Posts by neil

And so ends another epic Mad Bike Ride!! We cycled further than ever before….430km more than last year. We climbed more metres than ever before….68,067….but only pipping last year by…

We started the day…by leaving Spain….entering France…then a few kms later…we re-entered Spain…into the enclave of Llivia! A very strange bit of history really…as Wikipedia notes: “Following the Franco-Spanish War (1635–1659),…

Whilst yesterday was a bit of an unknown…today was relatively easy! All day on tarmac…but taking us across the highest pass in the Pyrenees! A great breakfast…was followed by a…

Today was simply an epic day!! During these rides….there are some ‘planned’ days…which generate significant levels of anxiety…simply because you can find no information about the proposed route! Other than…

A rest day. The last rest day of this journey! Not much to explore…but at least the rain held off….and the sun came out…..! …..so it was just a rest…

I woke at around three in the morning…to the sound of rain! Alas!! Rain! Spain! Pain! No rush to leave once again! But it did ease once again at around…

We woke to the sound of no rain!!! Yeeha! And the views from the back of our guest house was spectacular! Overall…a lovely day of riding. Best just to let…

In Hertford, Hereford, and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly ever happen”. This is true! “The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain”…is simply not true!! Indeed…as the plains remain parched…and we…

I woke at seven.  It was still raining. Thunder and lightening…albeit some distance away! When we went to bed last night…we had asked our host if the rain was going…

The first 40kms or so today was a cruise down a fairly deserted main road. Whereupon we happened upon Lumbier…simply time for a coffee stop! But we were in for…

Poor old Nae did the running today…to the toilet! No bull…! No Bulls either…! We are of course six weeks late for the annual fiesta…but I did walk the route.…

What a start to the day! Wordle in ONE! A 3,500 to one probability!  Screenshot And Liz…would you believe….has done it five or six times! She should probably buy a…

A lovely day!! The first part of the day…getting out of and away from Bilbao was not great. We were following the same road which we have used on and…

A day off! And…another off day!! The sun apparently rose around 7.30…but it remained dark and brooding….and then heavens opened once again. Thunder and lightening…very very frightening! Well, not really…just…

I think that can count as another double-tonner to finish this stint! Lots more climbing today….and the hills seemed bigger! But we rarely got above 150 metres…before plunging down to…

We both had an awful night’s sleep! Shennae has cricked her neck…and just could not get comfortable.  Whilst I had a sever bout of the shits. About 1.30 in the…

A much better day today!! Lovely riding. The sun shone! We had breakfast in the wee town of Ribadesella… …and then made a small detour to a bike shop! My…

Yet another double tonne!! And a fairly memorable…or unmemorable….day’s cycling. It was cold. Sometimes cold and wet. Occasionally biking jackets were removed…only for them to be put back on again…

A lazy, lazy day! Probably helped by the fact that it rained for most of the day!! (Always better than when riding!) Washing, blogging, reading…and accommodation searching! On this latter…

Flat tyre once again! Alas! Tubeless tyres are usually wonderful…except when they are not!! Temperamental things! We got away quite early (a relative term for here it does not get…

I had to wear my biking jacket every single day of the first three stages of the ride…including all the way through Morocco. I then left it in Santiago…and have…

How about a triple-tonner to start! (Just!) Hahaha!!! Not intended at all! But these things happen. And this after Shennae arrived in Collioure fresh from Belize with a lurgy….chesty cough…and…

Two months to the day since John and I left! John to NZ…..me to Milan, Skiathos and Skopelos (to meet Liz and Jude), and on to Evia (surely the most…

Alas….our last cycling day on this segment of the trip! A short hop to Santiago and the end of our wee camino together! It is still cold! But it was…

After five days on the go…(around 550km and 8,500m of climbing!)….today was a welcome rest day! So time for washing, blog and a wander. Funny little town really. Alternately very…

We had planned a slow start today…to give time for the rain to clear. But shortly before we were due to leave, the heavens opened once again! Alas…no T-Rain option…

Our last day in Portugal! And we covered some distance!! And a surprising amount of ascent! Alas…..woke to rain! Lots of it! Guimarain! And the forecast looked bleak! The cloud…

We left today with a little trepidation…fearing a third triple ton day! We were both still knackered after our last two days! And if Google was averagely inaccurate…it could well…

