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And just like that, it is over.

The last days in Istanbul were everything a final chapter should be. We cycled around the city, worked a few hours each day to avoid arriving home to a mountain of backlog, and caught up with friends. The highlight for PJ was a dinner with Nihat, an old friend from Izmir who somehow managed to fly in from Canada just in time to share a table in Istanbul. Old friends, warm company, a perfect way to close twenty days on the road. Some things are worth crossing an ocean for. 🥂

Then came the journey home. We had hoped this part would be straightforward. It was not.
The bikes were repacked three times. The flight was rebooked. Things went wrong in ways we had not prepared for, and for a brief moment it felt uncomfortably like day thirteen all over again, which those of you following from the beginning will understand means a very specific kind of chaos. We will spare you the full details. What matters is that we made it, bikes and all, and that our families were waiting at the airport when we landed. That moment made everything worth it. Everything. ❤️

One thing we have not yet mentioned about the Balkan stretch of the trip: the diesel. Trucks, buses, cars of various vintages and various attitudes toward exhaust emissions, all sharing the same road with two cyclists breathing deeply at exactly the wrong height. By our own rough calculation, somewhere over the course of the Balkan roads we each inhaled the equivalent of around 400 cigarettes worth of diesel fumes. We are not doctors and this is not medical advice, but we are fairly confident the lungs will recover. Eventually. We are choosing to think of it as a character-building experience and are currently getting a lot of fresh air. 🫁💨

And then the number. The final donation total came to more than €19,000.
We are still slightly in disbelief about that. When we rolled out of Den Bosch three weeks ago with fresh coffee and Jeroen's Mini as a send-off, we hoped to raise something meaningful. What you all did was extraordinary. Friends, colleagues, clients, and people we have never met, every single donation and every shared link and every encouraging message added up to something that will genuinely change outcomes for people fighting this disease.

We are looking forward to handing the full amount to Jacco at the Oncode Institute, and we will do that together with Cor, Teri's husband, because his family made this fundraiser what it became. Teri was with us on every kilometre of this trip. She still is.

To everyone who followed along, donated, cheered, sent messages at Ty the right moments, and kept logging hours on Strava: thank you. Genuinely. You were part of this from day one.
It was a marvellous adventure. Sometimes very heavy, always worth it.
Den Bosch to Istanbul. Done. 🌉🚴‍♂️🚴‍♂️

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