On the sponsorship front, including all cheques, cash and online sponsorship, I’m sitting at £3119. This is brilliant - thanks to everyone who has donated - but it is still a little short of the £1 per mile target I was going for, a total of £5000. I’ll be closing down the online donation page on Friday 12th February but you still have time to donate any last pennies you can throw my way.

So where did I get up to with the blog….ah yes. I had to say a hard goodbye to Kate in Bordeaux in the pouring rain after spending a tremendous two days there. The next 7 and a bit days of riding were to be the most daunting and also the most exciting as I felt so close to the finish line. Most of what I remember about north France was that it was seriously wet and quite a marathon effort to make the ferry. First of all Bordeaux turned out to be a sprawling city and it took me over an hour and a half to get from the city centre out past the northern limits, with quite a few frustrating wrong turns and some detours thrown in too to avoid the dreaded no-bikes-allowed signs. The only bonus was that after putting off my departure from the Bordeaux hotel for an hour to avoid the rain, I then miraculously didn’t get rained on after that, despite ominous black clouds hanging around overhead for the next 4 hours.

That night I stumbled across what was to be my final campsite for the trip, coming in at the bargain price of £4 and found the small restaurant next door was open where I could indulge in burger and chips. It rained all through the night leaving me with a sodden tent to pack up in the morning and a heavy mist. That day proved to be lots and lots of ups and downs which weren’t too pleasant and then the heavy rain began - this wasn’t to stop for the next 24 hours. I tried riding through a town in the dark that night to find a campsite or cheap hotel to find refuge, but all that achieved was to waste time. After much searching in the suburbs, I found a spot to camp in some bushes that were in the garden of a derelict house. In the pouring rain I was now totally drenched and so was my tent.

I woke up in the morning to hear the now familiar sound of heavy rain on the tent. I also knew I had to put in some serious miles that day in order to stand any sort of a chance of catching the ferry the following evening. With a feeling of dread I lay there for 30 minutes or so hoping it would ease off a little but it soon became clear the weather was there for the long haul. I packed everything up as quickly as I could feeling damp and miserable. My wheels weren’t turning due to the mud that had accumulated on my tyres when searching for a sleeping spot so a frustrating amount of time was spent unclogging. After only a few minutes of riding I passed a petrol station and decided to stop to take on some food, and hopefully get a little warmer and drier. The chap in the station was really nice and let me sit in his office and gave me a cup of coffee. It came up in conversation that I needed to be in Roscoff to catch the ferry the following night, to which he raised his eyebrows in a little disbelief. I hoped I could prove him wrong.

Later that day at around lunchtime, I rode through the centre of Nantes and the rain was absolutely bucketing it down, to the point where you just had to laugh that you were so wet. My goal for that day was to get to a town called Pontivy, which was still a long, long way away from Nantes. Finally, at around 6pm, the rain had stopped making it a little easier to carry on and cram in the miles that I absolutely had to squeeze in. At around 7pm, just as it was getting dark, I reached a town called Le Roc-Saint-Andre only to find that the road up ahead, which was the only one going to Pontivy, was closed and the signposted diversion took you on the motorway - no good for bikes. At this point I started to panic a little. I couldn’t afford stuff like this happening in order to make my target, it was already late in the day. Very fortunately, I asked a woman working in a restaurant what to do and she told me about a canal path that ran 15km to the next town that followed the closed road and I should then be able to rejoin it there. So off I went riding along the canal in near pitch blackness with bats swooping around all over the shop. It was such a relief to make it to the next town called Josselin where, as the kind lady had said, I could rejoin the road. What then followed were mind-games riding on country roads in pitch black hoping cars could see me lights and willing the lights of Pontivy to appear around every bend. Whenever I saw somewhere I could stop to set up the tent and sleep I got very tempted. But I’d set my sights on Pontivy and that was where I need to be by the end of the day, besides the tent was a soggy wreck and all but useless. At 11pm I rolled into Pontivy feeling relief and severe tiredness but the day wasn’t over, I had to find somewhere to sleep. I was looking around me like a hawk to try and eye-spy a hotel but had a horrible thought in the back of my mind that it was too late at night and nowhere would be open. After riding back and forth for 3o minutes I was overjoyed to find a hotel that was open, quite a posh affair that turned out to cost an eye-bulging £65 for the night, the most expensive stop of the trip by a long way. However, by that point I was past caring and it was worth that money just to get the opportunity to dry out all my kit. By the time I’d sorted everything out and got into bed it was 1.30am and I was totally exhausted after completing over 12 hours on the saddle and 150 miles that day. I don’t really want to have a day on the bike like that ever again.

