Europe's Most Dangerous Roads for Cyclists

I came across an interesting report this morning. It provides statistics for European bicycle-based death rates. Oh, happy day.
 
Don't worry, I'm not a monster. I'd wanted to write about Europe's most dangerous roads for cyclists. From my gut feeling, having cycled throughout most of Europe, the countries that felt scariest to me were Romania, Ukraine, Russia and the UK, the first three because of terrible roads and bad driving, and the latter because there are just too many people in a small space and the roads are badly designed for cyclists (yes, I know they aren't designed for cyclists at all). Anyway, I wanted to put together something a little more objective.

The best road in Ukraine.

Despite the report describing how many people died on the roads, it missed context. The death statistics mean nothing without bicycle usage data. So I had to go elsewhere for that. In the end I divided the percentage-of-road-deaths-that-were-cyclists from the first document by the percentage-of-people-for-whom-cycling-is-the-main-mode-of-transport from the second. (It would have been better to divide by the total number of kilometres cycled but I don't have that.) The result gives the Danger Level, the higher the number, the more dangerous the country is for cyclists. So – ta-daaah! – I present to you...

The Cyclist's Top Ten Most Dangerous European Countries 
(Danger Level in brackets)

1. Portugal (2.15)
2. United Kingdom (1.43)
3. Czech Republic (1.37)
4. Romania (1.26)
=5. Ireland (1.2)
=5. Italy (1.2)
7. France (1.1)
8. Spain (1.0)
9. Slovakia (0.92)
10. Slovenia (0.90)

(I also had data for Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Luxembourg, Netherlands and Sweden.)
 
Both documents give information for Poland and Finland but both countries' bike usage is listed as 0%, which is unlikely for Poland and definitely not true of Finland – they have a well-developed cycle path network – and so maybe the source data is dodgy. I didn't see anyone else cycling in Poland and so if we give Poland a low percentage usage but higher than zero – you can't divide by zero – then Poland leaps to the top of the Danger List. From what I've read on cycling forums, quite a few would agree with that. Congratulations, Poland!
 
But at least my hunch about the UK seems right, which, as a Briton, is no consolation. Get on your bikes and cycle to mainland Europe. Almost everywhere else is safer.

The European death document also tells us the most dangerous day of the week to cycle. It's Saturday in Slovenia, Tuesday in Greece and Monday in France. But in Denmark, the Netherlands, Romania and the UK, as well as overall in Europe, the day to stay indoors is Friday. So, it's maybe better to sleep at your desk on Thursday night and cycle home again on Saturday. Or just stay at home and plan your next cycle tour.
 
Safe pedalling,
Steven

Europe's Top 46 Touring Destinations

To kick off this reworked blog, I figured I'd write something to which I could add a sexy clickbait title, like "The 7 Most Delicious Ways To Cook Your Cat" or "The World's 13 Largest Penises (You Won't Believe Number 4. I Was Shocked!)" - y'know, that kind of nonsense.

Usually, these types of article don't provide any justification for their ordering, but I will. There's a very popular website called Crazy Guy On A Bike, where nearly 10,000 cycle touring blogs are collected. If you type something into its search engine, you get told how many of its pages contain that word. So I figured that by typing in the countries of Europe, it would provide a measure of their popularity.

Now, I'm aware that this is slightly flawed. For example, if someone cycling through Grimsby mentions a particularly lovely turkey sandwich then obviously Turkey scores an extra point. Likewise, if someone in Scunthorpe waxes lyrical about her love of the Wombles, and in particular Uncle Bulgaria, again we get a skewed result.

There are other problems too. Some countries have several names - United Kingdom might be Britain, or England, or Scotland, or Poundland - and Ireland could be north or south. Let's not get Sinn Fein involved. Also, these results apply only to English language blogs and so really it should be "Europe's Top 44 Touring Destinations For People Who Write In English", but that would have been as crap as Abu Hamza on Bullseye.

But forget that. Just like those adverts for expensive shampoo, let's pretend it's scientific.

So, here's the list with the hits in brackets.

