When posting this morning’s video about the snail on his little adventure across my back yard towards the bin (I haven’t seen him since by the way so he could have made it over the wall, across the field and into the jaws of a passing crow by […]
This isn’t quite my style – too fast by far… – but it is quite an adventure and may be of interest to some. Over to the organisers: “Wolf Pack is a dare. To ride from Geneva to San Remo, over Telegraphé, Galibier, Vars and Cime de la […]
A memorable final day of hiking; magnificent views of the Matterhorn after our final climb (and descent by train) of the trip… …preceded by an impromptu meeting with Theresa May, the new prime minister, in the morning. Here she is chatting to the senior walker of our […]
It got really tough…
Don’t miss the video below the photographs!
It got tough. Snow, ice, steep mountains but ultimately good fun…
The weather has turned somewhat – I’m typing from the shelter of my tent with rain thundering down outside – but some spectacular hiking in France and Switzerland. Enjoy the photographs:
I’ve recently republished some of the posts I wrote during some of the cycles of the past few years. I was wondering if there had been a few days when I had been cycling in each of my five ‘cycling years’. Alas the answer is ‘no’… …but I find […]
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. Again, another late update… I knew it would be a relatively short cycle on day 75; ‘just’ 40 km to Trondheim where I had agreed to stay for a couple of nights with a guy called Steven who […]
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. First up today was a short wander around this reconstructed Bronze Age village just next to where I had camped. It compared quite well to my tent accommodation… Then breakfast at the local supermarket where I bumped into […]
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. Over the last ten years I’ve visited Germany on quite a few occasions; twice to Stuttgart, twice to Hamburg, once to each of Munich Berlin and Bonn. I have a very positive view of the country based upon […]
Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. A short cycling day – just 56 km – but it was planned that way and puts me within a normal cycling day’s ride of the centre of Paris. But back to Montargis… I’m pretty good at telling […]
I would happily class myself as an enthusiastic early adopter of technology, especially when it comes to cycling. Back in 2009 when I cycled along the Pennine Cycleway as a shakedown of my skills as a first time touring cyclist I blogged as I travelled having moved on from writing […]
By Felix Leckie This summer I’m planning to cycle 1,450 miles with my dad from home to Slovenia for charity. The charity we are raising money for is called the Children’s Bereavement Centre. It’s a fantastic local charity that helps support children and their families affected by terminal […]
I’ve been sent a couple of cycling guides to review by Cicerone: The Rhine Cycle Route (ISBN: 978-1-85284-797-5) and The Danube Cycleway (ISBN: 978-1-85284-722-7). The Rhine guide is an updated version of the original 2013 guide, the Danube guide has just been published for the first time. When […]
Here are three guys who cycled along a similar route to me but from London Barcelona taking in large chunks of my 2010 journey from England to Italy and then my 2013 across southern France and into Spain. I wrote books about my adventures; these chaps have made […]
Here is the third in a series of extracts from the soon-to-be-published book ‘Along The Med on a Bike Called Reggie‘. If you haven’t done so already, you may want to read extract 1 (which was about cycling day 11 in Albania) by following this link and read extract 2 (which […]
I’ve had a bit of experience cycling over the Alps – in 2010 over the Gotthard Pass (in Switzerland) at 2,091m and then in 2013 over the Tende Pass (just north of Nice on the French-Italian border) at 1,871m. They were both memorable days of cycling and I can […]
(by guest blogger Samantha Long) “Winter cycling is growing in popularity and with it, the demand for suitable bikes grows too. Scott Road Bikes originate in Switzerland, the land of snow and steep mountain roads, so the makers know exactly what’s required for winter riding. The right kind […]
The ECF have just published an interview with me where I discuss this summer’s cycle from Greece to Portugal along the rough line of the Eurovelo 8. The interview can be found on the ECF’s increasingly useful Eurovelo website in a slighted edited form. The full interview is […]
