Un Weon Gigante En Bicicleta

Matias' bike tour through Europe

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My trip is DONE. Over 2,000km in 50 days. 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. Clearest road signs - UK 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! Thanks for reading!

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Turns out the ferry I wanted to take to Dublin and then France was not going to work, so I flew from Manchester back to Munich. I decided to take a short trip to Austria so I could say I crossed the Alps, and I was really happy I visited because the views were stunning! Unfortunately my phone drowned when my tent flooded one nigt (torrential non-stop rain and I didn't see the water come in during the night), and the nicest pictures were on the phone, but I still managed some nice pictures the next two days with the iPad.

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Breakfast of champions! Greek-style yoghurt for the extra protein to repair the damage done by all those Scottish hills. I arrived in Manchester and took a 3-day trip along the neighbouring canals. Also visited the Manchester Museum and met Stan the T-rex. !

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More pictures of South West Scotland. Lots of rain lately, hard to keep everything dry!

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Photos of the trip from Edinburgh to Glasgow along a canal. The Sci-fi looking building is the Falkirk wheel, that elevates boats onto the upper level of the canal!

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Pictures of St. Andrews, the bridge crossing to Edinburgh, then meeting up with Cat and Beth at the Fringe festival in Edinburgh!

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Took a sleeper train from London to Inverness, Scotland. 9 days straight of cycling along the east coast following the North Sea Cycle Route to Edinburgh. The hills were super tough and my legs really need a rest! Pictures of rural Scotland.

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London! Took two days from the ferry port at Harwich, very stressful since there were no bike paths at all and had to share the road with tons of cars the whole way.

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Dunes along the Dutch coast - best bike path so far! Cabin on the ferry to England, view of the sunset from the ferry, and panorama of my first campsite on the island. Unfortunately the bike paths in the UK so far have been a joke, and it took me two days of biking alongside cars to reach London - dangerous and not much fun at all. I'm taking a sleeper train to north Scotland tomorrow and will bike back south along the East coast. Will most likely cross west and take a ferry to Dublin, and after exploring Ireland for a bit will finally take a ferry to France. From there I will visit Mont Saint Michel and bike to Paris. Finally, I'll fly to Munich and then back to Tokyo!

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Industrial area leaving Hamburg, panorama view of the bike path along thr German coast, then pictures of Amsterdam! Amsterdam was by far my favorite city so far. All the other European cities kinda look the same, and I was getting quite sick of Germany, so I was ready to like the Netherlands. Turns out the Dutch are super cool and laid back. Met up with Eelco and Haruka, whom I knew from my days as an exchange student at Obirin. Thanks guys for being such amazing hosts!

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Shaved the beard after reaching Germany! Ass-impression left on a bench near the beach (I swear it's water!) Pictures of Hamburg and an impressive exhibit called Miniatur Wunderland.

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I finally started biking again, from Copenhagen to Hamburg. Knee was still weak, so took painkillers for the first few days. Every afternoon I would check the knee and it didn't feel any worse, so I kept going. Pictures: Awesome beach campsite on the Danish coast, biking over a bridge nearing the south end of Denmark, line of vehicles waiting to board the ferry to Germany.

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Long over-due update! Said goodbye to David in Malmö after travelling together through Sweden and Norway, and met up again in Copenhagen with two Canadian friends we met in Oslo - Amy and Jana. Pictures: Danish university students celebrating their graduation, chili dinner with Amy and Jana, view of Copenhagen.

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Pictures of Bergen and of "summer" in the highlands of Norway

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Incredibly, we found an even prettier campsite the next day! Sliced my thumb open with my knife but was excited at the chance to use my first aid kit!

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Awesome campsite on our way to Bergen from Oslo. We even had snow nearby for the beer. My gear was enough for the cold, but David had to sleep in the car for the first time, but not his last...

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I was planning on biking back to Copenhagen from Stockholm, but the knee is still weak and I can't take the bike on any of the trains here (damn you Sweden!), so if I can't bike I'd be screwed. So I stuck with David and we drove to Norway! This is turning into a trip with a bike instead of ON a bike... Pictures of: Cooking at a rest stop with David on our way to Oslo, picnic in Olso with new friends Amy and Jana, cool sculpture park in Oslo.