BIKE TOURING EUROPE: THE HONEST REALITY
Taking a moment to appreciate the vast Tabernas Desert, Andalusia.
If you’re considering your own bike tour and want to know the truth, not just the highlights, but the reality, then read on.
Why We Decided To Do a Bike Tour
It was late 2021, and my partner and I hadn’t been able to travel outside of our city for around a year due to covid restrictions. We had very itchy feet and had been discussing the idea of doing a bike tour. I was inspired by Mark Beaumont’s biography on his cycling journey around the world, and it never left my mind about doing my own bike tour one day.
The thought of travelling for months on a bike, away from the grind of life, felt very exciting. Additionally, the general idea of being closer to nature every day, without any real responsibilities, made it very easy to decide to pursue this expedition. I have never been a super fit cyclist, but I had always enjoyed the sense of freedom which cycling brings. At this point in my life, I hadn’t pushed myself physically or pursued this type of travel before, and being someone who wants to experience a lot, and challenge myself in life, this felt right.
My partner also enjoyed cycling but hadn’t had much experience of cycling long distances at this point. However, she is also someone who enjoyed the challenge of getting out of her comfort zone and trying something completely new.
Why We Chose To Cycle In Europe
After briefly considering the idea of cycling the length of South America, we decided that Europe would make more practical sense (leaving from the UK) and would require less planning and organisation. The idea of cycling through South America felt extremely exciting; however, we soon realised that maybe it would make our lives a little easier to stick to Europe. Europe seemed less extreme to tour through. For example, some of the landscapes our route would take us through in South America would result in more isolation compared with Europe. Our thinking was that in the case of an emergency, i.e., bike issues, we would never be too far away from services and locals by choosing Europe. Europe is also well known for campsites, so this would mean we would regularly be able to have hot showers and better facilities whilst camping. I guess overall, Europe felt a little less overwhelming, especially considering our familiarity with this part of the world. Additionally, since the only bike touring I had done was just a week in Italy, and my partner hadn’t done any touring. So all things considered, Europe seemed like the right choice.
Having a short break during a ride through rural Albania.
Planning Our First Bike Tour
Before we began planning our expedition, I was convinced it wouldn’t be as hard as it turned out to be. Perhaps I was a little overconfident because we both had a lot of travel experience behind us, and we understood how to navigate different countries and the challenges they can pose. Also, as I mentioned, I had cycled a week through Italy a few years before this trip. I guess I thought to myself – ‘We just need to buy a couple of suitable touring bikes, the appropriate equipment and plan a route’. This was all kind of true to an extent. After listing everything we needed to buy and research, we soon realised a lot more time and planning were required from us both. Even deciding on bikes alone took weeks. I searched various forums and read lots of reviews on different bikes and found that opinions greatly varied. This, of course, made decision-making a lot trickier. Once I had decided on which bikes were best for us both, I found out that they weren’t available until March, which would be too late.
Checking which panniers would be best also took more time than anticipated. This would also be the case with understanding what type of tent to buy, researching the best touring clothes, cooking equipment and deciding on which bike computer would be good enough for our budget. Even thinking about the weight for each item we would buy took more time than we anticipated.
Finally, it was time to plan the route. After giving this some thought for a few weeks, I was very enthusiastic about cycling from Spain to Greece. I figured 6 months of cycling this 5000 km route ( or there abouts ) would give us plenty of time.
A couple of weeks before our journey began, I read online about non-EU citizens only being allowed up to 90 days within a 180 day period in the Schengen area. This was now the reality of being outside the EU as a British citizen. Therefore, this meant we had to completely change our route. We decided to stick to our original starting point, Malaga, and cycle the length of Spain, through the Pyrenees and through southern France, entering Italy, of course, via the alps. We would then cycle through northern Italy towards the east coast and finish our cycling in the city of Bari in the south of the country. Then taking a ferry to Albania with the intention of doing a bit more cycling, whilst spending more time slowing down, sightseeing and spending some time at the beaches soaking in the sun.
Heavy panniers and hills together don’t always end well…
The Mental and Physical Challenges Of Bike Touring
Our cycle tour was one of the hardest but most memorable things I’ve ever done. I went into the tour unaware of what lay ahead. After the first ride, I managed to slice my hand open with our cooking knife whilst washing up in the dark at our campsite (what was I thinking!?). This meant we had to pause cycling for two weeks to give my hand time to completely heal. The bigger issue this presented us with was that we now had two weeks less to make up some ground to arrive in Bari in time for our ferry to Albania.
After a few weeks of cycling, we decided we had no choice other than to book a flight to northern Italy to cut a big chunk of the journey so that we wouldn’t miss our visa expiry date, due to the Schengen 90/180 rule ( the same day our ferry would depart ). We were simply not making up enough ground at this point, and the forced two week break we had earlier on made it nearly impossible to cycle through Spain, southern France and nearly the length of Italy. The mountains of Andalusia were very tough carrying so much on our bikes. The sad thing was that we were really enjoying southern Spain and the empty roads we had to ourselves. It felt like we were building some momentum, and each ride we were covering more and more distance.