After rising at 6.30am to get a good start the next day, I had only got 5 hours sleep and felt totally rubbish. Still, today was the day I leapt over to Ireland on the ferry and that fact was enough to keep me going. The day turned out to be a painful one with my body aching from yesterdays efforts and my mental reserves pretty low. At lunchtime I bumped into two British cyclists who had just landed at Roscoff that morning and were a few hours into their 4000 mile adventure to Egypt. It felt very odd to be stood there talking to them so close to the finish line and there they were just starting out, with shiny new kit and not much experience under their belts. I was encouraged as they told me the terrain to the ferry port wasn’t too bad and wasn’t too far away either. I was nearly there and going to make it with an hour or two to spare as planned. The riding was pleasant with sunny spells, some downhills to the coast and good views. However, I was totally spent and willing the town of Roscoff to show it’s face. Finally I got there and the plan was to set foot in a supermarket and buy a tank load of food to devour on the ferry and maybe a beer or two - I was really looking forward to that. I found the big Casino supermarket only to discover to my dismay that it had closed 3o minutes ago. I would have to pay the ridiculous ferry food prices instead. At this point I met Michael, who was to become one of my cycling comrades over the next 12 hours. He rode an odd tandem contraption where he was the solo rider and his plan was to ride round the world picking up hitch hikers who wanted to join him on his tandem for any period of time (you can see his website here). I briefly left him to get some dinner, which consisted of the most I have ever paid for the least amount of burger possible, I was gutted! We then met again in the queue for the ferry and also met Jean-Noel (or as he translated his name into English for me ‘John Christmas’) who was spending the next few weeks cycling around Ireland. Then on the ferry, I met more cyclists in the form of Frank and Brige, a couple from New Zealand who had been on the road for 6 months. My time on the ferry was great but different to how I’d imagined. I’d thought I would curl up somewhere by myself, grab a shower, enjoy some rest and then set off in Ireland raring to go. Instead I ended up chatting for ages, swapping stories with the folks I’d met until late into the night. Again in the morning we all hung out together, Frank and Brige kindly bought me a fantastic fry-up so I wasn’t even subjected to silly ferry prices.

Once on Irish soil, it was the weirdest feeling being back on the left hand side of the road again. I set off in convoy with the rest of my cycling comrades that I’d met on the ferry; destination Cork. Brige had told us all about a cycling rally that was happening in Cork that day, something to do with promoting the use of bikes in the city. So we were all going to join in. I was now caught in a bit of an awkward spot where I would have really liked to have spent more time with these folks and hung out a bit more in Cork. However, what actually happened was that we joined the cyclists who were parading around the city and the whole time I was feeling slightly edgy as I needed to set off ASAP in order to get to Belfast for my next ferry. No matter how much I told myself it was OK to hang around for a bit, I couldn’t relax. So after lunch I took my chance and fled - but it turned out to be not quite as simple as that. Riding around in the rally I’d noticed there was a large bulge in my rear tyre which was causing a massive bump every time the wheel went round. Frank helped me change the inner tube when we stopped for lunch and I hoped that this would fix the problem. After stopping at a petrol station to get enough air into my wheel, the bump was back and it was clear that my tyre was dead. So I rode around to find a fellow cyclist who then kindly guided me to the nearest Cork bike shop where I bought a new tyre. It had lasted over 4700 miles, which is totally amazing for a tyre under load and I genuinely felt sad to see it go, I had begun to have hopes I would complete Euroloop on one set of tyres. Anyway, by this time it was well into the afternoon and I was wasting precious time. I’d already decided to make my route through Ireland shorter than originally intended as I had plenty of miles in the bank to make reaching 5000 a certainty, but I still needed to push on to make Belfast in time.

