7000 miles, 5 weeks, one rider, one bike, one Europe.
Discussion
Deranged Granny said:
I've only recently got back from a trip around Europe, so will be updating this as and when I get the chance! Hope you enjoy.
Day 0
I’ve been riding bikes since May 2013 but even after only a year of riding, living both in the North and the South, I had started to tire of riding the same old routes on the same old rutted roads, weekend after weekend. Not that it wasn’t fun, I just felt like there was so much more to biking than wobbling from café to café on the odd sunny summer weekend like all the others. I also had a niggling feeling that while I had done a small amount of travelling, there was so much of Europe I hadn’t seen.
So, in 2014, I idly started to think about where I would want to go if I ever had the time and means to travel. “It would be nice to see the Colosseum”. “I’d like to do the Stelvio Pass”. “The Pyrenees are meant to be cool”. That was more or less the depth of my thinking and planning right up until May 2016. Then I found myself with a couple of months off before starting my new job. Knowing it was now or never, I committed myself with an outward Dover > Calais ferry ticket for 2nd June, returning on 7th July. Five weeks would be enough to see everything, right?
In terms of focus, the trip was going to be a 50:50 split between riding great roads and exploring great cities, avoiding motorways unless absolutely necessary. So I’d stay in hostels in the cities, and camp out in the countryside. Simples. My choice of steed? My trusty 2007 Suzuki SV650s I’d had since 2014. Only written off once. A great bike in its own right, fun and flickable, but neither fast, comfortable nor particularly suited to touring. Perfect!
This was to be a budget trip. Riding my poor battered bike around Europe spending all available funds on petrol, with the occasional bit left over to fund things like food and shelter. No fancy GPS, Go Pro, costly luggage or 5* hotels, just me, the bike, a map and Europe’s roads. Just like it should be. How quaint.
By now I had a fair idea of the route. Liverpool, Dover, Calais, Paris, Le Mans, Tours, Bordeaux, Bilbao, Picos de Europa, Lisbon, Madrid, Andorra, Millau, Nice, Monaco, Genoa, Pisa, Rome, Florence, Venice, as many Alpine passes as I could get my hands on, Milan, Geneva, Zurich, the Nuburgring, Brussels, Paris, Calais, Dover, Liverpool. In the end, Zurich-Brussels didn’t happen, but more on that later.
How it looked
Not wanting to be underprepared, I started to plan the trip the week before. This consisted of buying everything needed for a full service on the bike (fluids, filters, pads, plugs), a puncture repair kit and a map. That was more or less all that was required. You’d think reading internet fora you would need a support lorry to carry everything required, but as far as I was (and still am) concerned, all you need is a well-prepared bike, clothes and tools. In the event, I only had the latter two and still survived. Luggage consisted of things I already had lying around: a tank bag (Aldi), large rucksack (Lidl) and dry bag (Aldi… there’s a theme here…). Well, I did say it would be on the cheap.
Everything I ordered arrived in time, so I started to do the service on the bike two days before leaving. I managed to do the oil and air filters, as well as a full oil change before getting bored and meeting a friend for cake. Yum. The next day, reality hit. Reality being that my ferry was at 2pm the following day, and I needed to be there an hour before. And the ferry terminal was five hours away. And the bike wasn’t ready. And I hadn’t packed.
All of the above focused the mind.
No idea what I’m doing
Accordingly, I got on with the task of changing the brake pads. At this point I realised that I had never attempted this before and had no idea what I was doing. However, a bit of internet research reassured me that it was straightforward enough. Then I was met with the reassuring sight of brake calipers that had looked as if they hadn’t been touched in five years, with suitably seized pistons. After some choice words, blind panic, and thoughts about whether the ferry ticket was refundable, I managed in an “unlimited numbers of apes will eventually write Shakespeare” type of way to reconstruct the front brakes. Then realised the system was now devoid of fluid and I had no braking power. Fortunately I had some spare, so whacked that in, and hey presto! New pads and even better lever firmness than before! Hurrah! I did a thing! Unfortunately, I had also spotted two alarming lumps of metal sticking out of the middle of the front tyre. Well, no sign of it deflating, and no time to change it, so better just take a gamble on it!
It was now 10pm and the prospect of sleep was rapidly diminishing before my eyes. Dinner and an interesting documentary about Alan Shearer (the extent of my interest in football) later, it was midnight and I still had to put most of the bike back together.
