Cycling the world (Days 1464-1474) Türkiye Part 4: The D915 - simply the best road in the world

Now this might be a record folks, it's 5.52 in the morning. Stayed in that hotel last night, the petrol station, £13 for a lovely room and a hot shower. Can't go wrong. But the wind in this part of Turkey is terrible and it's highway all the way. So we're trying to beat the wind by setting off at 5.52. Let's see how we get on. Beautiful day, quite cool at the moment. Let's go. Well not a bad road for a dual carriageway, just gently rolling hills, knocking off the miles, knocking off the feet. Look at that, happy days. Like being back in the Midwest. You can see you won't make it out but somewhere on the horizon there is the road going over a hill and we like to play a game. We measure our priorities. I say it's 5.4, what are you saying Debs? 6.5 and when we get there we'll measure it against what it is now and see who wins. Just a bit of fun. Right, there's the top of the hill. What are we on? 5.4 or 6.5 Debs? 6.4ish so. 6.4, Debs is nearly on the nail. Especially when I wanted to be up there. Yeah and that's strictly suppressed so I think you've got it bang on. All right. It's taken me four years I think to beat you but I'm going to get there eventually. Now that's what you call a wide load. Wow. Well folks, another massively good wild camp. Debs is blowing up the bed in the tent because it's a bit blurry tonight but again we've got a bed of wildflowers. We've got wormwood, thyme, cornflowers, all sorts of things. Beautiful, look at it all. Alliums, thistles and what a view Debs. Look at this folks. We couldn't quite make it down to the river but look at that for a view. Look at the gypsophila. Good camp Debs. How far have we been today? 96, 97 miles. Miles? 97? Are we mad? It was just easy today. Just going to float. Hey well folks, Turkey's about to get very hilly. Look at what we've just come up. There's Debs. Bring on the mountains. Bring on the mountains. What about this Debs? Beautiful. It's like being at home. Going up Chimney Lang. brings. Evening folks. What about this for a wild camp Debs? 180 degrees of joy. I know. Sun's going down there which means that's west and the view east. Look at this. That's where the sun's gonna rise. She's got no spots on her to wake up. The sun is coming up. The sun is coming up to play. What a beautiful morning. What a beautiful night. Debs has got her coffee so she's a little bit happier. I hope you kept waking me up. We weren't quite right with the sunrise. It's not over the mountain over there. It's just over here. But I am a very happy boy because one of the things I was worried about leaving the Nikon at home was the astrophotography. I used to love taking pictures at stars. So we got the old pixel phone out last night as well as the GoPro and I think I was quite happy with the results. I hope you were too. Might even have another look at them now on screen for They were very, very, very, very good. I didn't need to be working at the quarters for this morning to see more pictures of them. He's like an angel look. No, do an angel song. I don't do any angel songs. I'm not an angel. Well what an awesome wild camp that was and we start the day with a downhill. Let's go. Look at this folks. Living the dream again. Where are you from? Germany? England. Oh, welcome. Thank you. Look at this for a bread shop. We can sit in there to eat it. Well, it's bread. English. It's warm. How long is it? Show us how long it is. Hold it up. So Tom's been fantasizing about some nice French bread for breakfast. Well, we've got Turkish bread instead. Lavash. Lavash I think it's called. 60p and Tom wanted cream cheese and I've got cream cheese and jam and honey. Let's give it a taste test. Oh, it's warm. I think there's Instagram people that like it warm but it is. What a find that was. Best bakery in Turkey so far. Best bread we've had so far. Fantastic. It's like Scarborough again but we've come to tackle what is known as the Turkish death road. The D915 I think it is which has some serious switchbacks. You know we love a death road. death road, unlike the trampoline del Muerte in Colombia which we went up, is we go down. But first of all we've got a two and a half thousand foot climb to get to the top of the pass and then we go down about seven or eight thousand feet down some wicked switchbacks and here folks is the start of the two and a half thousand foot climb and there's snow on the top and it's looking a bit stormy hence the rain jacket. Oh god, I hope it'll be all right. Let's go. So Debs, I'm beginning to question our sanity coming up on a day like today when the forecast wasn't good. It looks decidedly stormy up there. We could have stayed in Beybert but adventures don't come easy. Headwind, storm, hail, what more could you want? D915 here we come and it looks like you're brewing us up all right welcome. Oh I tell you smelly vision needed again so you're not going to get the benefit but all along here there's wild coriander and it smells gorgeous after the rain. Smells like fresh coriander, beautiful and you can tell how long it is since it's rained because the road's all foaming up with all the dust and dirt because it's been weeks and weeks I think since it's rained. Seems crazy to say when it's actually raining on us and blowing a gale but I think it might be brightening up a little bit. I don't know maybe it's going to blow itself out. Let's see is this mountain just posturing or is it going to give us a right beating? Let's go and find out. Yeah oh the climb is steep, the wind is brutal, headwind, massive headwind. If we get out of this alive we'll remember this, we spawned this I'm sure but for now it's a challenge. Look at the speed of this, look at that struggle. The struggle yeah that's what we're here for, the struggle. Look at her go, oh sweet Jesus. For like 100 yards we were blown uphill and now it's like literally I think this must be two mile an hour max. Unbelievably hard this, unbelievably hard. Look at this mate, the wind when you turn around on the hairpin do this, you hardly need to pedal, look at this, I'm not pedaling and you almost blow yourself for nine percent. Whoa what a challenge. This climb, there's Debs, we're