A BOURNEMOUTH man is cycling 15,000km home from Shanghai.

Johannes March-Ludick embarked on the mammoth challenge at the beginning of August and hopes to be home by Christmas.

The 22-year-old is riding alongside his friend Rory Johnson, 21, from Alton in Hampshire.

The pair met at university in the Officer Training Corps and decided they would ‘push the boat out’ and take on the challenge.

“We floated the idea of this trip, once we finished uni, should we try doing something a bit audacious,” Johannes said.

Bournemouth Echo: Johannes and Ryan are cycling the Silk Road route back to the UK.

“We put our heads together and made it happen.

“The idea was that we would follow the old Silk Road trading route back to England."

Johannes and Rory have reached Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, covering around 5,500km so far.

Their journey through China was not without its troubles, as they travelled through areas where 'few tourists go'.

Johannes said there was a 'pretty steep learning curve' when they arrived in China, but that they made good progress along the route. 

Bournemouth Echo: The pair are cycling along the Silk Road route.

“We went to a few of the major cities, so Shi Huang, where the Terracotta Warriors are, which is a bit of a highlight for us," he said.

“We basically planned our route, what’s the fastest way to get from A to B and what’s the flattest.

“Unbeknownst to us, we were travelling through these areas where as far as we’d been told, no foreigners have been there in many years.

“We got picked up by police, spent nights in police stations, and went through some pretty serious questioning when we rocked up in towns where quite clearly we should not have been.”

Bournemouth Echo: Cycling across China.

While they have had run-ins with the authorities, including having a group who Johannes believes may have been the intelligence services, he said the people in China were really welcoming.

The pair made quicker progress through the 'highly-policed Xinjiang region' than anticipated, and have even gone viral on social media in China.

After being turned back from a checkpoint where their bikes had been confiscated due to the lack of the right documentation, they hitched a lift on a tourist coach back to the point once they had their documents.

There, the tourists were having a singalong and Johannes was handed the microphone.

“There's only one song for it, a tour bus, Sweet Caroline,” he said.

“I think they enjoyed it.”

The pair will now head through Tajikistan to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

They will then fly across the Caspian Sea into Azerbaijan, ride up to Georgia and into Turkey before heading home through Europe.

To follow their progress, follow @silk_roadies on social media.