OMG…two triple tons in two days! Before yesterday…I had only ever done one once! That great ride through Albania last year…when Iain and I arrived at a village in the…

Over a few beers…John and I hatched a plan. To take a short cut! In between Monsanto and where we are going is Portugal’s highest mountain. Torre (tower…not bull!) in…

A magic day in a truly magical village. This is our house on the right… ……and the views from our balcony! There would be few more photogenic places on the…

It was cold when we started out.  And got a lot colder as we climbed a few hundred metres…into the clouds!! Fog! But thankfully a very quiet road. Down the…

We planned an early start today…for we were not quite sure how much climbing there might be! But…the gods were against us! Or against John’s batteries to be precise. He…

We were not sorry to leave our overnight prison! A weird place really….albeit clean and comfortable! But it was a fairly non-descript ride today…as we took the fastest on-road route….to…

A long but stress-free ride. Funny though that Google advised us that there would be a total of only 200 metres of climbing on our route today! So…wrong by a…

Short on distance but big on adventure today, as we spent almost the whole trip on off-road tracks….half of which were indeed quite tricky! Lots of solid stratified rock, loose…

A very lazy rest day today….after just two days riding! I thought John might need one after yesterday’s 140km!!  That is the door to our perfectly located house…the red one…

If yesterday was about altitude…today was about distance!  By the end….John is now confident he can handle everything! Haha! But not as enjoyable a ride. The hills have largely flattened…

A lovely, lovely ride today. Up into the hills… John had been worried if he could cope with all the hills…but it was no problem. Up and down all day!…

A very chilled day. Blog…wander…breakfast…..wander…read a lot…. A bit of a shame but almost all the streets are in the midst of civil improvement works. The place is bit of…

Slowly building up the kms with John! But another relatively easy day with little climbing! And overall it was a great day of cycling….with lots of variety….from the lagoon-side cycle…

Amazingly…today was the very first day without needing a warm layer to start the ride!! Thankfully…..we had planned another short day to get John into the swing! After yesterday…neither of…

Ready for action! John was worried. Is he fit enough? Will his bum cope? So I planned a nice easy start to his ride. His first battle with the bike….…

The handover day!! John is arriving today (John Williams, chairman of New Zealand Wineries and colleague and friend for many years)…but not until the evening. So a lazy day, long…

A very chilled…lovely city! Calm squares… …and cool streets…. Famous for the Royal Equestrian School (Andalusian horses…), Flamenco…….and of course…Sherry! So - unusually for me really - I decided to…

A very short hop today! So a relaxed start.  Breakfast in the square…but still wrapped up against the freezing cold wind!! Truly….cold! And then an easy…wind-behind-us ride to Jerez.  The…

We were catching the 8am ferry this morning…and were advised to be at the terminal no less than 90 minutes before departure! So an early start…and were actually at the…

After a night’s reflection…Iain decided that his chain was really not going to last!! So he would find a taxi! So…..a full day on my own today! A wistful farewell….…

A difficult day! And if I said we had breakfast at 7pm…you might imagine I have mis-typed an “a”! But no…..true…a series of events and empty landscapes colluded to deny…

What a delightful surprise!! We were both pleasantly surprised at our lovely ride in to the city yesterday….so I was looking forward to a long walk today. And it is…

The wind direction has changed! What a delight!! Two days ago we exhausted both batteries over 100km. Today we barely used one half of one battery for almost  the same distance!!…

We decided to take an off-road route today to get away from the main road! Usually all but impossible in Morocco…but today the additional distance was manageable! It was a…

Today was a tough, tough day!!  In a word…..wind!! 20/25/30kmh wind all day…on the nose!….with 50kmh gusts…turning a comfortable ride into a slog!! Barely 100km…and all batteries exhausted…..and both bodies…

The line on the map says it all really! A relatively short ride today: two days scheduled to Casablanca…but nowhere to stop mid-distance…so we made into a comfortable three day…

A two day rest here…our nominal destination. But….we are nowhere near halfway yet, with the planned diversion up the length of Portugal still to come! But it feels good to…

After another wonderful breakfast….we set off… …on the road to Marrakech! After yesterday’s grind…today was easy! Slightly downhill all the way. Milestones: I like milestones! a reminder of times gone…

A distance record-breaking day! We had spent a good wee while studying the map last night. El Kelaa was the supposed destination…but it looked like an accommodation desert (to say…

