If you were listening to TMS during today’s tea break or have been reading his blogs, you will be well aware of Oli Broom’s solo-cycle to the Ashes in Australia. I am with him in Istanbul at the moment writing a feature for next month’s Wisden Cricketer.

I am not going to scoop myself but I wanted to give you a quick peek inside Oli’s trip. Eleven countries down on his way to Brisbane, he is almost through Europe – from Turkey he heads alone into the Middle East, Africa, Asia, the Far East and Australasia. For a Chartered Surveyor from Berkshire that is definitely the unknown.

Genuine danger awaits – there are parts of his route where he will not see another person for days – yet if this is a concern Oli is far too British to let on. In fact ‘British’ is exactly how the camera-woman who has followed Oli around Istanbul described his trip to me. I presume that is a reference to eccentricity rather than drunken yobbery.

So far Oli has been filmed in Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria and Turkey by Eastern Europeans captivated by his enthusiasm and sense of adventure. He makes his own luck – as of this morning our plans for official cricket in Istanbul tomorrow had fallen through. Within hours and following a chat with his hotel staff a meeting with a local government official had been arranged. Now, our ‘knockabout’ tomorrow afternoon will be in the shadow of the Hagia Sophia – the greatest building on earth for 1000 years.

Oli’s trip so far has been full of fortune like this, too much for it to be a coincidence. As West gives way to East and his adventure really gets going, he is going to need that luck. But somehow, just as I am convinced that the torrents of rain that are currently lashing the Golden Horn will disappear by 2pm tomorrow, I have a feeling that Oli Broom will make it to Brisbane come November.

Oli Broom is cycling to the 2010-11 Ashes and is blogging at www.cyclingtotheashes.com. Find out more information about his trip, his route, his charities and his sponsors there.

You can find him on Twitter @cyclingtoashses

Sam Collins is website editor of thewisdencricketer.com

You can find him on Twitter @wisdencric_sam