As I packed up the tent at Gotthard Camping, I had some decisions to make. A helicopter hovered above the campsite picking up metal girders from an adjacent field and flying them off into the mountains to be deposited elsewhere. Every few minutes it would return to repeat the operation. I fell into conversation – when it was possible – with my neighbours, Rich and Becca from Ilkley, the posh bit of my home county of West Yorkshire. They were also travelling by bike and had set off from Nantes earlier in the summer. Their route would eventually take them to Rome but up to this point, it had been almost identical to my own.
“16km of unrelenting hill. Two hours of leg-burning pain. Exactly what I thought it would be,” noted Rich reflecting on his experience of climbing to the Furka Pass.
“At least the nice hill outside Geneva got us prepared for the Alps,” added Becca before being drowned out by the rotors of the returning helicopter.
Le Grand Tour on a Bike Called Wanda recounts Andrew P. Sykes’ journey around France, into the Alps and down the Rhine in the summer of 2022. It is available as a paperback and as and eBook from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com (and other international Amazon sites). The paperback is also available from Waterstones or Foyles and the eBook from Apple iBooks. If you would like to gift a signed copy of the book, please complete the form below:
Le Grand Tour on a Bike Called Wanda (signed copy)
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Categories: Adventure, Cycling, Le Grand Tour, Travel
