Day 22 - 24

Before we left Lausanne we managed to squeeze in a few beers. One thing that must be mentioned is the outragious prices in Switzerland. It really is unbelievable that they can charge seven francs (five pounds) for a large beer and get away with it. We moved from bar to bar in the aim of a cheaper pint but everywhere was the same. In our quest to find cheaper drinks we got quite lost, in my naivety I asked a group of girls for directions and it turned out they were all prostitutes! One of them knew enough english to ask "you want a fuck baby?". I gave her a firm no but insisted my friend sam might. Filthy cretins.

The next morning we were back on the road, we were blessed with amazing weather and a view of the lake for the majority of the day but I really wasn't feeling up to it after a night on the beer. We still put in a good shift and pitched our tent in a farmers field outside a town called Divonne. By the end of the day we'd stumbled back into France which was a relief. As beautiful as Switzerland is you would not want to live there, unless you had a few million in the bank for your weekly groceries.

Apart from a muddy start to the day, day 23 went like an absolute dream. After a map inspection it appeared we would have another mountain climb in store, that is unless you have a genius map navigator such as yours truly. We manged to cycle through valleys all day and it was beautiful. By 6pm we had done around 80km and decided to pitch up by a river that was just hidden from the road. I thought it was quite a nice spot but sam is really scared of 'creepy crawlies' and hated it. There was quite an issue with slugs I must admit, but it was free!

If this was a journal, day 24 would read: Rained off. But because this is a blog, I suppose I should expand a little. We still managed 50km, but its just so depressing cycling in the rain. We're in no rush and when we saw a sign for a campsite at about 4pm niether of us could resist. So we shall get everything washed and charged and hope for better weather tomorrow. In the meantime, its time for... Oohhh, Chimpanzee that mokey news!!

oh and please leave comments :-) 

Day 14 - 21

Just a quick update before we can get stuck into an action packed week on the road; we are currently in Lausanne, Switzerland. Its unbelievably beautiful (go on.... have a look on google images). We've had a rough day today, Sam has been having troubles with his bike and another spoke broke earlier on today so we had to make a dash to get to a city. I must give an advanced warning that this is will be a long blog post, but its full of incident and I urge the reader to follow it through! Enjoy! 

My wonderful Dawes Galaxy chilling next to a tank in Bastogne!

(Day 14)

After a well needed couple of days rest we were back on track and managed to get out of Luxembourg City by midday after abusing the free breakfast once again. We figured we could easily get into France by the end of the day and pick a spot to camp for the night.

Our first impressions of France were good; when crossing into a different European country (in the West) there’s rarely any fuss or immediate difference that we notice, it’ll be gradual differences that sneak in when you cycle through the villages and towns and begin to notice the change in culture.

The rural area of France seemed very, very quiet. Villages are compact but lack any basic amenities that we needed. We must have cycled through 15 villages without seeing a shop as we were low on water. By about 5pm we still hadn’t found a shop to pick up any water and we were getting a bit nervous. We only needed a couple of litres to cook and wash with but it seemed crazy that no-where was open and our good initial impressions of France were quickly diminishing into ‘lazy French bastards... too lazy to even open a shop’. In all seriousness if any young entrepreneurs read this, set up a branch of shops, similar to a Costcutter, Spa etc, and base your shops in small, rural areas in France and you would make an absolute killing. You may ruin a quiet, localised village culture but you’d be rich.... so swings and roundabouts.

With daylight fading we eventually made it to a town which looked big enough on the map to almost certainly have some sort of shop or garage that would sell water... Nothing. We asked a man in the street if he knew where we could find water – didn’t speak a word of English. It was the first major language barrier we had noticed in the trip, so far through Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg, seemingly everyone knew some English. But we managed to get across that we needed water and he seemed disappointed that he couldn’t help us. So we cycled on into the dead town where nothing was open and it felt like impending doom was approaching, a great start to wild camping. Then out of nowhere, the guy we had spoken to 10 minutes ago had tracked us down in his car and frantically beeped at us holding a 2 litre bottle of water. What a hero! We thanked him as best we could in French: “MERCI MERCI” and then as he drove off we headed out of town to find somewhere to camp for the night.

