What follows is a country by country aknowledgement to those that have gone out of there way to help us out. That our family and (pre-existing) friends have been supportive goes unsaid. This page is for all the rest.
Australia
Australia
Huw and team from Commuter Cycles have been amazing. We initially approached Huw with a crazy idea of cycling across Mongolia and Central Asia on some Surly Long Haul Truckers and he has gone to incredible lengths to build us up two very attractive bikes.
It has been like having a specific bicycle consultant researching exactly what we need for our bikes. The planning for this trip has been vast, so to have the guys from Commuter Cycles give us an enormous amount of their time and experience has been invaluable.
As well as building up the bikes, the CC boys have given us regular organized tutes on bike maintenance specific to our trip and helped put together a handy spares/repairs kit.
Commuter Cycles are a local Brunswick bike store. They love bikes, and it shows.
You can check out our bikes on the Equipment page.
Richard from Allegro Bikes generously donated some lovely red front and rear roller classic Ortlieb panniers. He did this on the proviso that we use the money saved to get some quality parts for our Surly’s to enjoy the ride. You can read Richard’s story on the Allegro Bikes website. He’s done his fair share of racing and touring in the past and has now hung up the cleats to design, manufacture and distribute quality Allegro Bikes from his Northcote warehouse. Andrew’s housemate Cam owns a nice little single speed Allegro bike and is seldom late to an inner city café appointment, therefore these bikes must be fast and trendy (note: Cam is fast).
Commuter cycles (along with a decent list of additional bike stores in and around Melbourne) can set up with an Allegro bike/frame without any drarms.
South Korea
- Amy our first couch-surfing host who took us in for 3 nights and introduced us to Seoul
- Will and Jully, the South Korean cycling touring adventurers and 'warm-showers' hosts in Goyang City who welcomed us to their home (and country) for 3 nights...and then had us back again for another 3 nights while feeding us delicious Korean food and helping us with all sorts of last minute tasks
- Mary from Busan, who we surfed with for 2 nights. Her and her friends gave us a taste of Busan nightlife
- Robin, the guy on the ferry to Jeju with awesome hiking gear, who waited with us for over 15min to help carry our bags (both on and off the ferry)...and then gave US a present of some awesome hiking gear
- Idre and his family from Idre's Guesthouse for having such a comfortable place to stay in UB and for helping when the taxi driver was abducting Andrew
- Begz and family, who we couchsurfed with in the Northern Ger District of Ulaanbaatar. Thanks for the great intro to Mongolian life
- Dave and Mags, adventurous couple we met via the Couchsurfing site, who we hung out with in UB. They let us send some GPS equipment to their place while in South Korea.
- Kristen, the peace corps volunteer from Kharkhorin who we couchsurfed with for 2 nights in her ger. A lovely coffee-filled break from the road...with enchiladas.