Looking forward to updates.Day 0
I’ve been riding bikes since May 2013 but even after only a year of riding, living both in the North and the South, I had started to tire of riding the same old routes on the same old rutted roads, weekend after weekend. Not that it wasn’t fun, I just felt like there was so much more to biking than wobbling from café to café on the odd sunny summer weekend like all the others. I also had a niggling feeling that while I had done a small amount of travelling, there was so much of Europe I hadn’t seen.
So, in 2014, I idly started to think about where I would want to go if I ever had the time and means to travel. “It would be nice to see the Colosseum”. “I’d like to do the Stelvio Pass”. “The Pyrenees are meant to be cool”. That was more or less the depth of my thinking and planning right up until May 2016. Then I found myself with a couple of months off before starting my new job. Knowing it was now or never, I committed myself with an outward Dover > Calais ferry ticket for 2nd June, returning on 7th July. Five weeks would be enough to see everything, right?
In terms of focus, the trip was going to be a 50:50 split between riding great roads and exploring great cities, avoiding motorways unless absolutely necessary. So I’d stay in hostels in the cities, and camp out in the countryside. Simples. My choice of steed? My trusty 2007 Suzuki SV650s I’d had since 2014. Only written off once. A great bike in its own right, fun and flickable, but neither fast, comfortable nor particularly suited to touring. Perfect!
This was to be a budget trip. Riding my poor battered bike around Europe spending all available funds on petrol, with the occasional bit left over to fund things like food and shelter. No fancy GPS, Go Pro, costly luggage or 5* hotels, just me, the bike, a map and Europe’s roads. Just like it should be. How quaint.
By now I had a fair idea of the route. Liverpool, Dover, Calais, Paris, Le Mans, Tours, Bordeaux, Bilbao, Picos de Europa, Lisbon, Madrid, Andorra, Millau, Nice, Monaco, Genoa, Pisa, Rome, Florence, Venice, as many Alpine passes as I could get my hands on, Milan, Geneva, Zurich, the Nuburgring, Brussels, Paris, Calais, Dover, Liverpool. In the end, Zurich-Brussels didn’t happen, but more on that later.
How it looked
Not wanting to be underprepared, I started to plan the trip the week before. This consisted of buying everything needed for a full service on the bike (fluids, filters, pads, plugs), a puncture repair kit and a map. That was more or less all that was required. You’d think reading internet fora you would need a support lorry to carry everything required, but as far as I was (and still am) concerned, all you need is a well-prepared bike, clothes and tools. In the event, I only had the latter two and still survived. Luggage consisted of things I already had lying around: a tank bag (Aldi), large rucksack (Lidl) and dry bag (Aldi… there’s a theme here…). Well, I did say it would be on the cheap.
Everything I ordered arrived in time, so I started to do the service on the bike two days before leaving. I managed to do the oil and air filters, as well as a full oil change before getting bored and meeting a friend for cake. Yum. The next day, reality hit. Reality being that my ferry was at 2pm the following day, and I needed to be there an hour before. And the ferry terminal was five hours away. And the bike wasn’t ready. And I hadn’t packed.
All of the above focused the mind.
No idea what I’m doing
Accordingly, I got on with the task of changing the brake pads. At this point I realised that I had never attempted this before and had no idea what I was doing. However, a bit of internet research reassured me that it was straightforward enough. Then I was met with the reassuring sight of brake calipers that had looked as if they hadn’t been touched in five years, with suitably seized pistons. After some choice words, blind panic, and thoughts about whether the ferry ticket was refundable, I managed in an “unlimited numbers of apes will eventually write Shakespeare” type of way to reconstruct the front brakes. Then realised the system was now devoid of fluid and I had no braking power. Fortunately I had some spare, so whacked that in, and hey presto! New pads and even better lever firmness than before! Hurrah! I did a thing! Unfortunately, I had also spotted two alarming lumps of metal sticking out of the middle of the front tyre. Well, no sign of it deflating, and no time to change it, so better just take a gamble on it!
It was now 10pm and the prospect of sleep was rapidly diminishing before my eyes. Dinner and an interesting documentary about Alan Shearer (the extent of my interest in football) later, it was midnight and I still had to put most of the bike back together.
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