhine, Luxembourg if I'm lucky, Belgium, Holland might even get a look in, over the English Channel to Dover, England (yes, mah felluh Americans, that's England Europe), and thence through Kent and Sussex and Hampshire and Dorset and are-we-nearly-there-yet Devon to Jolly Old Exeter, at which point I may be permitted a full stop. Eric from Excite, I don't know if you're still in business, but in case you are, one final reminder of what this site is all about: a bicycle expedition (by Edward Genochio) on a bike (naturally), in which a great deal of cycling will with any luck take place, and which is written up here in the form of a bicycle expedition report (call it travelogue or bike trip write-up or cycle touring guide if you prefer).

Enough, I think.

If you are curious as to why I have gone the trouble of writing the preceding nonsense: don't trouble yourself too much about it, simply relax in the knowledge that it is all done to help those lovely little search engines make the world a happier, cleaner and greener place, and while you're being soothed into a contented, generous frame of mind, go take a peak at what some of these charities are up to.

Remember, folks, cycling is an energy-efficient and environmentally-sensitive way of travelling from China to England.

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