I used to regularly post extracts from emails that I received on here but recently I seem to have stopped doing so. For no particular reason. It’s a delight to be asked about the routes that I have cycled and, quite often, those that I haven’t. I try […]
So, here it is, the tale of an epic day in the saddle, all 172km of it. In fact I’ll start by reeling off the statistics. When I cycled to Italy in 2010 I gave the statistics at the end of each day on the blog. (One reader […]
It was indeed a shorter day in the end and nothing untoward happened. Following coffee in Mitikas it was a relatively short cycle to the much nicer Paleros where I had planned to meet Ed Cox. Ed is cycling from Bristol to Brisbane and he had contacted me […]
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 […]
If you are a reader of Cycling Active magazine and have an ability to spot detail amongst all the bike-related info., you may have noticed a mention of Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie in the July edition of the magazine that came out last […]
Way back in June 2010 I wrote this post about the FreeLoader solar charger. It was just before I set off along the Eurovelo 5 in the summer of 2010 and I was hopeful that I had found a nifty solution to the power problem as I cycled […]
It’s 7:10am on April 21st. In exactly 10 weeks (to the minute, hopefully), my cycling expedition across Europe starts as my flight from London Heathrow to Athens takes to the air. OK, if you want to quibble, there is much room to do so. I start the cycling […]
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 […]
Friday 3rd August Sigmaringen to Munderkingen: 4 hours 2 minutes, 72km “It was my first day along the Danube. I had given myself two days to get to Ulm, so my target was any campsite past Riedlingen that I happened to come across. During the day nothing exciting […]
Wednesday 1st August Rest in Konstanz/Meersburg “The sun beat down on my tent. I continued to lie under the bright blue tarp for as long as I could bear the heat. Unzipping and crawling out onto a patch of dewy damp grass, I took a moment to adjust […]
Morgan – see previous posts – has made it home to Parma. He writes; “Made it [to Parma] last week on Wed 25th, after 1470km and 19 days… I was late but glad to arrive [& was] welcomed by a group of Greek friends celebrating with drinks and […]
Tuesday 31st July Stein am Rhein to Konstanz: 1 hour 35 minutes, 30km “Today was a lazy day. It was my last day in Switzerland and I decide to take it easy. In the morning, I waited outside the reception area for the campsite manager. While waiting I […]
Monday 30th July Zürich to Stein am Rhein: 5 hours 55 minutes, 99km “I caught the early rays of sunshine on the lake while chatting to Marco, a Dutch cycle tourist, who arrived at the campsite at the same time as me last night. He was travelling south […]
Sunday 29th July Basel to Zurich: 6 hours 24 minutes, 118km “The rain continued throughout the night and yet again I had to pack up a wet tent. I said goodbye to the English trio and was the first person to checkout of the campsite. People seem to […]
Saturday 28th July Rest in Basel “I was hesitant to leave France. Firstly I would miss it. France had been an amazing experience and as much as I wanted to enter a new country, I felt there was also more of France that needed to be explored. The […]
The Rhine Cycle Route (or as it has been recently rebranded, the Eurovelo 15) has a sexy new website. Can a website be sexy? Actually, not going there… It’s worth a look (and you won’t feel obliged to delete your Internet browsing history after having been there…). The […]
An email has arrived from Jack who fancies cycling around Europe… He writes in blue, I write in red. Well, I am a teacher, albeit one with a sniffly nose today. And on the day that Francois Hollande becomes the French president, it does give this post a […]
On the BBC’s Countryfile yesterday afternoon, the weatherman shown here explained how April 2012 had been very wet indeed. He used this graph to explain that in southern England since January 2010, there had only been three months that had received above average levels of rainfall. Of those, August […]
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. […]
Today sees the infamous Paris-Roubaix cycle race… 260 kilometres from the Paris suburbs to the Belgian border. Rather them than me. Cobbles were a recurring theme as I cycled south along the Eurovelo 5 from London to Brindisi. It seems that any historic town worth its salt on […]
Lawrence Dallaglio is back on his bike again and this time he is cycling the Eurovelos 5 & 8, kind of… The cycling challenge is called “The Dallaglio Flintoff Cycle Slam” and the official website describes the endeavor as follows; “Between April 23rd and May 18th next year […]
