The Best 5 Months of My Life (Tour Content)

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 to say the bike survived the flight home.

I can honestly say that despite some of the hardships along the way, this was the most surreal and amazing thing I have ever done and so glad I did it.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what it is was, but guess it was just a culmination of blue skies, amazing trails, beautiful views, stopping off to swim in azure coloured lakes & seas, meeting friendly people along the way and great food.

If you’re thinking of doing your own trip and worried your not up to it, I say just go for it. You’d be amazed what your body is capable of and you definitely won’t regret it.

Couple of highlights:

Descending off Le Grand Ballon following the GR5 to Thann, such an awesome and long descent.

The views of the western Bernese Alps walking in the hills around Gstaad

Reaching the highest point of the tour on Col de Torrent (2,919m) in the midst of being ruined by a stomach bug (I did have a little cry getting to the top).

Early morning ride along the shores of Lake Como

The day  I rode Passo Alpisella, Val Mora and Val Mustair – Just insane trails and views

Riding through the incredible landscapes of the Dolomite’s

Rafting on Soca River in Slovenia

Riding singletrack trails with coastal views in Croatia

Climbing Bosnia’s highest peak Maglic in the Sutjeska NP with a nice couple I met at the campsite the day before

Walking high up in the Durmitor NP, Montenegro.

Kayaking in the Tara Canyon on the Bosnia/ Montenegro border

The views across Lake Skader to the Albanian Alps

Riding slick rock trails around Tirane, Albania

Admiring the architecture of the places I rode through (Mostar, Berat, Predjama Castle, Ostrog Monastery and the temples in Corinth & Athens particularly spring to mind)

Ustipci (Balkan pancakes) with homemade jam and honey for breakfast

Finding that a shop sells cider and having a midday drink at the beach

Seeing tortoises chilling by the trail for the first time

Still being able to swim in the sea in late October.

I’ll let the photos do the talking now:

Looks fantastic!  What tent did you use?

Thanks – Trekkertent Stealth 1

Great little tent

More please

Impressively light set up! Inspiring trip, thank you for sharing,!

More to come…

Thanks Anorak.

It took a while to find the right setup, but I think it was worth it in the end

Chapeau. What a trip!

That’s definitely a, err, unique touring bike choice, but jolly good effort!

The dogs sound dire – someone I know bailed from the trans-continental after 1700km ‘cos he could take the stress of the dog attacks anymore, so you did well.

Looks lush. How did you manage power across various electronics using GPS all day long?

Amazing. What a great adventure 😀

Thanks for sharing

Sounds and looks like an awesome trip and route….. 👌😁 Totally my kind of touring, endless road days would break me..

Do you have a route gpx? Or some Strava link etc…..

Pics are cracking also, looks like the weather behaved for the most part? Bar the heat it was fairly stormy last year (I live in Croatia…. Last summer/autumn was brutally hot. Pretty much did not have a winter this year…. Lush but worrying)

Nice! How much technical singletrack did you actually ride? (Ie was it enough to justify the extra weight and draggy tyres?)

Long tours are great aren’t they.

Different style to mine but the same peace of mind.  Not having to be home in two weeks alters the mentality.

Great stuff

This looks fantastic. How was wild camping in those different countries?

Brilliant, inspiring, well done, and thanks for the post!

Congratulations! What an adventure!

How did you deal with the dogs? Kick ’em in the snout and then pedal like f*ck!? Or did you get creative with a bike pump or anything to give them something to think about? I read about people riding the Transcontinental with rocks in their bar bag ready to lob at dogs! Mad!

Thanks for this. Looks great. Love the idea of the FS bike. I think people, including me waste too much time worrying about which bike. In the end you pedal and they move forward.

Do you have some stats on total distance etc?

This seems SO ace, it deserves a wripe-up on a blog/wordpress account so that more people can see it and some more details can be shared!

Brilliant trip. Chapeau!

How did you plan the route? Were you sure that the trails you picked were ridable before setting off?

Looks like a great trip, well done!

+1 to ampthill… If it’s a holiday, not a race, take the fun bike and don’t try and race through everything without seeing it.

Cheers all for the nice comments

I do enjoy reading up on other peoples adventures, so nice to return the favour

Will load some more stuff up like GPX routes, photos, etc in due course.

Awesome!

Superb.

One day…

just fantastic mate.    what a great adventure.

best thread for ages.

If you ever get the chance to go riding in Omis, then take it. One of my favourite days riding

Oh my there are some beautiful trails on that trip

Bravo 👏👏👏👏
Just tremendous…so many amazing places and photos are stunning

I’m not sure what’s most impressive, the ride or that fact you successfully uploaded so many photos.

Sounds like an amazing trip