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Introduction

In January 2006 we set off to cycle the 10,000 miles between London and Beijing. We will be riding unsupported through some of the wildest and remotest landscapes in the world, hoping to raise £30,000 for charity along the way.

David Hempleman-Adams MBE, OBE, possibly Britain's greatest living adventurer, has very kindly agreed to support us as expedition patron.

Equipment

The first major decision with cycle touring is whether or not to to take camping gear. Tents and sleeping bags add a lot of weight but give much more flexibility with route planning, and make the trip much cheaper! As we've all just left university, this is a good thing. We also need lots of tools and spares to cope with bike problems - anything from a puncture to a broken spoke or chain. Finally we need some medical supplies, to cover us for everything from a headache to malaria, plus sterile needles in case we need injections anywhere. We've been on the Expedition First Aid course run by the British Red Cross which was excellent and will certainly help if anything particularly bad should happen (or better still help avoid it in the first place).

Although we have some of the equipment already, a lot will have to be bought new; if any manufacturers or shops could help us out with this we would be hugely grateful! We can offer advertising on this site, press coverage, product reviews or pictures of the kit in action.

A full list of the equipment we plan to take can be found here.

Visas

With the route roughly decided, the next challenge is investigating visa requirements for each country. Fortunately thanks to Europe we won't need any visas until Turkey, so the first couple months will be easy. The Turkish visa itself is relatively straightforward, and can be obtained at the Turkish border. All subsequent visas (Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and China) will need to be applied for at embassies or consulates before reaching the border. Unfortunately they all have a limited period of validity between issue and entry to the country, so we can't get them in the UK in advance. Our current plan is to spend a couple weeks in Istanbul sorting out all the visas. Iran is likely to be the most difficult; several British cycle tourists have recently been refused Iranian visas, so we may have to be creative in order to improve our chances. Turkmenistan is also notoriously awkward, and we may have to do with a 5-7 day transit visa which would mean a mad dash across the country to reach the Uzbek border before the visa expires!

Vaccinations

As we're going through a number of disease prone regions, we'll need quite a few vaccinations before we leave the UK. The ones need are:

• Hepatitis A & B
• Polio
• Tetanus
• Diphteria
• Typhoid
• Rabies
• Tick borne encephalitis (optional)
• Cholera (not essential but provides some protection against E Coli based diarrhoea, so worth having)