What a joy to be able to cycle out of the garage in the morning…instead of manhandling bikes down stairs etc! Another lovely day of riding. Up and down almost…

We planned a monster day today…..after Mr Google had advised us that we were in for well over 2,000m of climbing. And invariably Google underestimates ascents by around 50%! Yikes! …

A well-earned lazy day today. A very long lazy breakfast, some comms, and then a wander around the Medina. A fantastic place to completely lose oneself…as it is a rabbit-warren…

Another big day!  For all our motel’s faults…they did put on a good breakfast and at the early-for-Morocco hour of 7.30! So we were on the road shortly after 8.…

Our first Moroccan rest day is in Meknes about 200km away. But today….we the made the beer- & accommodation- dependent decision to split the journey 70/130km…and stop near Ouezzane!  So…

This is my third visit to Morocco….with my first back in 1978, when I hitchhiked from uk to Fes (& back!). And during that trip Chefchauen stood out as my…

Mmmmmmm……Diq!  Must be up there with Penis-Cola!! Is it our subconscious choosing suggestive names…or just coincidence? An early start this morning as we bade farewell to Corey when his taxi…

A long four night stop here….so plenty of time to do all those things one needs to do!!  First some more photos: And this is the view from our roof…

Corey’s last day in the saddle!! Alas! He has been a great riding companion…and probably deserves a medal for putting up with his mate’s Dad for three weeks! But we…

Another big ride today….as we cycled West to he famous Caminito del Rey: a vertigo inducing walkway hanging off the cliff face! First though….a classic sign at our first coffee…

A great sleep…and a slow start to the day as we gave ourselves the whole morning to have a quick look at Granada! And yes…I think Granada remains my all-time-favourite…

An awful night’s sleep was not a good start!! Worrying about today’s ride (bigger than yesterday!), with a face burning hot from yesterday’s wind, sore cracked heels, tired legs, cramp  in…

A big day!! And our first battery-stress day!! It was a tough one! A full 70km up hill!!  Not a steep gradient…but…a strong head-wind made it feel a lot steeper…

After an early start… …..today we headed inland.  Through lots of citrus groves. St Clements…as oranges jostled with lemons. And here…they are still picking oranges! The sweet smell pervaded everywhere…but…

A very relaxed day! The sun struggled to emerge until the afternoon….and finally it warmed up nicely!! Fingers crossed that that is the end of the rain!! But no worries…as…

I woke early….to silence! No rain!  But that delight did not last long….as the pitter patter of rain on a tin roof dampened the spirits somewhat! We were later told…

A chaotic day!! We woke to the sound of torrential rain. We delayed…and delayed our departure…but it did not stop! So pragmatism was the order of the day. We decided…

An unexpectedly big day today!! I should probably explain: we are rushing a bit, in order to have a big four night stop at the end of our ride! That…

A big day!!! The first 30km or so was on some of best bike paths you will see. Beautifully surfaced (sealed)…to a standard which would leave all UK/NZ roads to…

We said our farewells to Iain this morning….as he headed back by train to Collioure with the third bike. We did not envy him his day of jumping on and…

A rest day today. Time to get the blog started!! Funnily enough with three of us riding…it seems to have been more difficult to find the time to write! So…

Penis Cola….really? A hard ride today? The Best Friend Thirst Ever Had. Taste the Feeling. You might imagine the banter! Actually…those latter expressions are old advertising slogans for Coca Cola!!…

We woke up to the pitter patter of rain. Lots of it! And we had well over 100kms to ride! It had eased a little by the time we left….but…

A day of three halves today. Firstly…a 40km run into the heart of Barcelona…with most of it a repeat of yesterday’s last leg. Railway line and all. But as we…

Another big day…to test sore bums…and tired muscles. But it was simply a lovely ride. Off-road almost the entire day…following trails, rail trails, tracks and lanes. Crossing fords and meadows.…

….with Pals! An early morning start…and a photo to prove it! Myself, Corey and Iain…..ready to go! And we made it…a double-ton ride as well (our own expression for day…

The key to a “relaxing” journey..is of course the bikes!! Last year…..we had plenty of relatively minor issues…but I had one major issue with the Merida/Shimano bike…and fast-decreasing battery capacity!!…

It is difficult to believe that it was nine months since we pulled into Collioure, to complete our epic ride to Istanbul....and back!! Important to mention the 'back' bit, for…