I occasionally receive emails from people who are aspiring to cycle one of the routes – or parts thereof – that I have cycled myself in the past few years; England to southern Italy, along the coast of the Mediterranean from Greece to Portugal and, most recently, from Tarifa in Spain to Nordkapp in Norway. Some have found me via a Google search and landed on this website, others have read the books. Lynn came across me via the most recent book, Spain to Norway on a Bike Called Reggie:

“I gobbled every word of your Spain to Norway book as I’m thinking about doing that ride north to south. If I do, it would be to set my third (and probably last) Guinness World Record.”

As someone who grew up admiring the exploits of those who appeared alongside Roy Castle and Norris McWhirter on the TV show Record Breakers, the thought of a bona fide holder of not one but two Guinness World Records contacting me (me!?) for advice made this email stand out from most.

It turns out that the two World Records that are held by Lynn are to do cycling and age including being the oldest person to cross America by bicycle (female) in 2016. She has now set her sights on Europe and would like to become the oldest woman to cycle across Europe from its northernmost to southernmost points; Nordkapp to Tarifa. Perhaps when she discovered the existence of my book she thought her organisational prayers had been answered. Despite her kind words above, she must, however, have been a little disappointed as my 2015 escapade never came close to breaking any World Records. On any account, my journey from Spain to Norway would have been ruled ineligible as I didn’t cycle all the way; I took ferries at the points where the road stopped and those pesky Norwegian fjords (as well as other inconvenient bodies of water in Spain, France, Germany, Denmark and Sweden) started, not to mention two ‘transporter bridges’. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to discover that I’ve been blacklisted by the people at Guinness as someone who should be treated very sceptically if I were ever to submit myself as a potential record breaker.

I gave Lynn a few more details in my response to her email:

“As you know from reading the book, my route along the west coast of Norway did involve many ferries. The cycle route – Eurovelo 1 – necessitates taking lots of ferries and I think it would be almost impossible not to do so as the further north you travel, the fewer the number of on-road options. I would guess the only other possibility is to head south via Finland. If you aren’t permitted to use ferries, presumably you’d have to take the mainland route via Russia. How could you do it otherwise? Ferries are needed to travel from Sweden to Denmark (or a train ride across the bridge to Copenhagen as you can’t cycle over it). Even if you did arrive in Denmark by bicycle, is it possible to pass over all the bridges linking the islands to Jutland? I took a good number of ferries in Denmark as well. Once in Germany, there are, of course, no issues…”

At least Lynn has time on her side; her World Records are not ones that aspire to complete the long distances she cycles in set times. She has, however, been considering the route from northern Norway to southern Spain that was adopted by the Nordkapp-Tarifa Race that first took place earlier this year and that will be repeated in 2019:

“I have studied the route a lot since I first wrote to you and I think that, without ferries, there is no way other than going through Russia (St. Petersburg). There is a group of cyclists doing the route in June of 2019: http://www.northcape-tarifa.com. They are taking one ferry from Helsinki, Finland to Tallinn, Estonia. I have specifically asked Guinness World Records if that would be permitted on my record attempt. GWR is quite slow about responding so I don’t have the answer to that question yet.”

I can’t imagine that Guinness will accede to her request. She is currently considering three possibly routes, the first of which is that adopted by the Northcape-Tarifa Race:

The other two routes are based upon that of Lee Fancourt. Lee held the record for the fastest cycle across Europe from Nordkapp to Tarifa . He set the record in 2015 and as I was cycling north in 2015, he was cycling south (somewhat more quickly). Sadly, Lee took his own life in January 2018 but his record still stands. Although similar to that of the race, Lee’s 2015 route differed significantly, not just by heading east into Russia but also in France and Spain where Lee took the presumably much flatter route along the Spanish costas. He arrived in Tarifa on July 5th 2015, 21 days, 14 hours and 23 minutes after having left Nordkapp. (I arrived at Nordkapp on July 28th 2015 after cycling for 98 days and taking 15 rest days…)

Lee at Tarifa, 5.7.15

Reggie at Nordkapp, 28.7.15

It does seem that Russia can’t be avoided for Lynn.

I can’t see the attraction in completing such a long journey in a record time – and Lynn seems to agree, although I dare say she will be a bit quicker than me when she does attempt the cycle in 2019 – but I can see the attraction in ‘repeating’ the Tarifa to Nordkapp cycle in reverse taking a more easterly route through Norway, Finland, Russia (perhaps), Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, The Czech Republic, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, France and Spain. It might be more direct than the route I took and avoid all those ferries (which I would actually consider to be a loss), but it’s certainly more challenging on a vertical level…

…these being the ‘high’ and ‘low’ lights as provided on the Northcape-Tarifa Race website:

The section through the Alps of Switzerland, Italy and France looks spectacular. The ‘race’ has no time limit and sets off at 00:01 on Thursday 20th June 2019. On Thursday 20th June 2019 I will be flying back to the UK after having spent 7 days as the resident speaker on a River Cruise from Basel in Switzerland to Dusseldorf in Germany (a different kind of adventure altogether). I suppose I could catch a plane to Alta in northern Norway instead…

Follow Lynn’s progress on her website, Life Is Like A Bike. Her mantra is expressed so eloquently in the famous words of Albert Einstein that she quotes on her site:

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”

Quite.