Changes

One of the results I find from travel documentaries, often on TV but also in book form, is the verdict 'rather him than me' (and it generally is a he). Yes, I'd like to go there and see what he's seen, but I'm damned if I would risk the danger, the potential consequences and/or the effort the whole experience required. This book is the epitome of that, for as much as I love most of the twenty countries it hits on – give me a chance, I've not quite been to them all – I wouldn't countenance making this exact and exacting trip. A couple of years ago, those in the know somewhere in an office deemed the route of the entire old Iron Curtain – the fringe of the Soviet Union, plus Romania, Bulgaria etc – to be a pan-continental biking route. With the news that he can dismiss other attempts and still have a claim to being the first person to clock the whole mammoth trip, our gutsy author undertakes it all, and thus surveys a scar across the entire continent to see if it's still visible, and what flesh it once upon a time divided. Oh and he did it on a Communist-era piddly little bike, lacking in both gears and good brakes, that was designed for nothing more strenuous than conveying you around a campsite, not for 6,000 miles… [[The Cyclist Who Went Out in the Cold: Adventures Along the Iron Curtain Trail by Tim Moore|Full Review]]

<!-- DO NOT REMOVE ANYTHING BELOW THIS LINE -->

|}