Campsites in Ireland were few and far between on the major roads so I knew I would be wild camping for a few nights. However, what I came to realise is that Ireland is a land of fields as far as the eye can see. There is virtually no land that is wasted. This meant finding somewhere to sleep out of the way that wasn’t overtly trespassing was difficult, almost impossible. That first night after searching in the dark for a long time, I ended up on top of a grassy embankment just above the main road. I awoke in the morning to find the air absolutely freezing and it came as quite a shock compared to the heat I’d been experiencing for the past 2 months, but there was a great sunrise backdrop for packing away the tent. I’d camped about 10 km south of Limerick so the job for the morning was to navigate my way around the city on the ring road and head north east for Northern Ireland. However, the main roads in the area were getting a serious overhaul and had partly been converted into motorways, which wasn’t on my map. These were the only roads I could take without a serious detour. I asked a policeman what the deal was and he said seeing as it was super early on a Sunday morning that it wasn’t really a problem so I should just go for it - and that I did. It was a beautiful morning, amazingly my body felt great and it was about this time I got the first gusts of a tailwind that was to stay with me all the way to Glasgow. A puncture in my front tyre gave me a bit of a nasty feeling, it felt as though my bike was falling apart but with a coffee and a sausage roll in my belly I was off again. The day carried on without much to note except the constant pedalling and a welcome lunch stop at Tesco (hadn’t seen one of those in a while) where I sat outside the store in the freezing cold eating a boat-load of food. As night drew in I was back to searching in vain for a hidden place to sleep amongst all the fields. On the Cork ferry, Brige had told me that if I ever got stuck I should just ask a farmer if I could sleep in a spare field, a tactic I’d never used during my trip - but tonight was the night. I knocked on a farmhouse door where the farmer’s son said it was fine and I found my pitch for the night. In the morning I packed up all my stuff and realised it was the last time I’d ever have to do that for the ride, what an amazing, exciting and relieving thought. I was about to head off when the farmer’s wife called me in for a cup of tea, fed me cheese on toast and we had a nice chat. Back out on the road, the pain in my backside had reached high levels and I resorted to wearing both pairs of my cycling shorts at the same time in order to ease the discomfort. I hit quite a bit of rain in the morning and got lost attempting a shortcut that turned out not so short, but for most of the time I was chugging northwards at a good pace. I crossed the Northern Irish border and that was me in the UK, digging out my Stirling, passing all the familiar road signs and shops and logos, distances now shown in miles -  home was so very close now. The tailwind pushed me into Belfast on a beautiful sunny evening and I navigated my way through the city to the Mawhinney’s house, parents of a friend of mine. I got a warm welcome, slap up dinner, a shower and a proper bed (thank you the Mawhinneys!) as well as discovering that I’d lost a shocking two and a half stone on my travels.

I arose the next day with the awareness that this was it, the final sprint to the finish line, the last day of 69 days worth of riding that had taken me through 19 European countries. It was 5.30am and in some bleary eyed way I had to make a mad dash for the ferry at Belfast port, which I only just made in the end. An excitable and slightly surreal ferry journey left me on the other side of the Irish Sea at Stranraer, Scotland.

This was it, over the next 8 hours a few thousand pedal turns were going to complete what I’d started and be the last chapter to so many stories, emotions and dreams. There were some big hills to climb up from the coast but nothing I hadn’t seen before, and the combination of a large tailwind with the prospect of Glasgow made the rest of the days riding seem to pass quickly and easily - although miles seemed to tick down horrendously slowly compared to kilometres. I was meeting friends at the finish line in George Square at 6pm and found I had plenty of time so stopped at Pizza Hut for a few hours to gorge on two pizzas as a treat. I’d climbed steadily for what felt like most of the day but I can vouch that the mantra “What goes up, must come down” is very true. About 7 or 8 miles outside Glasgow I was on top of a hill that looked down onto the city, I could see all the way to my final desitination. I was getting drizzled on but the sun was shining on Glasgow in big streaks of light through the clouds, an amazing scene at the end of a long journey. The downhill miles that followed into the city were easy with surroundings becoming increasingly familiar and my excitement/impatience levels rising at the thought of the finish. And then there it was, George Square, and there were my friends, and there was Kate, I’d made it. Feeling slightly sheepish, awkward and socially out-of-it, words and hugs and laughter were shared with everyone (as well as a bottle of champagne) and we went off to celebrate at a small party my friend Colin had organised for my welcome home.

I’d just completed 5083 miles in 69 days (56 days on the bike) and 750 of those miles I’d done in the final 7 days. I was exhausted and skinny, with ludicrous tan lines. I had 5 blissful days to spend with Kate doing absolutely nothing before having to think about returning to work, planning my imminent wedding and resuming life as normal.

This 5-day block was between Burgos in north Spain and Bordeaux. I had to work my way up to the Spanish coast for the first day, more winds ahoy for that little stint of the journey, it was getting to be quite a theme in Spain. More Spanish rocks and nothingness too, again another theme. I went over three or four mountain passes so it was pretty hard work. The final pass started out as a beast of a 10% gradient, first hill I’ve really struggled to get up. It then went into thick cloud and it was absolutely freezing, haven’t felt cold at all for 2 months so it was a bit of a shock. Then down the other side it was a big green valley in the sunset, working it’s way all the way to Santander. The next couple of days was spent heading east from Santander, where the road went to-and-fro between the coast and the mountains slightly inland. I managed to find a camp spot just before the massive urban and industrial sprawl of Bilbao. Unfortunately, this spot and that of the night before had been heavily infested with brambles and it was on the third day that I noticed my legs looked like they’d been through the wars with cuts all over the place. I like to think that they added to the rugged look, but probably just made me more of a scruff.