1. France (66670)
2. Germany (41052)
3. Turkey (27918)
4. Italy (26355)
5. Netherlands (21629)
6. UK (21067)
7. Austria (20148)
8. Switzerland (20039)
9. Spain (17679)
10. Belgium (14752)
11. Ireland (14462)
12. Hungary (13650)
13. Croatia (13261)
14. Greece (10833)
15. Bulgaria (10405)
16. Slovakia (9648)
17. Romania (9229)
18. Slovenia (9142)
19. Czech Republic (8873)
20. Denmark (8700)
21. Serbia (7964)
22. Poland (7402)
23. Portugal (6883)
24. Luxembourg (6112)
25. Norway (5667)
26. Iceland (4744)
27. Sweden (4431)
28. Montenegro (4035)
29. Russia (3966)
30. Bosnia & Herzegovina (3446)
31. Albania (3440)
32. Liechtenstein (3172)
33. Finland (2783)
34. Estonia (2473)
35. Lithuania (2275)
36. Latvia (2264)
37. Monaco (2009)
38. Ukraine (1702)
39. Malta (1566)
40. Macedonia (1537)
41. Andorra (1269)
42. Cyprus (944)
43. Moldova (657)
44. San Marino (606)
45. Belarus (594)
46. Kosovo (466)

It's fairly obvious that France would get the number one spot, but what surprises me is how popular Turkey is (or maybe how popular turkey sandwiches are in Grimsby). That said, maybe Turkey really just means "everywhere else in Asia", as it's the easiest way to get to everywhere else in Asia. I'm discounting the idea that it's loads of people writing, "You'll never get me going to Turkey!"

What also surprises me is how high Liechtenstein is. I've been there. It's rubbish. And it beats all the Baltic States and some of Europe's other gems. What's going on?

Anyway, there you go. What do you reckon? Are there any countries in this list that deserve to be higher or lower?

Happy pedalling,
Steven

PS. In case you were wondering, that shocking number 4 was David Cameron. I thought he would've been higher. He is a massive penis.

A New Start

It's time to breathe life back into this blog. It's no longer "Getting There By Degrees" (the diary of my 22,000 mile ride) and is now "The European Cycling Blog".

From now on, it will be a more generalised cycle touring blog, not solely concentrating on my adventures, but hopefully with as much nonsense as before.

Bring it on!

The Giant Hogweeds of Destiny

Let's start off with some drama. Today it was only down to pure luck that I wasn't killed. But let's come back to that in a bit.

So I'm in Russia. I'd been told all sorts of horror stories about Russia and so let's explode a few myths:

Myth 1. The Border is Bad: I'd been told border formalities can take up to three hours and include a full bag search - yikes! I have self-labelled blood pressure pill bottles. My crossing involved no search whatsoever and took less than ten minutes. Next!

Myth 2. The People are Bad: You'd think that Russians were demonic if you believed what I've heard. They aren't. Yesterday, due to reasons that I'll explain later, I had another spoke go pop. Although I was only halfway through my day, luckily I was just a few kilometres from Ostrov, a town of about 20,000, which around these parts is massive. I figured it'd have a bike shop. In the past, most bike malfunctions have resulted in some serendipitous interaction with the locals. Given Russia's monstrous reputation I doubted it this time.

I saw a man with a bike. He had his head down. So I asked him, in my finest Russian (which isn't fine at all) where  the bike shop was. He looked up, pissed as pint glass full of newts, with food - or vomit - all around his mouth and slurred, 'Da!'. OK, maybe he misunderstood and so I tried again. But no. I got another 'da!' And then another. Maybe his sense of the absurd lead him to an extremely literal form of dadaism. Or perhaps, as I suspect, he'd had one bottle of vodka too many. Not a good start, Russia.

But the next cyclist I asked, Alex, spoke about ten words of English, took me to the bike shop, waited outside with me until it reopened after lunch, purloined a spoke and a spoke key - at least I saw no money changing hands - took me to his garden, introduced me to Valya, his retired English teacher wife, gave me lunch, attempted to fix my bike with less knowledge than I have (the bike shop only sold spares, it didn't repair), gave up and, as time was getting on, helped me find a room for the evening at a place for Russian army officers. I don't want to sound ungrateful but the hotel - which, by the way, is too grand a word - had hints of Patarei Prison, the scary one I'd seen in Tallinn the other day. But on the plus side it was cheap, and cheap is good. Alex and Valya were a great couple and if the entirety of this country is filled with Ian Huntleys, their loveliness still balances out Russians on the niceness scale pretty damn well.

Alex and Valya

Myth 3. The Roads are Bad: Ha! They aren't bad. They are fucking atrocious. They would make the transport minister of a banana republic blush with shame.

I'd been lulled into a false sense of security. From the Estonian border to Pskov, the road was fine - nice tidy tarmac, a little hard shoulder, and no traffic. Only the nasty Giant Hogweeds standing sentry along the roadside gave a hint of the horrors to come. After Pskov, the hard shoulder becomes a sand and gravel pit, alluringly rideable at times, when the intimacy of a speeding juggernaut three inches from your left-hand cheek gets too much. The road surface itself became Ukrainian in its shitness, which was another reason why the sandpit was alluring. For the quality of ride, these roads may as well have been made of cobbles, and that was the coroner's verdict for yesterday's spoke death.

