We are about to embark on another cycling adventure - this time from Busan to Seoul in Sth Korea, a short one (abt 560kms) in comparison to our Rhine river challenge (720kms). Considering that both of us have been extremely busy and have not had the opportunity to train quite as much as we probably should have, it is a good thing it is shorter. We have about 8 days of riding, which makes it about 70kms a day, or 6 hours of riding a day at my speed.
With about 30 hours until our departure, our bikes are sort of ready to go in that they have been cleaned and checked for mechanical soundness, the racks have been installed, and panniers fitted. I have got my clothing ready and it now doing a bit of research on the best way route to follow, and downloading maps onto Garmin computers. The ride has many more hills than the Rhine ride, and some of them are really big mountains, so this will be challenging for me. The route is a mixture some old train lines filled in, custom made wooden decks and road riding. It also looks like I will have side panniers on this trip ... could be interesting.
We have checked the prevailing winds, and for most of the ride we should have a tail wind to help push us up the hills. The forecast is for cloudy weather, mid 20's with 40% humidity. Considering we ride in HK when it is over 30 degrees and 90% humidity, the low humidity might just help with not being too exhausted to quickly. We will see.
The first aid kit needs to have anti-inflammatory meds, pain relief, suncream, antibiotic cream in case of falls, bandaids, eye drops, lip balm, moisturiser and massage oil, saline.
Other things that need to be packed : - Sun cream, sun glasses, hats, water bladders that flatten when empty, instant sugar boosts (dried mangos, honey stingers etc), small camera, extra battery & charger, wet weather jacket, plastic bags, clothes washing soap, swimmers, ipad.
Items that still need to be purchased - decent front bike lights, Korean sim card for iPad so we can access all the important information as we go as English is not widely used in Sth Korea.
We have checking on a few blogs to get tips from others who have done the ride .....Most have traveled from Seoul to Busan.. we are going the other way due to the winds at this time of year, and there are more flights out of Incheon which increases are chances of getiting on a plane to get home.
World Biking - Riding the Rivers
Korea Bridge - Busan to Seoul
Bicycle Thailand - Seoul to Busan
Bicycle Thailand guy has created a Google map with food and accommodation pinned.
Ride with GPS - Seoul to Busan
JenModelM
Bicycling in Korea
Stripes Korea
10 Mag
Korean Government Information
The River Guide
The Biking Guide
There apparently two routes that we can take : One is NOT via the River at the Busan end and is 500km, takes you over two major mountains but supposedly takes a gentler route to get up them and then North of the dividing range follows the River Route into Seoul, OR follow the River Route the whole way which is about 100 km longer, general undulates along the river BUT includes some very steep climbs .... sigh - there will be NO avoiding the big hills anywhere. Pity about my training being so slack.
To keep our adventure a real adventure as per usual, we have nothing booked - except our standby tickets to get to Korea and back. We have a few ideas on what we want to do - Suanbo Hot Springs is one of these things. We will ride until we are tired and then find somewhere to sleep. Hopefully we will have maps this time.
The plane leaves HK at 2:20 am in the morning, and arrives at 6:40am. We will stay a day in Busan on Sunday to recover and get ourselves ready, and then head off on Monday morning. I need to book the van to take us & our bikes to the airport in HK.
I will now re-read our blog posts for our European trip to see what we told ourselves what to do better.
Stay tuned.
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| This elevation needs to be reversed - so the big hill will be closer to the end of the ride ... |
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