Through Bilbao on the morning of the third day and it was town after town before and after the main city, which is built on lots of hills. Whilst the city centre looked really nice with a modern, cosmopolitan feel to it, my opinion of Bilbao was somewhat tainted by the busy dual carriageways in and out of the city that weren’t particularly pleasant to ride on. Also, there was quite a lot of pollution in the air that day. Anyway, the road again went through mountains slightly inland and then hit the coast, where there were lots of really nice coastal towns that reminded me almost of ones in Britain, very different to the touristy south coast. Another thing that struck me was that it was noticeably cooler now. My water stayed cold, which makes life a lot easier not having to get new water every hour because it had practically reached boiling point. There was also now proper green grass, none of this brown straw-like rubbish that can set on fire if you click your fingers. And the best thing, I could carry chocolate again without it ending up in a gooey mess, brilliant. The run of coastal towns ended with San Sebastien which I went through in the evening, France was very close and excitement was building. I ended up sleeping that night in a botanical gardens a couple of kilometres from the border, took me ages to find that spot, almost an hour.

The morning of the fourth day, I felt pretty horrible through a combination of not feeling very clean and also a few aches and pains were causing some problems. After downing a litre of milk in the first town I came to, then having a coffee and some chocolate I felt a heck of a lot better and was ready to hit the road again. This lasted until about 2 or 3pm in the afternoon where my backside was giving me severe problems, the worst so far on the trip. The only saving grace was that I was now riding through national park up to Bordeaux and there were tonnes of campsites everywhere, so there was a pretty good chance I could score a shower at the end of the day. So I just had to grit my teeth and carry on.

Once getting to the town where I wanted to stop for the day, there must have been about 5 campsites in and around the town. However, through turning up at two which were closed and getting a little lost as well. It took me an hour of cycling around to finally find one, not a good end to the day. But I got my shower and it was amazing. Another little problem thrown into the works for that night was that halfway through cooking my pasta, the petrol in my stove ran out. I’d just about got the water boiling but the pasta was rock hard still, I was the only one in this small campsite and the family that ran it had gone to bed. I panicked a little at first as I was starving and didn’t have any other food but eventually remembered I’d seen a coffee maker in shed/tv lounge. So my pasta was finished off simmering away on the hot plate of a coffee maker, disaster averted.

Last day and what I thought was an 80km sprint north to Bordeaux but actually turned out to be 100km. Not much more but still a little demoralising as I’d put in extra miles the previous days to try and make the final day a really easy sub-100km. Anyway, my bum was still really sore and for the final hour going through the Bordeaux suburbs to the centre, I didn’t/couldnt sit on the saddle once (I think I have solved this problem. My saddle is leather and has sagged some over the distance I’ve been using it and I have been sitting on the saddles metal frame - hence the pain! I’ve cranked up an adjustment bolt that tightens the whole leather of the saddle which has raised it off the frame. Fingers crossed it’ll be alright again now for the final week).

I finally arrived at the hotel at 4pm only moments before Kate, good timing. Although I had hoped to get a shower before she got here and be less of a stinker but things never quite go as planned. It’s been brilliant to actually hang out with someone on my day off, especially when it is my Kate. She’s been fairly tired as she only returned from India last Thursday and is still trying to get back to normal. So we’ve slept lots, watched films, eaten plenty and strolled around the streets of Bordeaux for a bit. It all makes things very difficult to get back on the bike as I just want to stay here with my beau. The end is clearly in sight now though, three and a half days up to Roscoff on the coast, ferry to Ireland, three days from Cork to Belfast, ferry to Stranraer and a days sprint up to Glasgow. Seven and a half days riding in total. And then that’s it. The end of Euroloop. I can’t quite believe it.

So I must run, got a few more hours with Kate before I need to set off. It’s a bit ominous up France, I need to do about 375 miles in three and a half days, here goes…..

Please get in touch by Facebook or email to get details of Colin’s address and let me know if you’ll be coming so we can figure out numbers. See you soon!