Today things just got worse. The trucks got closer and so the sandpit became even more alluring and, like all sandpits, you never know how deep they are. And then your front wheel goes in and your handlebars go somewhere else and you fall into the road on to the tarmac, skinning both knees, praying, "Please, please, please let there be no cars coming from behind." I got up as quickly as I could and spun around. Phew, an oddly clear bit of road. Not wanting the shock of a dismount to unnerve me, I continued immediately, with a racing heart and stiffening, bloody knees. It was a few kilometres before I stopped and took stock of what had happened. Then I carried on and the same thing very nearly happened again, this time with a juicy truck hovering just close enough behind to squish my head. Luckily I caught the bike before it threw me from it.
Roads in Russia are scarce. There's no alternative to the route I've been taking. It took the rest of the day to come to a big decision.

That this is stupid.

Myth 4. Moscow is Rubbish: Apparently, Red Square aside, there's very little worth seeing. This is one myth that I won't be able to explode, because my decision is that I'm not going to go there. I've checked on Google StreetView, and with the information available, I would be encountering these types of roads every day for the next three weeks. I just don't think that my luck could hold out that long. Besides, I have a lovely girlfriend and a doting mum (and a dad, but dad's don't get factored into these equations for some reason) and I'd like not to die just yet. I'm not missing out on much. Russia is just a massive forest. There are few settlements of any size. There are only so many times you can look at a tree and go, "Oo, it's a tree!" But boredom isn't the reason for avoiding Moscow. Death: That's the reason for avoiding Moscow. Even the stupidly expensive visa isn't enough to make me want to carry on.

Opuchka, the town I'm in right now, is my last chance to escape Russia relatively easily. It's only 70 kilometres to the Latvian border. The rest of my trip will carry on as planned but I'll get to see both Latvia and Estonia again, which is nice. I liked both of those countries. Neither of them tried to kill me.

So has my challenge failed? In a way, yes. But in another way, hell no. I started off with a plan to see 50 capitals. But then I decided to include Cardiff, Belfast and Edinburgh. So even by dropping Moscow, I will still have done 52 capitals. Turn a negative into a positive.

UniCycle52 - it's the future, baby! And I'd quite like to have a future.

To Russia With...Fear

Yes, I know, I know. Just over a month ago I promised you the second part of a blog about Belarus and I didn't deliver. I've seen four more countries since then too. I could have told you about Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, but I haven't. One excuse was the exam I had in Riga whose revision took up all my time, but even that was two weeks ago. But look at it this way: Why would you buy my book at the end of this ride if you knew everything that had already happened? You wouldn't, would you? Oh, and the things I've seen! That woman in Warsaw giving birth to a live monkey! That velociraptor on the loose in downtown Vilnius! That amusing parsnip shaped like a penis! OK, I made the last one up. So you'll just have to buy the book.

Amazing times though I've had, amazing people though I've met, amazing food though I've eaten in all these countries, I don't want to linger on the past. I want to talk about the future. My immediate future. And, if the advice I've received is correct, my immediate impending doom. Y'see, Monday brings me to the border of Russia, and apparently Russia is scarier than a naturist weekend on the surface of Venus.

This advice has come from Brits, Poles, Lithuanians, Latvians and, most worryingly, real life Russians living in Estonia. There was an all-night party a few days ago and about twenty of them impressed upon me just how likely I am to be robbed, skinned and eaten alive as soon as I take my first breath of Russian air. And some of them had even been there!

Last night I Skyped The Lovely Nina. I mentioned my concerns and the warnings about being robbed. Always positive, she said, "You'll be OK. No one'll rob you. You look like a tramp." Now, I'm not sure how much consolation that should be from your loved one, but I've gone and ruined it. Today, here in Tartu, only two days' ride from the Russian border, I foolishly went and got my hair cut. I've de-tramped myself. With my newly coiffured Estonian style and slightly greying stubble I could pass as super-tycoon Roman Abramovich. I'm a sitting duck. I may as well just fling my rouble-stuffed panniers from my bike as I pass the robbers in the streets.

A lot of Russia's problems seem to revolve around alcohol and I've seen a few warning signs myself. The closer I've got to the border, whether in Ukraine, Belarus or the Baltic states, the more people you see stripped to the waist, clutching bottles and staggering about the place. I saw one wobbly guy like that today, but he had the charming additional feature of very recent and extensive Dr Frankenstein-style facial stitches from which leaked fresh blood.

