Our route to Oman

Originally, there was only the idea of a three- or four-week bike-touring round-trip through Oman, but very soon the plan developed to cover the distance to this destination country also by bike. Of course, this had the consequence of much more extensive considerations about the itinerary and route.

As we had already cycled the Danube Cycle Path from its source to Vienna a few years ago, it was obvious to choose Vienna now as our starting point and to follow this river cycle path from there to Bulgaria and then continue through Turkey and Iran to the Persian Gulf. There we would have reached the United Arab Emirates by ferry and, after a relatively short overland route, Oman.

However, the current domestic political situation in Iran made us consider an alternative route, namely cycling through Turkey from the north with a diversion via Cappadocia to the south, crossing from there via Cyprus to Israel and continuing the journey via Jordan and Saudi Arabia to the Persian Gulf with the UAE and Oman.

With the resulting total distance of around 5,300 mi and the rule of thumb of 250 mi/week with five cycling days and two rest days, which has proven itself on previous tours, it was clear that this would be feasible within the available time frame of six months, including sufficient buffer time.

After this rough planning, we then developed the detailed route plan with virtual daily stages with the help of the convenient Komoot route planning app. Of course, we included our ‘must sees’ as well as optimization steps to adapt the elevation gain to overcome to our performance level or our ‘pain threshold’. It was especially important to us to allow enough time for a stay in Istanbul, where we will meet up with our Iranian friends from Rasht. We also had to allow time for stays in Israel – visiting Jerusalem and the Dead Sea as well as hopefully also a diving course in Eilat – and in Jordan – visiting Petra and Wadi Rum.

We will then conclude with a round trip of around 800 mi through Oman before heading to Dubai, from where we will fly back to Germany at the end of January 2024.