All we were looking for was somewhere flat and out of sight, we managed to find this quite soon after the town, a grass area just off the road, hidden behind a few bushes with a dirt track leading to it. Just as we were about to pitch the tent we noticed a few white boxes stacked next to each other, then we realised it was a Bee farm! Thousands of them were swarming about; luckily we spotted them before we pitched up otherwise a nightmare would have fallen upon us. Finally, a few miles on we reached a wooded area that was perfect, so we made our way into the woods and pitched the tent. 

Happy happy!

The next 2 or 3 days went like a dream. The weather was unbelievable for mid-march. At the hottest part of the day it would reach around 24°C. The cyclists tan was taking its toll. Cycling shorts cling down so tightly onto the thigh that whatever skin is exposed will burn and then form a beautiful contrast between red and white. The Atkins’ nose also took a battering, wearing a helmet and sunglasses covers up the top part of my face, and then my beard protects the lower half, so it’s literally just the nose that is always in the sun. I looked such an idiot when I eventually looked into a mirror about 3 days after.

Wild camping also became easier and easier, after 5pm we would usually just start looking for potential spots and then have a quick look around to check the coast is clear, and then pitch the tent.We came across the Frenchs generosity of spirit once again when we failed in our quest to find water. We cycled into a small village and decided to ask anyone we could where we could find it. 2 minutes later we were having a discussion in French with an old lady who was gardening. I was embarrassed about the lack of French I could remember, it really was shocking. “Aqua?” we would say and then a spool of French would hit us and leave us blank. The only solution in this situation is to politely smile and nod. Anyway, she disappeared into her home and returned with 4 litres of water and a French baguette for us to take. How nice is that? It’s what I love about travelling; getting an understanding of the people and the cultures that go on behind the tourist environments that hide all of this.

By the 4^th day in France we had made really good progress and managed to wild camp every night.  However, cycling 6 hours in the sunshine everyday with no shower at the end of it starts to take its toll on the body. Some questionable smells arose from the sleeping bag in the morning so we thought it was time to hit a campsite. We lucked out when we did eventually find one: 4.50€ each, hot showers, electric next to the tent, perfect. The feeling of walking out into the sunshine after a shower that has cleaned 4 days worth of dirt and sweat is too good for words. We had also had a really tough day on the bike and had reached a town called Maiche, just west from the Swiss border.

One thing I did see that day is a fat woman falling flat on her face outside a supermarket. It’s not the type of thing which I would usually mention, but after the initial ‘woah, is she okay?’I realised that the reason she had fallen over was because she had too much food in her bag and couldn’t carry it properly. When she fell over packets of biscuits rolled out onto the path and I just felt really sad. I thought is that what her life has come too? She was probably mid 30’s, trying to get her daily fix of biscuits and cake, to then have it all crash down in front of her with dozens of people watching. Go for a run.

Food for us is interesting though, I think we’ve had Chile con carne for the last 6 nights in a row, but what a meal! I used to loathe this meal as a kid. I thought kidney beans were the devils unborn seeds. But it’s amazing; we can do the full meal for less than 2 Euros. It fills us up and keeps us nice and regular for the morning toilet fix. Aside from that, it’s been plenty of bread, salami, chocolate, fruit, and whatever else is cheap.

The next day brought our biggest challenge yet: A Swiss Mountain Climb! I’d been excited about this all week. I knew it would probably be the hardest days cycling of my life, but I didn’t care. It’s a cyclists dream and I was definitely up for the challenge.