If people are *that* pissed I don't mind so much. There's only so much damage you can do when your central priority is balance. But here's the worry: Put them behind the wheel of a car and their balance isn't an issue. They can scream around, pinging cyclists from the road at will, just for a laugh. And, according to one person I spoke to, here in Estonia the police are incorruptible and so drink driving equals prison, whereas in Russia all you need to do to avoid arrest is to buy the copper a bottle or two of vodka and it's all sorted. And then I might be being pinged off the road by the fuzz!

Then there's the other problem: Moscow. Moscow is absolutely massive! If you've ever wondered how daunting it might be to cycle into London or Paris or Rome, all I can say is don't be a wuss. Moscow is sooooo big that the whole of London could comfortably fit inside the first 'o' of Moscow. More people live in Moscow than in the whole of Europe, including Russia. That's how big it is.

But I have a map of the city. And I think I have a small party of British cyclists meeting me about 100 km from Red Square to escort me in, although they've never attempted this route either.

Mmm, what could possibly go wrong?

Belarus Part 1: Dreading Belarus

It was with a mixture of excitement and dread that I was approaching Belarus. It is, after all, the last dictatorship in Europe. It's also the last country in Europe to hang on to communism. Communism suggests poverty, shifty secret police and endless queues for basics like bread. Is this what I would find? I had so many questions but the internet couldn't tell me. Really it was the unknown that I was fearing.

There's a web site called CrazyGuyOnABike.com. There you can find nearly ten thousand blogs of cyclists who have a story to tell. If you need to research your own trip, it's a great resource to learn all you can about the places you're interested in visiting. If you type in 'Belarus' and search through the results you realise that only two of those bloggers ever visited Belarus, and one of those was a quick two-night stay to the far north-west corner of the place. No one cycles here. There must be a reason for that.

Well, there are lots of reasons. First of all, the visa is expensive and tricky to obtain. Second, the politics of the place scare a lot of people away. There may also be fear of radiation, since Ukraine's Chernobyl selfishly dumped its worst on the south-east corner of Belarus. There's a chunk of the country that's still a restricted area.

But I came here, via the swampy south of the land. The border guards were friendly although the mosquitoes weren't. I came away with my visa stamped and my legs smeared in my own blood as I wiped off hundreds of the buggers. Three days later I was in the little town of Mar'ina Horka. I had a reservation at a hotel there. Such is bureaucracy here, and my rubbish Russian, it only took 25 minutes to check in.

The next day, the morning of my 43rd birthday, I had some very special cycling companions: Bruce, the UK ambassador to Belarus; Martin, a good friend of his and whose wife also works at the embassy; Chris, number two at the US embassy; and Denis and Pavel, two Belarussians, one of whom had done an MBA with the Open University. It was nice to hand over the route-finding decisions for one day only as Chris directed us for 80 kilometres on smaller roads to the riverside cycle path on the edge of Minsk. This path would take us all the way to the centre of my 39th capital and to the appropriately named Victory Square.

The team: Martin, Denis, me and Bruce (and Chris taking the photo)

Bruce, the UK ambassador, clearly loves a challenge. Of all the European ambassadorial roles this one has to be the trickiest. He has to make connections within Belarus but he can't get close to the regime. He has to be positive about the country but remain critical about it too. His mantra is: "It's clean, it's safe, everyone has a job". The way that he rattles off that statement makes you expect it to be followed with a big, fat 'but'. But there is no 'but'. It's a clever trick, positive and yet critical.

But these three things - cleanliness, safety, full employment - aren't to be taken lightly. There's no other country in Europe that can boast this trio. As soon as I hit Mozyr, the first town over the border, it was obvious that the place was a lot tidier than any of the countries I've visited so far except perhaps Austria and Switzerland. And full employment is a first. No one was homeless or looked like they were desperately short of a meal. The roads here are the best in non-EU, eastern Europe (so far), the exact opposite of Ukraine's, the worst in Europe, just over the border. And Belarus's apartment blocks, at least the ones I saw, are not crumbling like Romania's. Something is right here.

But then again something's wrong too. There's a darker side to Belarus but for the casual cycle tourist it's not something you would ever see. Bruce has been here nearly a year and he admitted that he hadn't seen it first hand either. I'm perhaps not seeing the table, just the varnish but it's a varnish that enables me to walk around feeling entirely safe.