From when we decided to book flights from Valencia to Bologna, the rest of our cycling in Spain consisted of beautiful bike paths through Andalusia, passing through the Tabernas desert, small charming villages and lots of picturesque scenery. We arrived in northern Italy, feeling a little deflated due to the sad reality that we were enjoying Spain so much, but we had to leave. We had no choice but to cut it short due to time constraints. With this reality, we cycled to the east coast from Bologna, which was a mixture of lovely small, windy, rural roads, and busy, congested main roads which weren’t for the faint-hearted. The remainder of our cycling experience in Italy consisted of cycling along the Adriatic coast, experiencing picture postcard Italian towns and villages, as well as some very run down parts of the country with some very dodgy driving involved. I guess this is the raw beauty of bike touring, you truly experience the good and the bad of the places or countries that you cycle through.
Albania and Montenegro were our final two countries. I much preferred Albania to Montenegro, both for cycling and just the general feel of the two countries when comparing them. Albania was absolutely stunning to cycle through, with lots of empty rural roads, super friendly locals with a general relaxed vibe. We only managed a few days cycling in Montenegro; however, we really felt like our motivation was dwindling. Cycling just didn’t seem as fun, and we were craving to stay in one place again for a few weeks, as we had done in Albania. Therefore, we decided to finish in Petrovac, a lovely old town by the coast.
Due to an event happening back home in the UK, we had flights booked a few weeks after we finished cycling. It felt right to finish in this small, lovely town and enjoy some camping at a relaxed pace, whilst soaking in the beaches and beautiful nature which surrounded us.
Clear, blue Adriatic sea in Montenegro.
Sunset in Ksamil, Albania.
Food Challenges While Bike Touring
Food was another factor which we found very challenging whilst bike touring. Of course, we had many delicious meals along our route in each country we travelled through. Being able to hop in and out of cafes, enjoying amazing pastries and coffee, was a great part of the experience. However, quite often we found ourselves in the middle of nowhere with little options available to us. Many restaurants or cafes were closed for a few hours in the afternoon. Particularly in Spain and Italy, we found that many restaurants, even in big towns and cities, wouldn’t open their doors until maybe 8 pm, which was very frustrating at times. There were days when we would finish cycling mid to late afternoon, and unsurprisingly, we were hungry and didn’t fancy waiting for hours until places opened. Therefore, this resulted in grabbing staples such as bread and cheese and making a sandwich for dinner in our hotel room, which was a bit difficult to accept, especially when we craved a hot, nutritious meal.
The Strange Moments Along The Way
Our bike tour was, of course, full of incidents which wouldn’t usually occur by sticking to the beaten path. These included being woken up in our tent by a strange man offering us chocolate at 4 am, being chased by stray dogs countless times and experiencing freezing temperatures camping in the mountains in Andalusia, wondering what on earth we were doing. These moments will stay with us forever. After all, it would be boring if everything were smooth and plain sailing for a journey such as this.
Would I Recommend Bike Touring?
If you are thinking about doing your own bike tour, wherever that is in the world, I urge you not to go with the idea that it is just cycling from A to B and then pitching your tent or finding a cheap hotel. Bike touring is no easy feat. Of course, being physically fit is key to a successful tour, but having the mental strength to wake up in a different place, pack your panniers, check your bike is in good condition and go again day after day can be very challenging.
Sometimes you feel raring to go and excited for the ride ahead, and some days you will just wake up and feel not so motivated. I think the biggest struggle I had with bike touring was cycling to a beautiful location, but not being able to stay for as long as we wanted. At times, we both felt very disoriented, constantly moving or just being in one place for no more than 2-3 days. Of course, this might not be an issue for everyone; however, I do believe most people take a day or so to adjust to a new environment when travelling.
This takes me to my final point: make sure you are fully up to date with visas and general requirements when cycling through each country or region. As I mentioned earlier in this post, the fact that we hadn’t thought about the limited time we had cycling through the Schengen countries ( most of the countries on our planned route ) put a spanner in the works, and we had to adjust our route completely. This meant that because we knew we needed to be in Bari to take the ferry to Albania and leave the Schengen zone, we weren’t able to soak in the best spots along our ride in Spain and Italy for as long as we would have liked, which was a real shame.
Bike touring was much harder than I anticipated, but it taught me a lot of important life lessons. Through this experience, I came home with a clearer understanding of what I was searching for in my life, as well as learning what I no longer desired.
Finally, I would absolutely do another bike tour in the future, and therefore I would definitely recommend doing your own bike tour if this is something you are genuinely eager to experience yourself. However, if I were to do another tour in the future, I would do it differently. I would plan a tour no more than one month long. This would mean I could pack lighter, planning would be simpler and I wouldn’t endure a lack of food options for as long. I would also probably cycle through more remote regions and do more nights of wild camping. I think because the tour would be much shorter, I would be able to endure ‘roughing it’ more. I guess now that I’ve experienced bike touring, I feel a lot more confident going even further off the beaten track. Perhaps one month somewhere in South America is next on the cards? Who knows...
So yes, you should absolutely go for it if you’ve dreamt of doing something like this. It’s a unique way of travelling, and challenges you both mentally and physically like nothing else.
Please feel free to share your opinions on bike touring, your memories and general thoughts in the comments.
Somewhere in southern Italy, this beautiful tree stood alone.