almost above the cloud layer, you can just see the blue sky freaking out on top but uh hard, very very hard. That wind man, that's so tough, you can't see the top yet, I don't know where it is, I'm not looking at the map, I'm just grinding on. Oh it's cold as well, I need to layer up but I want to wait till I get No Barry warned us not to come here in this weather. God let's go and see if we can see any switchbacks, god it's cold. Absolute whiteout, somewhere down there there's spectacular views of switchbacks. The fickle fingers giving us a right roasting Debs. Yeah come on let's get down, remember we were with Geoff and Helen and we were in that cafe and how much it improved when we went down. It is cold though, it is dangerous. Well you can tell how cold it is, look at this, snow, I wonder whether we see snow. Bloody hell, oh let's go. Such a shame as well because the flowers here are completely different than they are down lower down as you might imagine, they're all like alpine, very leafy and green because of all the moisture. did us some chai, got our sticker up there but in case you wanted to know what it looks like when it's not foggy, this is it. We've just come down these switchbacks, we're about here and look at it, wow, oh wow, what a road. But it says there's going to be no sun today at all. Well the view started to open up a little bit, look at that, I don't think I've ever seen such a vertical road. Top 10 road Debs. You're getting there for me from the sheer terror factor. So the mist has cleared and even though we missed the top half of this road, we're thinking it could be the new number one road Debs. I think the whole atmosphere probably was good, I couldn't see what the hell I was sighting down there. Those switchbacks man and look it's just the life that surrounds you, you've got the fresh water, look at all these bee hives on the roof and all the verges are just completely full of wildflowers. It's starting to get a bit more hedgerow like up the top, they're all orchids and stuff. Hey well Debs, the morning after, the Dealer 915. It was stunning, it was stunning and I'm thinking it's number one in the roads Debs, what do you think? Yeah I think so, just so dramatic, I mean it was so disappointing at the top, I mean the disappointment was sort of hidden by our need for survival because that storm at the top was horrendous, the wind was bad, it was freezing, we were getting cold so we just had to get down and you couldn't see the top half but then we stopped for that chai, that guy saved us with a cup of chai. It started clearing and it just looked amazing so I think the fact that it still has more to give and we're still up there as a candidate for number one means it's got to be number one. I think so, we were tempted this morning just to leave our bags here and cycle back up but it is 45 miles, 8,000 feet of climbing. No word of a lie, I would come back here and I'd ride up that bugger, 33 miles, 7,000, 8,000 feet up but I'd do it again because it was so stunning and today there's not a cloud in the sky, look at that, oh well, a fickle finger, maybe it was war, we couldn't do any more, there's some tunnels coming up which are going to be pretty hairy so we stopped in this rather posh looking hotel. Right folks, now we've negotiated those tunnels, we're nearly at the Black Sea, I think this cloud around the corner could be over the sea. First time I've seen the Black Sea, I don't know why they call it the Black Sea, we'll endeavour to find out but let's go and have a look. Hey and there folks, in rather unappealing dual carriageway circumstances, it's the Black Sea. We did it, we did it, we did it again, thank goodness for that, thank goodness for that, not a nice thing, not a nice thing at all. Hey, so sometimes the tunnels are avoidable because this country road's taking you around them so we've given this tunnel a miss and we're back on the country roads, who knows where it's going to take us, we know it's going to go uphill that's for sure because the tunnel down there goes through the mountain, let's go and have a look. You can't really avoid them, our own baby tunnel, that one. We're not used to this, look it's raining. We're at a campsite, found another fellow cycle tourist, Luis from Brazil. Have a look at that on Instagram but while we're waiting for it to brighten up, we're reflecting on the 915 and whether it was in fact our number one road. I mean the top 10s for us after four years are pretty important and I think top 10 roads is probably the top of the top 10s and I don't know, is it number one, is the 915 the number one road in four years depth? Yeah, yeah it is, it is. I mean I don't know about you but what made me think about it, I said if there was one road in four years we could go back and ride again, you could only go and do one, what would it be and for me it was that one. With better weather, yeah better weather, I mean I'm glad we're not over there today, look at it today. I mean that's why we went for it because we knew the forecast was brilliant, we might have had slightly better weather yesterday, I don't know, it was really cloudy at the top. And now I'm getting hassled by little Fido here, get away, he's so cute, he's Fido, you're not having my breakfast, go away. I don't like his poodle coat though, no it's had a funny haircut. Yeah so 915 folks, our recommendation, it's the best road so far. Morning coffee, shall we have a second coffee? Yeah, I've even hit the flask is full of hot water. Okay, a bit of a grey and wet one for the last day in Turkey, but a fair play because we've had waterfall sunshine for most of the rest of it. What a place, Turkey part two, Pamukkale, Cappadocia, oh Matt P, Cappadocia, cracking. And then the mountains and a surprise, new number one road with the D915. What about it? I'd come back to do the D915, I'd probably come back to Turkey, but I'd love to come back and do that road and go up it. But next stop is Georgia. Now I'm really excited about Georgia. I love that post-Soviet monuments and mosaics, we'll see some of them and hopefully some great Georgian hospitality too. So let's go and see Georgia. Thanks for watching folks, see you in the next one. One car back, coming through.