Most round-the-world cyclists worry about gears, panniers and headwinds. Shakhriyer Azizov has one wheel. The 27.5-inch unicycle rider left Istanbul in November 2024 and has since covered more than 6,000km, now pedalling his way across China nearly two years into the trip.

His route so far reads like an overland greatest-hits list: out of Türkiye through Georgia and Armenia, on to Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, home to Tajikistan, then Kazakhstan and into China. From there he plans to push south through Southeast Asia, before riding across Australia, the United States and Europe, and rolling back into Istanbul to finish where he started.

The maths of unicycle travel is humbling. Azizov averages around 13km an hour and manages up to 60km on a good day. He deliberately chose the smaller 27.5-inch wheel over bigger options — replacements like tires, rims and spokes are easy to find anywhere — though he admits a larger wheel would cover a third more distance per revolution. It's a trade-off between repairability and raw speed, and he's chosen the hard way on purpose.

The most striking stat from the trip so far isn't the distance. In 579 days on the road, he has slept in his tent just 12 times. Hospitality across Central Asia — and especially in Kazakhstan — has meant he's almost always been taken in by locals. He describes being welcomed like a brother in every country he's crossed.

Here's the part that makes the whole thing slightly absurd: Azizov had no expedition background and barely any unicycling experience. Born in Tajikistan but raised in Russia, he worked as a trader before setting off, and reportedly learned to ride the unicycle in just three days before leaving Istanbul. He picked the machine partly as a self-imposed challenge — he compares it to playing video games on the hardest difficulty setting — and partly for visibility. A man unicycling across Iran gets noticed in a way a cyclist doesn't, and he's been documenting the whole trip on YouTube and Instagram.

For travellers, it's a reminder of how much of Central and West Asia still runs on open-door hospitality, and that the classic Istanbul-to-Asia overland corridor remains very much open to slow, human-scale travel. If a first-time unicyclist can cross Iran, Afghanistan and Kazakhstan on one wheel, the region is friendlier than its reputation suggests.