The Best 5 Months of My Life (Tour Content) – Page 2 – Bike Forum

ricko1984 · 2024-03-03T21:54:13Z

So last summer/ autumn I finally embarked on a long planned and long delayed European cycling tour. I had planned on this being an in depth tour report, but in all honesty it wasn't writing itself and I'm not that good at witty and engaging writing, so thought I'd go for a shortish write up and let the photo's do the talking. Anyways I had originally planned to do a similar tour back in 2020, but that was put on hold regrettably due to the pandemic. By 2023 and after a couple of tours in the UK, it felt I finally had the right setup and was ready to go for it. The basic plan was to ride from Dunkirk in France to Corfu in Greece, leaving enough wiggle room in my 90 days for things to go wrong in central Europe or carry onto Athens if it all went well. I would be taking my Trek Remedy full suss bike recently upgraded with Hope Tech 4 V4's and SRAM Eagle for the big alpine climbs and descents. I know it's not the usual choice of bike for a long tour, but my aim was to ride as much technical singletrack as I possibly could. Plus I like the comfort of a full suss bike. I would be going fast slow and light with a lightweight tent setup, minimal spare clothes, stove, tools and some spares. Navigation would be taken care of by my trusty Garmin Etrex, with multiple copies of the route on SD cards in case of mishaps. Back up would be the Komoot app on my phone, which came in handy when having to change route on the go (which is quite often sometimes with a Komoot planned route). The tour would take me through Northern France, Belgium, Switzerland, Northern Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania and Greece, passing through a selection of destinations I had been dreaming about visiting for years. Daily efforts had been planned around keeping sensible distances/ elevations, as I'm not the fittest/ fastest rider and was aware that there would be many slow going sections of trail to delay progress. In hindsight I can definitely say this was the best way strategy for me, as I didn't totally exhaust myself and managed to keep to my schedule. Luckily by the time I left the Schengen area in Croatia, I knew I had a enough days spare to finish in Athens and set about planning my route through Greece. Accommodation would be a mix of wild camping, official campsites, B&Bs, hostels, hotels, eco tourism places and villa's. These would be booked on the day depending on how I felt and what was available in the area. Starting in early June and ending late October, one of the abiding features of the trip was just how relentlessly hot and sunny it was each day. Out of the whole 5 months I could only count a handful of times it actually rained (and more importantly got caught out in it), which is pretty scary to think about. However when it did rain, boy did it do it properly. One particular storm in the Sarntal comes to mind, cowering in the foetal position on a hillside sure I was going to be struck by lightning. Early on in tour I soon learned to get up early and on move, to at least get some miles in before the blistering heat came at 9am. After getting caught out numerous times early on by the midday closure of shops, I soon learned to get my lunchtime baguette, water and other snacks with my breakfast shop. As is the way with tours like this I did get quite ill on a number of occasions with a stomach bug. Once in Switzerland, once in Italy (Two weeks later) and once in Montenegro. Although the worst of it was over pretty quickly, the after effects wiped me out for up to 8 days each time, which made these weeks quite a struggle. Luckily the first occurrence coincided with meeting my folks for a week in the Valais Alps, following me around in their campervan, whilst I attempted some of the big passes on the Haute route. One thing that was concerning me before my trip was wildlife, as I would be heading through areas habitated by bears, wolves and the like. Luckily I didn't see any (Although I did think I nearly stepped in what looked like a bear poo in Bosnia), but what I did see a lot of was dogs. For the most part they were fine and some stray dogs really broke my heart seeing the state they were in, but Greece was a different story. Never have I come across such a selection of vicious snarling beasts; strays, pets, guard dogs, sheep dogs all out for my blood. On my first couple of days in Greece I had so many attacks, I seriously considered calling it a day. Luckily the situation improved enough for me to carry on. Reaching Athens was a very weird feeling, I thought I would have felt more jubilation to have finished. It was just a very quiet nondescript finish. The final stress of the trip was trying to locate a box to pack my bike in. Despite contacting bike shops ahead of my arrival, no one had any available and after a frantic search around all the shops, I had to settle for a flat pack sofa box next to a dumpster and remodel it in my hotel room in to something that resembled a bike box. I'm pleased...

bajsyckel

Posts: 742

Full Member

Great stuff, thanks for posting. More please!

Posted : 06/03/2024 10:51 pm

Del

Posts: 8273

Full Member

good effort OP, to say the least, and a great thread. inspirational. thanks!

Posted : 06/03/2024 11:05 pm

piha

Posts: 729

Free Member

What a fabulous trip and thanks for taking the time to share it.

I can imagine the dogs were a concern, well done with persevering! Do you now the approx costs/spending monies you incurred? Did you have any problems crossing borders?

Posted : 07/03/2024 4:38 pm

ricko1984

Posts: 166

Free Member

Topic starter

Apologies been away for a bit and then life got in the way.

To answer your question Piha, I'm not prepared to say how much I spent, but lets just say this, I saved up a lot of money for the trip and nearly spent all of it. It was nice to know I didn't have to skrimp if I didn't want to.

With regards to border crossings no real issues.

The only ones were crossing into Bosnia, where I had to go back to get my passport stamped by a bemused Henry Rollins lookalike and crossing into Greece where I forgot to get my passport stamped as was so relieved to enter my final country.

This bit me on the bum going over to France recently, as I had no evidence of entering Greece and so got abit of a grilling from French passport control on my return. Thanks Brexit!

Bit of a run down of mechanical's/ parts used:

2 pairs of brake pads

2 cassettes and chains

1 rear bike tyre when the sidewall decided to give way in Southern Albania

10 punctures (Most of these were in the last couple of weeks when using a tube setup)

1 set of frame bearings and fork/ shock service within last month of trip

Apart from the odd worrying creak at times, she ran like a dream

Posted : 15/04/2024 10:38 pm

Dickyboy

Posts: 6418

Full Member

Great trip & pictures thanks - got me reminiscing about a not dissimilar but road trip to Dubrovnik my brother & I did all the way back in 1984 😯

Posted : 18/04/2024 1:43 pm