This chunk of riding is the first time since Bosnia where I’ve camped wild every night between rest days, it’s been a while. I’m pretty sure I looked and smelt quite interesting when I got to my hotel, but the good thing is that when it’s you that smells, your nose becomes fairly immune to it all. The week has also been quite a relaxed one in terms of the distances I’ve had to do. Since realising I’m quite a bit ahead of target to complete 5000 miles by Glasgow, I put the week just gone and the week coming up onto a distance diet - the comfortable, take-your-time sort of diet. It turned out that that was a very good idea as the whole way through Spain was hilly, some might even say mountainous, with plenty of ups and downs. I don’t know where the little poem/saying applies to, but there ain’t no rain or plains where I’ve just been riding. In combination with that, I had a nasty critter of a headwind for 36-hours which majorly slowed me down.

The week started off badly when I left my hotel in Tarragona late at around 11:30am after trying to finish off all my communications whilst I had internet access. Following picking up some food supplies at Lidl across the road, I came out of the store to find some cheeky bandit had pinched my helmet and sunglasses, which I’d left clipped to the bike. Now, who wants to steal a sun-bleached, sweat-soaked helmet along with some knackered and scratched sunglasses I’ve no idea, but good luck to ‘em. Anyway, that put a bit of a dampener of things. All I can say is that I’m very fortunate they didn’t steal anything more disastrous - I guess they were the quickest, easiest things to take. I then rode down to the train station to get a train backwards 40km to where I called it quits 2 days before. That again was a bit demoralising, not to mention the hassle I had getting a ticket, but that’s another story. Anyway, I eventually hit the road at 1pm after all that. However, I still managed to fit in my 110km despite having to stop to buy a new helmet and sunglasses during the afternoon.

The only way was up from the coast after riding through Tarragona for the second time that day, and I plodded my way through some fairly stunning and lush mountains during the evening, finishing the day off riding into a brilliant sunset. The next day started off well enough but suddenly at around 11am I came out of a town and the big, brute wind hit. For the next day and a half I had to struggle against it, having to pedal to just get down hills. This was at the same time as riding through totally barren landscapes where there was just rubble and scrub, punctuated occasionally by pylons and a road that headed on into more nothingness. The outlook was bleak. I was fortunate to find the only bushes I’d seen for ages outside a town so that I cold put up the tent. I treated myself to some calamares there in the town, my first proper Spanish food to speak of.

Eventually, the next day the wind all but disappeared and the landscape got a bit more interesting thankfully. I went over a mountain ridge, hounded constantly by stupid flies all the way up and coming out onto the other side, I was confronted with quite a crazy landscape of lush valleys and hills with vines and crops growing everywhere. The hills had ledges cut into them all the way down for these crops, which made them look all geometric - reminded me of something out of a Lego set. From then on the riding was a pleasure and the miles disappeared almost effortlessly. I had a few issues with getting enough food as I was mostly passing through small villages and between 1pm and 5pm, although that seems to be up for grabs, everything is shut. Mention this in my video diary taken in Soria, where I fluked finding one of the only food stores open, even though it’s a fairly large town. Probably because it was run by a Chinese chap.

If anyone is interested, I  made a note of what I ate the day before this video. Again, I had issues finding food so it’s probably not enough, but it is fairly typical of a normal day. In no particular order:

• 2 nectarines
• banana
• tomato
• large portion of porridge with sugar and sultanas
• muesli bar
• 5 savoury pastries
• 4-5 sugary doughnut things
• 2 chocolate croissants
• ice cream
• 2 yoghurts
• bottle of drinking yoghurt
• litre of coke
• can of ice tea
• litre of fruit juice
• 3 litres of water

I did have a little blip this week where my bottle of shower gel decided to explode inside my pannier bag. It was almost full and so Lidl’s finest yellow, gooey liquid managed to cover all my toiletries, get all over my sleeping bag stuff-sack (thankfully it’s water proof) and a good part of the pannier bag. It took ages to clean up and most of my water supplies for the night as I had stopped to camp at this point. But it could have been a lot worse and nothing more vital like my sleeping bag or stove got soaked in the horrible stuff. I took this video in the morning, don’t know why I didn’t mention the shower gel incident. Obviously forgotten about it by then, or I was too tired to remember.

On the final day of this riding chunk I only had to do 100km to get to Burgos. It was mostly easy riding and got there at an unprecedented 2.15pm. This gave me almost a day and a half off and so I had time to have a kebab and a beer, find out if there was launderette in town and saunter off to the hotel. Very relaxed especially compared to the previous week where I walked through the hotel doors at 10.30pm. Anyway, I’ve had a good day off here in Burgos today. Pretty much every town I’ve stayed in I’ve managed to fluke it coming in high on the cool-0-meter. Burgos has a really nice old part of the city to wander round and a very impressive cathedral.