Hi Andrew, I’m the artist that wrote to you about taking our 4 yr old on the EV5 next summer. First of all…I want to read your book, but Amazon says it’s not available to yankees! Good news: it is! You need to go to the Amazon site […]
…in Germany, with a few caveats. My German isn’t great (as you will know if you have read the account of my cycle across German-speaking Switzerland), but it looks as though Good Vibrations: Crossing Europe on a Bike Called Reggie is the top-selling English language cycling e-book in […]
I know you are all out there checking the blog avidly every day to see if a publication date has yet been set for my book recounting my little adventure of summer 2010 along the Eurovelo 5 from Berkshire to Brindisi… No? Well, I can’t quite give you […]
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 […]
Kate Belcheva is from Bulgaria, a country that has escaped the web of the Eurovelo network of routes. Routes 6 & 11 pass through neighbouring Romania to the north (route 6) and through Serbia and Macedonia to the west (route 11), but Bulgaria itself is devoid of Eurovelo […]
The following email arrived earlier today and the first line comes straight from a pitch on Dragons’ Den; Hi Andrew, You don’t know us but we are a new company that will focus on eccentric races and charity events, we are planning a 2600km bike ride across Europe […]
If you wake up at 3am and can’t get back to sleep, what do you do? Check your emails! And here is one from Hannah; Dear Andrew, Firstly, thankyou for your website it has come in extremely useful helping me plan a similar route! Thanks. It’s a pleasure. […]
Atoosa writes; I’m really interested in this route and want to start cycling from Milan to North. I’d like to know how did you pass The Alps? did you go with [the] train? No I didn’t – I went over the top! You would be doing it in the […]
Yet another sample chapter from the book now available to read for free (!) online. Just click here to enjoy a wet romp (if indeed you can romp on a bike) in central Switzerland. If the climbing the Alps was the high point of the trip, my day […]
I really enjoyed that. Only the most hardened of cynics would fail to do so, even the republican ones. The whole thing was beautifully done, especially the music in Westminster Abbey and the bit at the end with the classic Aston Martin. Nice touch. It was the perfect […]
“Estimated time of departure: 5th May 2011. We are cycling across Northern France, a bit of Germany, Switzerland (the high bits) and zig zagging down Italy (trying to avoid the high bits) to Taranto in Southern italy which is where Mary Ann lives. Hopefully friends and family will join us from […]
Mary Ann Coupland and her friend Sally are about to head off on the Eurovelo 5. They have set up a Just Giving page to raise money for Cancer Research UK. Here is there story in their own words; We are cycling from Boulogne sur Mer in France […]
Earlier this week I received a friend request on Facebook from a certain Tom Hooker. I like to think that his second name is Jasper, James or Jeremy and that his friends call him TJ Hooker but as he only looks as though he is in his 20s, […]
Joe Durnall has emailed; I hope you don’t mind me emailing. I intend to ride the Eurovelo 5 to Rome this coming summer, and wondered if you could give me any indication of the costs of such a venture? I have all the kit (Bike, tent, etc..) and […]
A group of soldiers is taking on the Eurovelo 5 in (what I consider to be) reverse. This is what it says on their Virgin Money Giving site; In March 2011 team Tartan Cassino will start their arduous challenge. The team will cycle from Monte Cassino in Italy […]
Not my next adventure I hasten to add, but it is someone’s; Hello, I stumbled across your site whilst researching this famous pilgrimage route. My name is James Anderson. I am an extreme sportsmen and adventurer and next summer I plan to run from Canterbury to Rome in […]
Iain Harper has just commented on the previous post and reminded me of his experience in Switzerland in September. I went to look at his pictures of Facebook again and found this one taken at the Oberalppass. Brrrr…. Where is your tent Iain? Ah yes, you stayed in […]
My pan-European cycle continues to generate a fair bit of interest. Andrew from Leicestershire writes; A friend and myself are planning to cycle from Rome to home (Leicestershire) next year for the Loros charity. I was wondering if you could send me the exact route you took (plus […]
I watched with amazement this week the tunneling efforts of the Swiss (as well as the Chileans of course) who have managed to bore their way through 37 kilometres of Alpine rock under the St Gotthard Pass. That puts my efforts to cycle over the top into perspective! […]
