It didn’t take long for the practicalities of life on the road to kick in after my arrival at Cape St. Vincent. As I was recording the video clip in the previous post my mind was on the clock as I knew that the campsite supermarket closed at […]
So, the penultimate day arrives. Or rather arrived as it is now at an end. I bid my cousin farewell with the intention of seeing him again later in the day at a campsite somewhere along the Algarve in Portugal but even by 9am this morning I was […]
It was a slightly delayed start to day 48 as I spent a little time cycling around the streets of Seville. Like many towns and cities in Andalusia, cobbles seem to be everywhere and I have spent a significant amount of time over the last few days teetering […]
It’s a bit grey here but I did manage to find a little bit of colour in Seville…
When I sat down in the hotel in Valencia and planned the remaining few days of the trip I knew that cycling day 47 would be the crunch day. If I managed to get to Seville by the end of Sunday then I knew that there would be […]
Time to catch up before I forget! Cycling day 46 was the big Vias Verdes day and after the mixed feeling about Via Verde number 1 from Albacete a few days ago I was hoping for someone far better. Did I get it? I suspect that if you’d […]
I’m not sure whether Pablo hadn’t offered me the private mini guided tour of Ubeda I would have got any further than Jaen today or not. It was a modest cycle by the standards of this jaunt across Europe – a mere 63km, only just over half the […]
Slightly delayed departure this morning but I don’t mind in the least. It’s not every day that the owner of the hotel where you are staying gives you a private guided tour of a nearby ancient monument. The one in question was the one shown here – which […]
Cycling Day 44 is easy to describe. I set off from Camping Peñascosa, I had breakfast from a bakery on the main street of nearby Alcaraz, I cycled about 125km from Alcaraz to Ubeda along the N322 pausing from time to time at petrol stations for snacks and […]
Apologies for the lack of text to go with the pictures when I initially posted about cycling day 43. If I had written anything late last night it would have been rambling gibberish (‘no change there then’ I hear you cry!) as a result of the quantity of […]
About 30 minutes ago I cycled my 5,000th kilometre. Unfortunately I was in a dark tunnel at the time… If anyone fancies working out approximately how many kilometres I still have to cycle (along the lines of the plan posted here a couple of days ago) I’d be […]
This morning things were going relatively well. I think I’m beginning to resign myself to struggling through the first 20 to 30 kilometres of the day as my increasingly weary legs take this time in warming up. Today was no different to recent days but I persevered and […]
After having cycled the first 30km this morning I felt as though I must have cycled over 250km the day before last. Which is strange because I had. I hadn’t felt the effects of Saturday’s long-distance effort on my day off yesterday wandering around Valencia but once I […]
If the manager of this hotel were to walk in right now, I’d probably get thrown out for moving all the furniture around. I needed a space large enough to piece together the final three maps which has just allowed me to work out a little more detail […]
The non-Guardian reader campsite (see cycling day 39) provided me with a supermarket evening feast which I ate whilst sitting in the tent as I failed miserably in my attempt to find a chair upon which to sit and do the same thing. At least I was spared […]
To say I didn’t set off until around midday today, the distance I managed to cycle – some 93km – wasn’t too bad at all. But whereas quantity wasn’t lacking, quality was. It was not an enjoyable ride apart from one short portion in the ten or so […]
Dave and Pauline’s hospitality didn’t stop in the evening; it continued in the morning where I was presented with a very nice full English breakfast. The Cockers don’t even eat breakfast while in Spain – they prefer to eat later and have a large lunch – so it […]
The problem with writing these updates a couple of days after the events is that I forget so much so quickly. It can be very frustrating but here goes… I had breakfast in the centre of Perpignan and was still not sure which route to take into Spain. […]
Almost live from central Barcelona…
I’m about to enter country number 9, Spain, but this last ride in France along what I’ve seen referred to as the ‘Red Coast’ south of Argelès has, despite the cars, been a delight…
Eddy wasn’t just good, interesting company; he was useful company. Before the combined effects of the food, cycling and two glasses of local white wine (I know, sorry, I’m a lightweight) had had their effects, he talked to me about his own experiences of cycling through Spain and […]
Here we go. Apologies for the late update but I’m not going to move from my seat here in the garden of the Ibis hotel in central Perpignan until cycling days 35 & 36 are written. I may order another beer at some point. Life can be tough […]
After my enforced day off it feels just like the evening before you return to work after having been sick. I am now more or less sure that I wasn’t suffering from dehydration after all and that my problem was a bug that I had picked up somewhere. […]
It has yet to be rebound and may be better as two volumes but here it is, hot off the chopping board… The Rough Guide to the Eurovelo 8; Greece, Croatia, Slovenia, Italy, France, Spain & Portugal (or at least the bits I’ll be cycling through). I have […]
Last weekend when I was staying at my brother’s house in Yorkshire, my niece happened to be browsing through the travel section of The Sunday Times. She pointed out an article about ‘cycling-friendly‘ hotels, the first of which was in Provence, France and my ears pricked up. The […]
I was emailed yesterday by a guy in America called Angelo who is planning his own cycle tour of Europe. He had read Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie and suggested that I might be interested in another book that predates my own by getting on for […]
Those of you who are paying attention (no? not you?) will remember that Monica Piercy is also cycling from Greece to Portugal but that she is about two months ahead of me. On a purely selfish basis, this is extremely useful indeed as she can feed me with tantalising snippets […]
When I cycled the Eurovelo 5 to Italy, all my maps were Michelin 1:200,000 scale maps and there were ten of them in total – see the overview map of Europe here (I didn’t take the Belgian ones by the way as I cut off Belgium from my […]
So, my early Spring travels continue next week with a visit to Slovakia for some hiking (although more about that in a second). What do I know about Slovakia? Well, I know that physically it is a landlocked country with Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary […]