So I set off on the road again tomorrow for another 5-day stretch of riding. Final destination is Bordeaux for my day off, which is made 10 times more exciting because my Kate is flying in after having just returned to the UK from India, and we’ll be spending a short bit of time together there. Can’t wait. I’m also faced with the prospect of hitting the 4000 mile mark this week, meaning only 1000 miles until I get back to Glasgow. I’m starting to feel very close now and the light at the end of the tunnel is highly visible. Bring it on.

The only thing is I’ve been trying to keep up with a few other British cyclists who are on adventures whilst I’ve been on the road, although their journeys make mine feel very much like a walk in the park and quite unimpressive. If you’re interested, Mark Beaumont, a friend from university and current world  record holder for cycling round the world, is currently riding from North to South America and his expedition is fully covered by the BBC. James Bowthorpe is just days away from breaking Mark’s world record after riding for around 9 months. And finally, a chap called Julien Emre Sayarer is also midway through riding round the world in a quest to break the world record - he has ridden 9,000 miles without spending a night in a hotel or camp site, big respect. All inspiring stuff - hope you enjoy taking a look. Right, that’s me off to bed. Goodnight.

This week has been tough, one of the hardest I think. On the first day, I left my mum and dad really late at 11am, mainly due to me not getting up early enough and then getting dog crap all over the front wheel in the garden. Nice. I needed to get past Marseille that day and unfortunately hit the city centre in the evening. This meant some night riding as I needed to get out of the city in order to find somewhere decent to sleep and Marseille is massive, it took ages. I finally managed to find somewhere to stop up from the road on top of a small hill at 10pm. Unfortunately, my choice of spot was rubbish in that it got seriously windy during the night. I had to get up at 2am to re-peg the tent and the wind then kept me awake the rest of the night. On day 2, the wind was still there in the morning and was coming right at me, a massive headwind. I couldn’t get more speed than about 8km/h until the afternoon. Once I changed direction out of the wind, the going was much easier and I popped on my new mp3 player, tunes at last! (The one I bought originally for the trip never worked). However, a headwind was to become a standard feature for the rest of the week working my way down the French coast to Spain. Total nightmare.

Coupled with the headwind, I managed to somehow get my distances badly wrong. Before I set off for the week, I worked out I needed to do about 140km a day to get to Tarragona from Toulon. However, I got this distance from my rough calculations that I’d done before the start of Euroloop back in July. This was because I only managed to get an hour internet access whilst staying with mum and dad, leaving me no time to do a detailed distance calculation on Google Maps (the easiest and best way to quickly plan routes and get distances - been using it all the way with great success). What transpired was that it was way more than 140km a day, I actually did 70km more than anticipated during the 5 day week and that still left me 40km short of Tarragona at 7.45pm on Tuesday eve, the final day.

The day before, I’d put in 180km to try and make Tuesday easier. I’d then set off early on Tuesday morning at 7.45am. However, Barcelona is massive and it took me ages to get through, slow going with all the traffic lights. I got lost a few times on the way out due to not being sure whether I was allowed on this road that looked incredibly like a motorway but wasn’t. The coast after Barcelona is full of steep ups and downs (the motorway next to me annoyingly had tunnels cutting all the way through the mountain!) and to top it all off the Spanish sign posting on the coast is bad, bad, bad. The signs lead you so far and then disappear and you haven’t got a clue where to go. Plus, I was asking myself to do 200km in a day to get to Tarragona. Anyway, on the Tuesday eve I phoned Colin, my wingman, to discuss options and to have someone to talk to. We decided I should get the train for the last 40km to Tarragona, there was a station nearby. I could then get the train back after my day off so I don’t miss out any miles. So off I went to get the train. The guy in the ticket office told me to get the wrong train so I had to change once on the way. Then trying to find the hotel, I discovered there’d been a mix up. Colin had booked me a hotel and sent details but Google Maps thought it was somewhere where it wasn’t. I walked round for ages trying to find it, and after phoning the hotel and Colin, found out it was in a completely different place! Anyway, I got here eventually at 10.30pm and was welcomed by an enormous plate of burger, egg and chips.

Enough of my moaning. I spent ages yesterday figuring out all my miles, how much I had left to do and what my route is right up until Glasgow. I’ve been able to shorten my course through Spain quite a bit and the good news is that it is now possible to take it easy for the next two weeks. Comparitively speaking of course, but 110km a day is a lot  better than 140-160km, which is what I’ve been doing quite consistently.Tell you what, looking at the route and timescales to Glasgow, I feel close now. The countdown in my head has begun.

I also wandered around Tarragona yesterday and the centre of town is cool actually. There’s an old walled city with a cathedral and loads of wee narrow streets. There’s also a big walkway or Rambla through the town with lots of seats, trees, sculptures and ice cream shops, I couldn’t resist.