I think I’m getting there with the new-look website. Clearly I would have preferred to go to work yesterday and today instead of coughing and sneezing over this computer (it’s true – I would; the hassles of being a teacher and missing two days of school cannot be […]
Another reader that I have shamelessly neglected in preference to the day (and usually evening) job this past week is Iain in Deal. He sent the following email; My Switzerland trip has been booked, well the ferry has been booked I’ll drive down to a friend who stays […]
This is the fifth attempt at writing the content of this post; all previous efforts have disappeared before they arrive on the blog itself. I am wondering if it has anything to do with “upgrading” my browser to IE9…. Let’s try again this time in Firefox. Mmmm… seems […]
Iain – the guy I stayed with in Deal before setting off for the continent along the Eurovelo 5 – has been busy advising me on Reggie’s refit (thanks for that Iain – very useful). He’s also emailed with a question about tents; Hello Andrew, a quick question […]
90 degrees to the left there is a biblical storm the likes of which I have only ever seen in films with Charlton Heston; black sky, thunder, lightening, frogs and errr… a nun just walking past with an umbrella. I timed my arrival in San Quirico d’Orcia well […]
Before I start, a big than-you to recent donations to the charity fund; it now stands at 87% of the total! This afternoon’s cycle was mainly along a very straight canal than leads from the southern suburbs of Milan to Pavia and we arrived in Pavia a few […]
A beautiful blue sky has accompanied Simone & Alan, Reggie & myself down to Milan. Alan by the way is Simone’s bike; I’m not the only one you see! Much of the cycle was through the extended suburbs of Milan which seem to stretch as far as Como […]
The food is fine; I’ve just had a Big Mac and fries for the first time in years and it was great. I don’t have an issue with what they sell at all as long as people don’t live off the stuff. I know some do which is […]
Not a bad view if you are having an afternoon drink like me or indeed if you are waiting for a bus (green pole on the left). The statistics for the day are as follows; Cycling time: 4 hrs 27 mins 17 secs Distance: 75.00 kms Average speed: […]
I’m not sure whether it is or not but crossing over into Italy at some point tomorrow will feel like it. I’ve notched up just under 1,600 kilometres in two and a half weeks; the estimate was for a total of between 3,000 and 3,500 over five weeks […]
I have failed to get hooked up to the Internet via Wi-Fi here at the campsite so instead I have just been through all the comments made over the last couple of days, made some notes and below are your individual responses. Some comments might only make sense […]
Because I could probably eat one. What was that? Oh yes, this is Switzerland not France. The bottle of wine, before you puritans comment, is a 50 cl bottle by the way.
Perhaps it was in the water (there is plenty of it). When I wasn’t sure whether I had actually booked a place in the campsite at Altdorf. When I spoke to the South African chap at the site this morning and talked about how nice it was not […]
Let’s start with the stats; Cycling time: 6 hrs 14 mins 34 secs Distance: 103.41 kms Average speed: 16.4 kms/hr Maximum speed: 51.6 kms/hr Eurovelo 5 total: 1,426.6 kms Just a note on the statistics; they are a reflection of where the bike goes between setting off in […]
I am, finally in Switzerland. In the centre of Basle in the square outside the train station. The general consensus of opinion at the campsite last night was to watch the fireworks in Basel to celebrate the Swiss national day from the bridge in the picture. The campsite […]
These pictures of campsites with tents and trees and the sun are becoming a bit repetitive aren’t they? Sorry, I’ll try be more imaginative tomorrow night. Here are today’s statistics; Cycling time: 4 hrs 39 mins 9 secs Distance: 99.07 kms Average speed: 21.3 kms/hr Maximum speed: 32.5 […]
Well it does say “stop” on the sign, do I did, bought some lunch and ate it by this bell. Couldn’t understand the inscription but I’m thinking they (there is another one of the other side of the road) are from a long destroyed church. Lots of religious […]
I’m tempting fate by saying this but if you split my route into three parts, part 1 being from Reading to Strasbourg, part 2 from Strasbourg to the Swiss-Italian border and part 3 being the entire length of Italy, part 2 is the “easy” bit when it comes […]
