So I’m now in Istanbul and I’ve spent the day cleaning my bike, sorting kit out and eating. Basically tomorrow is when I’ll become a tourist. This means I have very little to say about the day’s events. Because of this, I thought I’d take the time to summarise the European leg… although I probably …
Day 26 – Alexandroupoli to Tekirdag – End of leg 1
Leg 1 is done! 3960 kilometres and over 176 cycling hours… Quite honestly I’m shattered, so this is going to be a short summary.. I’ll put up a more detailed one tomorrow or something. The wind this morning was awful. Predictably, I had a headwind, but it was probably the worst I’ve ever faced. I had …
Continue reading "Day 26 – Alexandroupoli to Tekirdag – End of leg 1"
Day 25 – Nea Peramos to Alexandroupoli
Today was another long one. And after a fairly disappointing breakfast I wasn't particularly motivated. The wind was in my face on and off all day but almost never behind me. Because of this, it's been a very similar day to yesterday I won't bore you with the same story, instead I'll talk about something …
Day 24 – Giannitsa to Nea Peramos
Today was a long one.. So setting off at 9 wasn't really the best start. Regardless, I got going in a good mood and immediately encountered the wind; which today, started off as a crosswind. There are a few reasons why a crosswind is annoying: 1. It's not behind you 2. One side of your …
Day 23 – Aetos to Giannitsa
Today - as expected - didn’t start that well. I woke to see the roads still covered in snow and gale force winds still blowing. The sun was up though so I was hopeful that soon I would be on my bike. A frustrating few hours passed and eventually I got fed up and headed …
Day 22 – Kastoria to Aetos
It was always the plan to have two short days yesterday and today.. This was not quite what I had in mind. It was snowing all through the night so when I got going this morning I was pleased to see that it hadn’t settled on the roads. The temperature was about -3 degrees and …
Day 21 – Pogradec to Kastoria
Today was a short day (relatively speaking) so I wasn't in a rush this morning. I had a very good breakfast and got going about 9. In the first 2 kilometres I got chased by 4 dogs and found myself on another dirt road. Which slightly annoyed my as it got my bike dirty again …
Day 20 – Tirana to Pogradec
Today was hard, despite being slightly shorter. I’m afraid I’m pretty tired so this may be fairly brief.. This morning started off quite well. The weather was good and the traffic was nowhere near as bad as last night. The drivers that were out were still a bit mad but I managed to avoid any …
Day 19 – Bar to Tirana
Today has been eventful to say the least; but I'll do my best to remember everything... This could be a long one. I’m also following the rugby on a live feed so please forgive the tardiness and any spelling mistakes: I woke up this morning in a fairly dismal mood. The weather was horrendous and …
Day 18 – Slano to Bar
Apologies this is a bit late, I haven’t been very productive this evening. The hot water for the shower took ages to heat up and it threw me off guard… I was in a good mood when I woke up this morning; the weather - whilst cloudy - was looking dry and fairly warm. The …
Day 17 – Omiš to Slano
Today has been a very good day considering some of the weather I faced. It rained for most of the first 4 hours which wasn’t great and I still had a headwind - although it wasn’t quite as bad as yesterday, plus it died off even more in the last third. The main difference was …
Day 16 – Sukošan to Omiš
Today was upsetting. I was still feeling good from yesterday and I had a great breakfast; but within 2 hours, the wind had crushed my mood. It was as bad as it was a couple of days ago in Italy (Day 13) but today had hills as well. The roads were busier today as well …
Day 15 – Senj to Sukošan
It was hard waking up this morning. I hadn't had as much sleep as I would've liked and I'd gone to bed with it about to start snowing. So when I finally got up and looked outside to see a clear Croatian sunrise I was more than a bit surprised. By the time I finally …
Day 14 – Part 2 – Language Warning
I don’t really know when it suddenly got so hard. I think it was roughly the last 25 kilometres. I also have no clue how long that lasted. It could’ve been an hour, it could've been 5. I honestly only remember bits of it but I’ve been pretty honest in all my blogs so far …
Day 14 – Monfalcone to Senj
I was in a fairly good mood to start with today and I managed to get away earlier than the last few days. Which was lucky, because as it turns out - today was the longest day I've ever had in the saddle. The first half an hour passed by quite easily until I realised …
Day 13 – Correzzola to Monfalcone
