Very few things went according to plan. My damned left knee messed it all up but I feel extremely lucky it got better so that I could still cycle a bit in the second half of the trip. Also went places and met people I would not have met otherwise, so it was a blessing in disguise :)
I didn’t bring a cycling computer, so my guess is that I cycled about 2,000km doing Copenhagen - Hamburg - Amsterdam and then Inverness, Scotland to Manchester, plus the smaller rides.50-60km a day on average.
I was surprised that the hardest part of the trip was not physical, but mental. It was very, very hard getting back on the road after spending a few days in a city with friends. At times the trip felt a bit pointless since there was no one there to share the experience with me.
I’ve been able to share pretty pictures of the trip on this blog, but the real essence of the trip was in the small daily happenings that are much harder to share and that only happen on a bike tour (like washing your clothes in a supermarket restroom, or showering with two bottles of hot water in the rain in the middle of a field, or turning the bike in to a clothes hanger)
A few highlights:
Nicest scenery - Austria (Norway is up there too, but I didn’t actually cycle it…)
Best cycle paths - Netherlands (no surprise there!), especially one road that went through the dunes on the coast.
Worst cycle paths - UK (as in, nonexistent or a cruel joke at best)
Toughest route - Scotland (especially when I decided to bike another 10km to the next town at the end of my day only to run into a mountain RANGE in Galloway, which turns out is the “Highlands of the Lowlands”…)
Nicest people - Scots (wasn’t expecting that at all!)
Best campsite - lakeshore in Norway with snow for the beers!
Worst campsite - super windy beach in Scotland where both sand and rain got into the tent and all my stuff. Second place goes to the flooded tent in Austria that killed my phone :(
Best item of the trip - phone mount on the handlebars (to check the map without having to stop), which I almost didn’t bring.
Most useless item - the portable shower. I was super happy when I bought this, but I realized it was bulky, heavy and a hassle to use. Mailed it back to Munich after one use and it got lost in the mail :(
Best road food: cream cheese, chorizo and bread!
Dumbest food purchase: bag of apples that weighed a ton and took me forever to eat.
Items lost, broken or mailed back during trip:
Portable shower, 2 shorts, tshirt, extra tobacco pipe (mailed back, lost in mail)
Bike lock (lost key, had to cut lock off)
Sleeping bag liner (thrown in the garbage after 2 nights)
Pillow (gave to David)
Helmet (threw away in Manchester - partly broken and smelly)
Knife (threw away in Manchester before airport security)
Gloves, thermos, bike bag (mailed back safely)
Boxer shorts (threw away - full of holes)
Sweater (lost in a hostel)
5kg of body fat (yay!)
Thanks to Daniel, Ale, Tanja, David, Billie, Amy, Jana, Eelco, Haruka, Dani, Cat, Elliot, Beth, and Jo for hosting me and hanging out and making this the best vacation ever!
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