I need to get back into the habit of blogging while on the move. Apart from this summer’s epic cycle (is it really ‘epic’ or is it just me trying to spin?), I’m off to France in just under three weeks with a small group of 15 year […]
I received a message this week on the Facebook page from Neola Kay Wilby; “I’ve just been looking at your route for the summer. My boyfriend and I will be cycling from northern Spain to Croatia then to Romania, cross through Germany, Amsterdam and back home! We’re doing it over […]
In exactly 6 months’ time I will be in Athens, or somewhere near Athens. My bike will have been reassembled after its flight from London, my panniers packed with equipment, clothes & supplies & my mind no doubt full of excitement and anxiety as to what the subsequent […]
Sheffield is a city that, on occasions, I pass through or pass by. A dot on the map between The South (where I live) to The North (where I come from and now visit two or three times a year). When I pass by it is on the […]
You did it! Just after midnight last night I sent £202 to BBC Children In Need thanks to all the people who downloaded the Kindle version of ‘Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie‘ in the first two weeks of November. Thanks if you were one of them. […]
Digital mapping moves on apace. Only this week I was emailed by a guy from the German website Cycle Routes & Tours pointing out that some of the Eurovelo routes have been mapped on his site. I’ve added the links he gave to the relevant route sections in […]
A couple of Warmshowers visitors have passed this way over the last few days; first there was Bob, a novice touring cyclists in his 60s and then there was Wade, a novice touring cyclist in his 20s. I’m a novice touring cyclist somewhere in the middle! Bob is […]
From the other side of the Atlantic, Mary Reynolds has written a review of Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie for Examiner.com; “With a dry British wit (and some very wet days), Andrew Sykes tells of his amazing bicycle journey from Reading, England to Brindisi, Italy. […]
… I’ve just finished watching another series of The Apprentice; it was, once again, very entertaining. Congratulations. It’s fun watching the ‘best young business brains in Britain‘ (as the narration sometimes reminds us) trying to persuade you to hand your £250,000 over to them. The only person who […]
I received an email on Friday from someone called Kate, a travelling cyclist who was planning on making Reading a stopover en route from London to Oxford. She’d found my contact details on WarmShowers, the social network for cyclists looking for and offering accommodation. I used the site […]
I have received an email from Monica. Hi Andrew Next year starting 29th March I will be cycling from Lisbon to Athens using the Eurovelo Route 8, raising money for Camfed. I am organising the trip myself and spotted your website. All advice, large or small gratefully received. […]
Give your Spanish a little workout by watching this video from Spain; can you figure out why he is being harassed by the police? If you can’t, read the story in English at Copenhagenize.com.
I received an email from Pete in New Zealand earlier this week. He is a man with a great, or should I say ‘grand’ plan. He explains that he is soon to move back to Europe from down under and will be living near Turin, Italy on his return […]
Great video. Makes me feel very jealous as I sit here in dreary Reading in the south of England. What an adventure! Here’s their website. It’s a good work out for your French (and Spanish). Might show the kids at school next week… Interestingly, their route does what […]
Owen’s email below is well-timed. It being the 1st September today, the summer is over if you consider the season to be the three months from June to August. It’s also more or less over if you are a teacher as most of us go back to work […]
This blog has become a little more generalist of late with me discussing a varied range of topics from trips to France with groups of school children to how the re-decoration of my flat over the last couple of weeks has been progressing. I need to get things […]
When cycling to work this morning, I was thinking that if ever The One Show were to have an article about the Eurovelo 5 on their programme then surely I would be the person they would turn to. This was tossing over in my mind (it’s amazing what […]
A bit of a milestone (kilometre stone?) this week; I have received an email from someone asking me about Eurovelo 8 rather than Eurovelo 5. Clearly I am more of an expert on Eurovelo 5 and my ability to say much about number 8 is limited but this […]
A strange week of extremes on apsykes.com ; from last weekend to mid-week I was getting around 200 hits a day… and in the second half of the week under 100. Could this be all the Year 11 kids at school who had discovered that Reggie has his […]
The following is from the back of the ECF Eurovelo Map; Cadiz-Athens-Cyprus 5,888km “The Mediterranean area is very popular for tourists, but until now not so much for bicycle tourism. However, various initiatives have improved facilities, especially in Spain & Italy. And similar initiatives are in the pipeline […]
I caught the first five minutes or so of this programme last night on BBC HD… I was falling asleep at the time, despite the fact that the programme started at only 9.30pm! I blame the red wine that I had consumed in the afternoon with Johnny (see […]
A big thank you to the many people who have been posting comments on this blog. It is a real delight when I send my own posts to the blog to receive the messages that you have been sending either via the blog itself using the “comments” button […]
Canada, The USA, The UK, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Luxemburg, Denmark, Switzerland, Poland, Austria, Portugal, Greece, Sweden, Finland, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Thailand, Australia, Japan… plus all the others who have been and now gone from the map. Amazing who is interested in this drivel!
Ian Hendry, the guy from Adelaide has been in touch again and gives some useful musings about distances etc (he is in blue, my comments in red):I was anticipating 100km+ per day from Waterloo to Central Rome (only going to Rome as it will easier to fly out […]
Despite the technical problems with my chain and the resulting train journey to work on Monday, the rest of the week went to plan, to the extent that I have a “plan” in the first place for my cycle from Reading to Henley-on-Thames and back! It’s about 16 […]
I live in South-East England – Reading, Berkshire to be exact, so not far from the start of the route in London. I have a friend who has bought a house in Puglia – the heel of Italy – and he has invited me to visit. I have […]