It was sunny this morning which was nice, although obviously still cold. For some reason though I couldn't get the thought of how far I have left to cycle out of my head and it really weighed me down whilst getting ready to leave. It’s moments like this where insignificant things really irritate me. For …
Day 12 – Cannot Sull’Oglio to Correzzola
I woke up this morning feeling pretty good. I’d had about 9 hours sleep and I think that made a big difference. My breakfast was brought to my room by the lovely B&B owner and I was pleased to discover that I could eat fairly normally. I didn’t feel 100% but I managed to get …
Day 11 – Alessandria to Canneto Sull’Oglio
I'm calling it day 11.. It's easier for me to get my head around It was hard to get out of bed this morning. I didn't feel great and when I headed down for breakfast I could only stomach one mini croissant. The temperature had also dropped to just above freezing and I went into …
Continue reading "Day 11 – Alessandria to Canneto Sull’Oglio"
Day 10 – Diano Marina to Alessandria
Not sure whether to call this day 10 or day 12, but you get the idea.. Today was never going to be easy after yesterday’s misfortunes. Having not been able to finish dinner last night I’d planned on having a big breakfast however nothing I ate went down very easily. This meant leaving on a …
‘Rest Day’ – 1 & 2
Hi everyone, sorry for not posting yesterday.. not much really happened so I decided to get an early night. As for today (Tuesday 27th) I am still in Diano Marina. I had not intended to take another day off but it seems I ate something yesterday that really didn’t agree with me. I’m not going …
Day 9 – Fréjus to Diano Marina
Firstly - sorry for not posting this yesterday. I arrived fairly late and was lacking a bit of urgency. But anyway, better late than never. Yesterday was incredible. I set off about 9 - later than I would've liked but the hotel didn’t serve breakfast until 8. It was still quite cold but pretty spectacular. …
Day 8 – Salon-de-Provence to Fréjus
I want to start by thanking Donald and his lovely wife from the Hotel Select in Salon-de-Provence. Fantastic hospitality and I’d thoroughly recommend it to anyone around that area, especially to any cyclists! Today started fairly well, my knee hurt but it was the first day I didn’t feel the need to wear waterproof trousers. …
Day 7 – Le Pouzin to Salon-de-Provence
I’ve come to the realisation that I’m going to have good days and bad days… but never easy days. Today was a good day though. I set off eager to meet Dad at the half way mark and with a howling tailwind. I was being pushed along at a very decent pace. The only problem …
Day 6 – Sarcey to Le Pouzin
Today was hard.. very hard. Once again the beginning, middle and end varied hugely but I'll do my best to sum it up quickly - I have a pressing engagement with my bed.. The 1st and 2nd hours were probably the hardest thing I've ever done; on or off the bike. It was snowing, it …
Day 5 – Decize to Sarcey
A tale of more than two parts to be honest... I can't remember if I mentioned last nights hotel yesterday, but if not; it was weird, let's just say that. They did however offer breakfast at 6:30 so I was hoping to get an early start. This didn't happen unfortunately, took a fair amount of …
Day 4 – Sully-sur-Loire to Decize
I don't really have much to say about today; partly because I'm shattered. 100 miles is yet to get easier and the cold really drains your energy. I think it went below -5 for a fair bit this morning. Today's scenery was slightly prettier than the last few days. At least it was once the …
Day 3 – Manou to Sully-sur-Loire
I think yesterday was probably one of the hardest days I've ever had on the bike, so when I woke up this morning and looked outside my window to see snow, I wasn't exactly rushing to get on my bike. I ended up having a fairly late start, but to be honest it was probably …
Day 2 – Caen to Manou
If you follow me on twitter or Facebook, you’ll probably already know today was hard. The weather was awful all day. It didn’t stop raining at all apart from when it snowed.. so that was interesting. As an added bonus, the wind was in my face for 80% of the day as well - hence …
Day 1 – London to Portsmouth
This is my first blog thingy so I’ll try to keep it clean. I can’t promise it will stay like that when my mood starts to deteriorate though. I don’t have that much to say about today other than thank you. I didn’t expect that many people to come see me off or to ride …
Blog
Blogs coming soon... So this is where my (hopefully daily) updates will appear. I'll do my best to make them interesting and amusing but I make no promises about my writing skills after 100 miles in the saddle!
Tom Davies RTW 