I'm torn. Freedom is everything. The UK's politics is adversarial. Whenever one side proposes something, the other side takes the opposite view. It's about scoring points. It's about one side gaining or retaining power. We have some massive decisions to make soon, decisions about climate change, peak oil and sustainable pensions for a start. Their solutions will not come within a single term of office. They'll take decades. And it'll be painful. But it can't happen with our system of party politics because whichever side is causing the pain necessary to solve the problems will be kicked out next time around. There needs to be a stable government in power for decades to see the plan through to its conclusion. The system here in Belarus, with one man - one dictator - in control,  for all its serious human rights abuses, is more geared up to solve long term problems than the UK's. And yet freedom is everything. Freedom versus solutions. That's why I'm torn.

And so while I came here with a dread of the country, I leave with a grudging admiration for the place. Its past political violence and police heavyhandedness can't be forgiven but I will happily wear the bright red and green Belarus t-shirt given to me by Martin as a surprise birthday present (it was a surprise for him - he didn't know it was my birthday) and talk fondly of the country and remember these few days not as a nightmare I survived but as one of the highlights of my entire trip.

Sorry, that got a bit serious, didn't it? Part two will be back to the usual frivolity and tell of a great bunch of co-riders, jazz concerts, reindeer soup and elk for lunch, cheeky photographers, ambassadors and Ferrero Rocher and include no politics whatsoever.

да пабачэння!

Chisinau & Kiev

Sorry, it's been a couple of weeks, hasn't it? I've been busy with the cycling but also revision for my MT365 maths exam on the 11th June in Latvia. Since last time I've seen two more capitals, Moldova's Chisinau and Ukraine's Kiev.

What can I say about Chisinau? Well, I can't see many people adding it to their bucket lists. It's got no real sights to see and none of that magic that you sometimes find in smaller cities, like the joyous Sarajevo. Moldova itself was lovely, a giant allotment of a country with, it seemed, each household growing fruit or vegetables in its back garden, maybe out of necessity but it still looked pretty. Moldova does countryside very well. But its cities are not up to much. And the country as a whole is desperately short on road signs. Finding your way out of a strange, car-stuffed city with half a million inhabitants and without any help at junctions or roundabouts is a bit taxing. Perhaps it's the Moldovan government's way of keeping you trapped in town spending your money.

Luckily, using the power of my trusty compass, I escaped the city. The first road sign confirmation that I was on the right road out of town came about 20 kilometres from the centre. I was heading to Orhei or, rather, a small village, Trebujeni, nearby that has a little, pink house. And after the traffic, noise and dirt of Chisinau it was lovely to spend one evening sat in the garden of the little pink house, reading as the sun went down, being served up way too much Moldovan home cooking. Don't worry, it didn't go to waste; I took cakes and pancakes with me the following day to sustain me on the next leg. If you fancy a trip to Moldova, skip Chisinau and go to the pink house.

A week or so later I was hauling myself into Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. I'd been warned that hotel prices in Kiev were inflated. Although my first Ukrainian night cost me only €8, the cheapest bed of my entire tour, elsewhere in Ukraine I'd been paying around €25 for a room. Kiev would be double this, giving my budget a good kicking. Ten minutes after hitting the city proper, I found a hotel that €50. I was all ready to accept this when the glum receptionist added that she wanted another €4 per night to lock up my bike. Every other hotel on this trip has done this for free and so I walked away. If I'd found an offer so soon, how hard could it be to find a second?

It would be two hours before I found another room, cycling around a 2.5 million inhabitant city without a map. The first hotel I approached was full, the second was, ahem, a dog hotel (OK, I know the Ukrainian word for 'hotel', but not 'dog'). The next was full, the next's only remaining single room was 'premier', whatever that means, and was going to cost me €170. Er, no thanks. The next was full. I was beginning to think that I might end up sleeping in a park. But then I found a tiny place, with only seven rooms, and they wanted the same price as the very first hotel and were happy to include the price of the stored bike. Result! Much longer searching and I might have returned to the dog hotel and given them €20 for a cage.

So, having cycled around much of Kiev already, the next day I went out to explore. I wonder if all this city seeing is making me slightly jaded. Kiev has some lovely churches, the glittering, onion-domed towers of Orthodox architecture, but it also has a lot of the crap that comes with a successful tourist market, people dressed up in costume to winkle the cost of a photo out of a passing tourist. You could choose from a rabbit, a pharoah, Scrat from Ice Age and a manky-looking home-made Bart Simpson with a nose that would have been more more suited to Squidwood - all national icons of Ukraine, as you well know. And you also had plenty of those turnips who dress up as statues and then stand about. I think if you've looked at the balance of your talents and decided that your only chance of income comes from standing still for hours on end, it's probably time to get that CV moving with an OU course.

Chisinau and Kiev may not have been this year's Rome or Istanbul but I'm glad I've seen them, and even happier that I saw all the places in between. But now it's time to go as eastern European as it's possible to go. Next stop, Belarus!