That’s enough of that, need to pack up and hit the road, or rather the train tracks first of all. Until next time.

This one was taken ages ago coming along the Croatian coastline. I was flying downhill at the time after a hefty climb, holding the camera out with one hand. Don’t know why I felt the need to keep looking at the camera and also my big head gets in the way of all the views, but you get the idea.

This next one is almost the same deal. Just done a big climb but I’m now on the Italian coast. Some nice seaside towns along there, although a bit busy and tourist-filled.

Proper blog entry coming soon. Adios.

So that’s the end of Euroloop Leg 2 now, around 3000 miles in and 2000 left to go. I’ve actaully managed to scrape another days holiday with the parents than I originally itended, taking it upto 3 days rest.  This is due to discovering that I’ve done about 250 miles more than what I thought up to this point. The extra miles in the bank mean that I can also alter my course through Spain a little too to make life a bit easier.

This week saw me whizzing through North Italy and some really beautiful towns (and some pretty horrible industrial ones too) on super flat roads before heading south to the Mediterranean coast. The Italian coast consisted of town after town jam packed with tourists, cars and scooters making for some pretty hairy riding at times, probably the worst so far. I was back in the land of campsites again for some welcome showers, temperatures are still cooking up to 40 degrees at the height of the day down here. Although I did end up paying a totally ridiculous £25 for one night in a particularly shoddy campsite, tourist rip off.

Crossing the border into France I then had to get past Monaco and into Nice. Why anyone thought that it was a good idea to build Monaco on the most ludicrously steep cliffs I have no idea. Anyway, I am definately not cycling anywhere round there ever again, total killer! There was then a one day sprint along the Cote d’Azur almost to Toulon in order to meet up with my folks. The roads round here are all feel vaguely familiar as I spent a summer working and cycling in this area about 6 years ago. It feels good to be in France where I can actaully vaguely speak the language and ask for things, almost the first time in the trip. I did get very excited about that in Monaco, ran into the first service station I saw to get water and asked what the time was just because I could, only to then get very deflated because the guy couldn’t figure out what I was on about! Never mind, I’ve had better results since then. It also feels good to be in France as suddenly I feel a lot closer to the UK and although there’s still 4 weeks left, I’m starting to be able to view the finish line.

So hopefully the 3 days has given me some valuable rest. My knees, back and bum were all fairly sore before I stopped, I think it’s still due to the massive day I put in a week ago. There was a big grin on my face as I cycled the last 4 km to the B&B, all downhill through vineyards in the sunset, totally stunning. And also knowing I had a small holiday, brilliant. Tomorrow I set off again heading along the coast to Spain and I think my next rest day is a little after Barcelona. I am all tanked up on fresh kit and supplies that ma & pa brought out with them and I’m looking forward to hitting the road again (Although going to miss a proper bed!). Click here to view the latest photos. Au revoir.

I started off on the Croatian coast this week which is pretty spectacular but ultimately I found it to be hot, hilly and windy. So whilst I’m glad to have seen it, Im also glad to see the back of it if I’m honest. The big bonus was all the campsites lurking about on the coast meaning that I got a shower every day this week. This was needed  as most days it was hitting between 35 and 40 degrees, leading me to be one sweaty mess by the end of the day. I got myself into a bit of a sticky situation on Pag island where I ran out of cash and instead of heading into a town off-route to replenish supplies, I decided I would probably be able to pay for my ferry ticket by card. Bad assumption. I either had to ride back to the nearest town for cash, 6km of uphill, or beg. I chose the latter, targetting Slovenian cars as they’re fairly well off and speak good English. After asking several people, feeling a bit of a fool, and being flatly refused I met Dennis. He agreed to pay for the tickets I needed for me and the bike, which I was extremely grateful for. Cheers Dennis wherever you are.

It was then a brief ride through Solvenia to Italy, so I rode in 3 countries during that day which felt quite good. Coming down onto the Italian coast I rode through Trieste which was a cool city and I would have really liked to have stuck around to see it. Unfortunately it was late evening and I had to crack on for a while to try and continue my lucky streak of campsites.

Due to the campsites, it’s been the first week where I’ve bumped into other cyclists and spent some time with them. First, there were 3 French chaps who I shared some pasta with and we exchanged stories and experiences. Then I met Richard from the Netherlands the other night and we went out for Pizza and some beers. Nice change to not be camping by myself and have some folks to talk to, although they were all taking it a bit easier than me and thought I was a bit of a mentalist.