I came down from the cathedral and went off to meet up with Claus, my friend from Stuttgart. I had thought that it might be difficult trying to find him in a city that I certainly didn’t know well and that he had visited only fairly sporadically but […]
Just coming back into France after another, much more rewarding (and well surfaced) excursion into Belgium. This border post is still standing; today empty and the benefits to all are clear. But there is something adventurous about border crossings, the fact perhaps that you may not be let […]
I’ve just received this email from Mark Rowland which contains lots of useful tips and hints; Good luck on the route – you may recall we exchanged emails some time ago. A friend and I set off on our own Italian adventure at the start of June and […]
Today is Sunday 18th July 2010. The day has come for me to set off on my own road to Rome and beyond. Below is the first post written on this blog back in summer 2008; The ancient route from Canterbury to Rome, followed by archbishops travelling to […]
…hasn’t been written yet. So it’s a good job that the Rough Guides to France, Switzerland and Italy were on sale at Waterstones today; three for the price of two. I am about to surgically remove the sections with the red circles. Not yet sure if it is possible […]
Todd Rygh writes (and I respond in red); Hello Andrew, I just finished watching England-Germany. Not the result I was hoping for. Me neither, but they deserve nothing better! I am preparing my own bicycle journey from Winchester to Brindisi in late August through September, and I have […]
Remember Rachel McCormack & partner Giovanni who are cycling from Ireland to Puglia for the Irish Cancer Society? They are following a sightly more easterly route than me but it is interesting to see that they used the Saint Gotthard pass to cross the Alps – see the […]
What a brilliant book… but I won’t be buying it. I wandered down to Cotswold Leisure this afternoon for a general browse and to ogle at all the things I would buy if money were no object; quite frankly I could purchase everything in the store. I was […]
As I have said before, I love the fact that people all over the World read my blog and contribute either through the comments or by taking time to email me. It is no doubt the nearest I will ever come to receiving fan mail (teenage school kids […]
A name from the earlier days of this blog has just emailed; Jonathan Scott is an Australian who is planning to cycle from Rome to London and he is one of the people to be listed down there on the left as a Eurovelo 5 / Via Francigena […]
….to the first day back at work after a long two-week holiday is receiving an email from a new blog reader that exudes positivity in the way only Californians can manage, which is useful for JJ Istrin as he hales from Los Angeles! JJ and his wife have exciting plans […]
Pan-European cycling might catch on a bit more if this volcanic cloud hangs around much longer. Mark Beaumont is stuck in the French Alps; I did suggest via Twitter that he cycle back (see feed to your left…), as did lots of other people by the sound of […]
It looks to me as if the Swiss National Route 3 – full details are here – segways perfectly with the Italian National Route 3; La Via dei Pellegrini. What joined up thinking! This sign (take your pick of the language) is the one to follow in Switzerland (but will it […]
Well so far, my aim to make Good Friday “Bloody Marvelous Friday” is going to plan. I’ve picked up the bike from AW Cycles and they have, as promised, changed the handlebars for a set that are much wider and have far more space to place my hands […]
This is a comical tale from the late 1930s, but the more you think about it, the more sensible it is. As the following article from the BBC website explains, in the days before satellites, it was actually not a bad idea: Summer 1937. What could be more fitting […]
I think this is the southern side of the Gotthard Pass so I will be cycling down it rather than up!
Yesterday’s practical pilgrimage day got me thinking about crossing the Alps again. The Via Francigena crosses the mountains at the Great St. Bernard Pass. The Eurovelo 5 crosses at via the Saint Gotthard Pass. I have just found a useful website all about cycling in the Alps. Its […]
Meeting my niece in London after the meeting yesterday was the thin end of the wedge. Several beers later I arrived home in Reading and then tackled a bottle of wine so, as I write, I have a little bit of a hangover. What follows is a more […]
Interesting afternoon. There were a variety of people to listen to. None had actually cycled to Rome although cycling was referenced quite a lot, as was camping which of course is relevant. My main thoughts however are about why I am following the Eurovelo 5 from Calais to Switzerland […]