The day started well, great weather once again and we crossed into Switzerland early on. Fittingly, the border between France and Switzerland was a lake. And then our ascent began. It would be 20km until we reached the snowy top, 20km of relentless winding roads that didn’t flatten out for a second. It sounds bizarre, but with this sort of cycling you need to get ‘in the zone’ and just focus on the pedalling and not to think for a moment about how hard it is.  The second you feel sorry for yourself is when you’ll get distracted and stop for a drink and then take 10 minutes to get going again. The mind wanders so much with this type of cycling; I thought about my dogs, my girlfriend, future cycling trips, quotes from the office, and then everything and anything in between. Then, 2 hours into the ascent, Sam heard a twang from the back wheel and realised a spoke had snapped. This was a disaster. I’d been nervous about this happening to my bike as spokes are the one thing I literally have no idea how to repair. A wheel of a bike relies on the even pull and tension of every spoke and to fix it means hours of tweaking and tuning – if you know what you’re doing. Once again I felt bad for Sam as he’s not had the best of luck with his bike, just a day earlier one of the front frames had fallen off which took an hour to do a DIY job. So I couldn’t help but laugh when I heard another of his Northern rants about everything going wrong. All we could do was nervously limp in to the closest town and hope they had a bike shop with somebody who knew a little English and had a few hours spare. We managed to get there in about an hour and through a few locals directions we found a bike shop. Luckily, it was a tiny shop with a guy who could help, but he certainly did not speak English. We think he was Italian, and after assessing the situation all he could say was ‘Catastrophe!’ It did take him about 2 hours to fix and I don’t think I’ve ever been so bored in my life. Sam didn’t say a word as he was so nervous about his bike, and I just had to stand and wait in the tiniest and darkest bike shop in the whole of Switzerland.

Anyway, by about 4pm the bike was fixed much to our relief. We thought by reaching this town we had reached the top of the mountain. We hadn’t. It took about another hour to climb to the top, which as it turned out was a ski resort! There was snow at the top, but not enough for the resort to be fully functional. It was pretty incredible that we had cycled to an Alps ski resort if I do say so myself.

Now for the downhill! It’s difficult to express the sheer joy and adrenaline rush that occurs when cycling down a mountain through words. However, two words spring to mind that will not please my dad. Fucking amazing. We spent all day climbing, and then experienced the lows of the bike breaking, to the ultimate high of hurtling down a mountain at about 45mph for 10 minutes. My jaw ached from the constant grin I had all the way down. If you can picture some of the classic James Bond car chases through the Swiss Alps then you’re almost there. But I was, and I felt like James frigging Bond. 

I've fallen in love with this bike (and Switzerland).

Within 10 minutes we had done 15km and reached the lakeside city of Neuchatel. We didn’t really follow a map once we saw the lake, we just thought, we’re getting to that lake. It was so nice to sit by the lake for 20 minutes after such a long day, but at this point it was about 6pm and we still had nowhere to sleep for the night. We followed some signs for a campsite, when we got there we looked around for someone to pay, but we couldn’t find anybody, so we just sneaked on to the site and pitched the tent near to the lake!

We woke up after another free nights camping and the plan for the day was to head as far as we could towards Lausanne (the place Sam is having his new credit card sent to). We managed to escape the city reasonably quickly and make good progress. Once again we were blessed with a wonderful backdrop of the snowy Alps. Although today was different, after three weeks on the road neither of us had listened to music whilst we’ve been cycling, but the route seemed straight forward enough so we thought we’d plug in the old ipods. It made such a difference; I’ve obviously cycled listening to music before, but when its cycling through Switzerland with the Alps in the corner of your eye it’s different. We’re both debating what genre or artist is most fitting, but for today I’m sticking with The Beatles, I think it’s fair to say they’re the best band of all time, and what better way to enjoy their music. 

This was taken in France, but its a nice picture.

 Next on the agenda is Montpellier. We've arranged to get there for the 14th april to milk goats for 6 weeks! We get free accomodation, food and a car to explore the south of France, and my wonderful girlfriend is planning a visit when we arrive there. Good times.

Day 13

So this might be the last post for a wee while. We've decided to go off the radar for a while, stay off the beaten trail an' that. It's a way we can keep the travelling lifestyle cheap for a while, and it turned out campsites didn't really offer us much apart from fresh water - something we can obtain anywhere.

Luxembourg has been nice though, today on our day off we stayed at the pub most of the day. Its surprising how many Englishmen rise up from the depths below when a crutial six nations match is on TV. We met a few nice guys who offered us accomadation and food, if only they were a day earlier. The hostel has also been good. Although we may have taken the all you can eat breakfast too literally, I still have sandwiches left in my bag from earlier, (this is where we make our money back). As I type this a bunch of kids are really getting on my tits, I feel like Karl Pilkington, everything is getting on my nerves. They just wont shut up. Anyway, its what comes with a hostel, and tomorrow we shall be in France. Au revoir! 

