5/2/25
Jonathan got up early and started dismantling the bikes. Front rack and mudguard had to go. Pedals too. The rear derailleur cable had been causing issues for the last 4 months. The outer had been cut way too short. The pannier bag pressed on it causing intermittent shifting issues. Fortunately we had some extra outer with us and put a longer piece in.
We didn’t have any pancakes. Trying to get out the door a little earlier. But it failed to work anyway as we were way too leisurely. Today we were going to go to the Asian side. Across the Bosphorous on a ferry. It was a bit confusing to buy tickets. We ended up with a single card with 10 passes, that you can share, but when we went through the barrier it took 2 passes each. Turns out each pass is worth 20 Lira.
The ferry was quite big and could easily take hundreds of passengers. Looking out across the water there were many ferries moving around at any one time. On the other side we got off at the port of Kadıköy. The bus station was right outside but there were so many buses and the numbering system made no sense to us. We had to ask a driver where the ER1 was. Our card was at least only charged for one pass each this time.
We were heading to Bağdat Caddesi, or Baghdad avenue. A very long old shopping street, there’s no interesting old architecture though. First we visited the Apple store, which is actually a Fosters+Partners design, to buy airtags. Expensive but hopefully worth it to make sure we knew where our bikes were after they left us at the airport. We paid about £100 for 4 of them. We thought it wise to get them at the official store, having seen so many fake apple products in just a couple of days.
It started to snow. We were walking down Bağdat Caddesi back towards the Bosphorus. It was about 4km down the busy shopping avenue. Now we were in Asian Istanbul there weren’t any tourists but us. It was a typical city scene. The snow turned to rain. We almost got a bus but ended up walking the whole way to the cheap vegetarian restaurant we’d found.
We snuck inside just as the rain picked up. They sold wraps with a little buffet of fillings including falafel, chips and salads. Not everything was vegan but they told us what was what. We also bought a cup of vegan ‘aryan’. It’s a very popular yoghurt drink, in Iran too. It wasn’t the greatest taste to us, but worth trying at least once. The restaurant was popular with young people, mostly women. Perhaps students.
The rain had stopped being so vigorous. We headed to a nearby barber shop. Jonathan hadn’t had his hair cut in many months and we found a recommendation online. It took a couple of tries to communicate how much hair Hussein the barber should lop off. It was a thorough haircut, beard trim and then washing. He even stuck his fingers in Jonathan’s ears.
We wanted to make one last stop at a vegan patisserie called Sisters&Harvest. It was another bit of walking but the cake was enticing us. We bought two chocolate cakes and a crème doughnut. Dessert in hand we beelined back to the dock. We took another short trip across the Bosphorus and enjoyed the outstanding views again.
On the way back home we popped into a bike shop. This one looked fancy unlike the ones we’d already been to. They didn’t have a 9 speed cassette, but they did have a brand new bike being unwrapped. It had tough cardboard tubes for the axles and the mechanic gave them to us. Result.
When we got back home we cut the longer rear axle tube down. Now we had one for each bike. We test activated an airtag, they’re pretty nifty trackers. For dinner we made some garlic fried rice with red cabbage, carrot and nuts. At last it was time for tea and cake.
Surly They Won't Make It 