The week culminated in a beast of a day yesterday, where I cycled 225km (140 miles) putting in over 10 hours of saddle time. I had left myself with a long last day anyway, around 180km, but this part of Italy is very flat and I thought it would be fine. Then I found the main coast road to Venice was closed. I followed the diversion signs for a while until they inevitably dissappeared and I found myself a bit lost. I chose a new route to get to Padova, my final destination. The route turned out to be bad judgement on my part as it added 30-40km to the day. Once I finally got to the outskirts of Padova, it took me 30 minutes of cycling around to find the hotel, only to then discover that the hotel was closed and all reservations made for that hotel had been moved to a different one. Another 10 minutes of cycling around to find that next hotel and once I eventually got there at 10pm, the slightly inept receptionist  couldn’t find my flipping reservation, so I had to wait half an hour for her to figure it all out. I was close to breaking point at that stage. But never mind, I finally got my room, ran over to the only pizzaria open before it shut for a pizza and a pint, had an amazing shower and collapsed into bed at 12.30am.

I am staying in a small town just outside of Padova so there’s not much to see but I’ve done my washing, finished my book and spent the whole afternoon in an air-conditioned cafe with coffees and  an internet connection. Setting off tomorrow again, destination France where I meet my parents for two days off near Toulon. Should be great and something to look forward to. Off for another pizza now. Adios.

The first sighting of the Hungarian border when I was in Slovakia:

I got caught in a down pour when I needed to put in some miles to get to NetWorks by the end of the day:

Riding through the start of the mountains in central Bosnia:

Stopped in the nick of time for a pit stop and a coke before the thunder and heavy rain set in for 2 hours:

My map led me to a road to cross into Croatia that was a steep rubble track for 16km. I promptly changed my route:

I crested a hill and there was Split and the Croatian coatliine before me:

That’s me 2150 miles in and about to start the bottom section of Euroloop, heading west to eventually end up in Spain. Plenty of country hopping this week again starting out in Romania, then into Hungary. I crossed into Serbia for a day where I met a really nice waiter in Sombor (called Alex funnily enough) who recommended trying the national Serbian dish for lunch (can’t remember it’s name and probably couldn’t pronounce it even if I could). The meal was absolutely massive and I was stuffed afterwards. Alex also told me I should change my route to go through Montenegro, which he reckoned was one of the places you have to go see if you’re in the Balkans due to the breathtaking scenery. Unfortunately, my route is already planned and because of timescales I can’t really fiddle around with it too much. But thanks for the tip Alex, I’ll bear it in mind for future holidays!

Leaving Sombor, I got crazily lost for 2 hours on roads the map said existed but never really materialized, they were just dirt tracks. The map even said there was a bridge crossing a small river, but when I got there found there was nothing other than a railway bridge. Turning back meant riding an hour along the way I’d come on bad roads so I braced myself and legged it across the railway bridge having visions of the scene in the film ‘Stand by Me’ if you’ve ever seen that. Anyway, no damage done thankfully.

I passed into Croatia briefly and then into Bosnia to find the first big mountains that I’ve had to climb, proper mountain pass roads with tunnels and switchbacks and everything. I did really enjoy doing serious uphill for quite a while and then flying down the other side, as long as it doesn’t happen too often. It made a change from all the flat-ish riding I’ve been doing. On one of the ridges I went over, on one side it was lush and green with evergreens everywhere, I went through a tunnel at the peak and the other side revealed a completely different landscape, it was quite odd how sudden it was. Everything was now looking very dry and Mediterranean. The heat kicked up a notch and going up all those hills was a sweaty business, I got my first major salt sweats, nice. I made my way across the border back into Croatia again, not without some problems. I headed for a mountain pass that was marked as a main road on my Bosnian map. However, when I got there it was just a dirt track winding it’s way up the ridge. I politely declined taking that crap road and had to cycle back the way I’d come to cross the border at a different place.

The final day of the week was shorter than the rest, which involved working my way over a couple of hills and into the outskirts of Split to then head along the coast to Trogir and find somewhere to stay. I was seriously dirty and stinking after 5 days straight without a shower, particularly now the sun’s thermostat has been turned up. All my kit was in need of a good wash and airing out. The campsite here in Trogir is great for doing that at least and I’ve been reading, sleeping and eating as usual on my day off. It really is a beautiful little town with brilliant views, great pit stop. And then tomorrow I’m off again, the next major milestone is meeting my mum and dad in the south of  France near Toulon for two days break. But that’s in 10 days time, plenty more miles to come before then.

I just want to say thanks to everyone for the texts, emails and Facebook messages that keep coming in. I do get them, even if I don’t reply to all of them, and they’re really encouraging. Righty-ho, time to go get some dinner. Adios.