Day 10-12

Firstly, a bit of business: some people have complained they can't leave comments - I've hopefully fixed that and if you'd like to leave a comment, please do!

I finally have a chance to upload some pictures from the first part of the trip! Firstly I must mention that I’ve mainly been filming footage of the trip so I can edit together a movie (premieres 2012), and not concentrating on taking any pictures, so these are all from Sam’s camera. 

On the ferry!

Our bikes (mine is on the right)

We made it to Belgium!

Me, Charles and Sam in Brussels.

After my last blog post we continued to discover the nice part of Belgium! We had another dream day of weather: 23°C at the hottest part! So the cycling shorts were dug out of the bag and off we went. One thing should be mentioned about the ‘nice part’ of Belgium is the steep climbs and drops we endured for the best part of the day. As much as I enjoyed the challenge of pushing body and mind to the limit, there were times when it just seemed ridiculous. We would be climbing for about an hour, and then a one minute descent would take us back to square one! It was a tough day and at about 2.30pm we found a quaint little campsite to save our legs.

The following day was not as pleasant, both in terms of the nice weather and the gentle climbs we did the day before. We had purposely stopped a few km north of Bastogne so we could spend some time there the next day. However, the weather had other ideas. It was FREEZING, it maybe peaked at 2°C. We were just too cold to give Bastogne a respectful visit and just wanted to get back on the bikes to warm up again. Bastogne sits on the border with Luxembourg and by late morning we had crossed into our third country of the trip!

Our first impressions of Luxembourg were very positive; the first things we obviously notice are the road conditions and the environment around us. The roads were beautifully smooth after the bumpy and ragged roads in Belgium. Something that is seemingly a minor factor in a countries repertoire can have such a good impression on a cyclist. We instantly fell in love with Luxembourg. The landscape felt a lot like England in the first few miles – a lot of open grassland, broad valleys and wooded areas.

Once we turned off the main highway onto the B roads we were thrown straight into the deep end. The River Sûre had cut deep gorges through the earth creating the steepest of valley sides that we had to climb. We spent about 4 hours going back and forth following this river, only to make about 10km in overall distance south. It was stunning to cycle through, just very challenging and it took a lot to keep going.

However, my favourite part of the trip occurred around mid afternoon: We had been sweating and cursing up a hill for over an hour, and then in the distance we saw a sign that warned us of a steep descent, over 10% in gradient. We hammered it towards this epic downhill section and I absolutely caned it on the way down, my eyeballs felt like they were about to pop out, at one point I looked down at the speedometer and it stated: 43.9Mph - the fastest I’ve ever been on a bike. If you know anything about cycling you’d realise that these kinds of speeds are hard to reach on the best of road bikes out there, but on a chunky touring bike carrying 30kg of kit and 75kg of muscle, this is impressive.

My achievements were short-lived with the anti climax of another steep uphill section around the corner. By 4pm we were still about 20km away from the campsite we had aimed to reach. We decided to just carry on and see how far we could get until the night drew in. Luckily, we stumbled onto a main road that took us directly to the town it was close too, and most importantly without any soul destroying hill climbs. We finally made it to the campsite at about 6pm and had to celebrate with a beer at their local. We had done 60 miles in total, but that only tells half the story.

Feeling refreshed and well rested we set off for Luxembourg city this morning at 10am. Last night we had reached a town called Septfontaines and this was only about 20km from the capital. We arrived into Luxembourg city at midday and I demolished a meat feast pizza in pizza hut. We’re stopping here for 2 nights at a hostel to have a well earned rest and to explore this historic city.

Next on the agenda – head through France into Switzerland and tackle the Alps!

Day 7-9

Time to blog again, and you find me in he best of moods after a beautiful days cycling tfhrough Belgium, and a lovely hot shower to mark the end of a good day.

As promised by Charles, on sunday he showed us around Brussels, it was a bonus to have our own tour guide and we managed to squeeze in the entire city into a few hours. Walking around Brussels you can't escape the breathtaking architecture and the history it represents. We visited too many places to name, however, Grand Place was pretty special. My only critisism arrived the next morning when we had to cycle out of Brussels - a task not for the faint hearted! It was a nightmare. Literaly thought on at least 3 occasions that it was the end for ol' Joe Atkins. Anyway, death scares aside we managed to get back into the countryside by late morning, we wont be heading back to the cities in a hurry.

We put in a big shift and made up a lot of ground once out of the city. the weather and terrain were kind to us and we eventually pitched up on a campsite near Braives. I could write extensively about this campsite but to summarise in 3 words: Gypsies, dogs and mud. It was awful. Sam hit boiling point when he found out a full jar of mayonaise had spilt over most of his clothes and the rant was priceless, shame I didn't film it.

So ater a god awful night at pikey haven we got out of there as early as we could. Today has been the best day of the trip so far. Sunshine all day instantly lifted our spirits and cycling through the rolling hills has been a lot of fun. We're pitched up right next to a river and the site has hot showers, fresh water and clean toilets - all we ask of! Such a contrast to last night.

My opinion of Belgium has changed so much in the last few hours, as before today (Brussels aside), in all honesty, I thought it was a bit of a shithole.

   

The blog is back! Day 2 - 6

So it has almost been a week on the road and it really couldn't be going better. Before the trip began we had so many doubts and worries, but none of them have come to fruition.

We are currently in Brussels, staying with our friend Charles who we met in America. To celebrate our reunion we had a night in Brussels; it would also be rude not to sample the local beer and as a result I'm currently typing with a beast of a hangover. Charles insisted that we try every strong belgian beer! The average percentage was 9%. That'll do it.

So after my first post I really need to emphasise how beautiful a country Holland is, it was an absolute dream to cycle through. We stuck to the B roads and seemingly every village or town was centered around a river. We couldn't get over how clean and perfect each and every place was.

The first 2 days we were very lucky with the weather, its the age old cliché that you don't know what you've got till its gone, and this really applied in the following days. The wind was just relentless, we had to laugh about it or else we might just have cried. We battled on, but it really does slow progress down to about 7 or 8mph.

When the weather is good, we probably average around 40 to 50 miles a day, and the routine has usually been something like this: 7.30 wake up, breakfast, take down the tent, pack our bags. Set off at 9am, lunch at 12. 3pm, start looking for campsites.

We are now in Brussels and plan on being tourists for the next day or so with Charles as our tour guide. Hopefully I can post some pictures on here soon, and I will probably be able to update once every few days.

Joe

The blog is no more....

Currently sat in a McDonalds stealing their WiFi, but the device I was planing on using to update the blog failed on day 2 so I won't be able to post any more updates. Very dissapointing. From now on it'll be back to a basic journal, but sorry to dissapoint anyone who was looking forward to following our journey.

The trip is going really well, we've camped the last 2 nights and apart from a windy couple of days it couldn't be going better. Next stop - South of France!

Joe

Day 1

The trip officially started last night when we boarded the ferry at 6pm, the cabins were pretty basic so we dropped the bags off and hit the bar (to use up the last of our sterling). After five pints we thought it would be agood idea to call it a night.

We arrived in Rotterdam at about 8am local time. First impressions of Holland - Flat, friendly and frankly rather lovely. Networks of cycling lanes hug the roads so 99% of the cycling we did today was using these excellent facilities. We didn't have a target mileage or any particular route planned, just to stay away from the cities.

The morning few by, the bike felt great and it was easy miles. The wind picked up in the afternoon so it was a bit more of a challenge. We did also get lost and ended up in Dordrecht after we hit a moterway, the map just isn't detailed enough to navigate through a city so we were struggling to get back en route to find a campsite. At this point it was 4pm and we had cycled 45 miles, we assessed our options and felt it best to find a hotel and escape the possibility of roughing it on the first night. The one we found was posher than we wanted, but we checked in and cooked some pasta on our gas cooker!

So lesson learnt - do some basic planning. But a good start to the trip!

Kindle Test!

So we set off in 4 days, just time to test out all our gear! I had a major panic yesterday when my pedal fell off, meaning that the thread on the crank arm had completely gone. I managed to get the bike checked in for an emergency service, but hopefully there will be no more late scares in the build up to sunday.