Pedal to Nordkapp

This is a rough verstion of the route. So...up through central Spain via Cadiz, Jerez, Seville, Salamanca and Pamplona, Across the Pyrennes then up the French Atlantic coast before heading over the the Loire Valley, skirting south of Paris and on into Belgium.  Through Belgium, Germany and Denmark. A ferry across to Gothenburg for the second half of the trip.  Across to Trondheim and then winding a way around the fjords finally, with a lot of luck, reaching Nordkapp

"Jenny"  A Genesis Equilibrium 20.  A comfy, steel bike.  Reasonably light and kitted out with decent mudguards and a nice pair of hand built wheels.  This will be for hillier sections. "Vlad" An aluminium framed gravel/adventure bike.  Heavier than Jenny but with a very relaxed geometry for relative long distance comfort, 30mm tyres and disc brakes.  Great for off road sections such as along the Loire valley. "Ivan" our IH Fiat Ducato panel van conversion with all home comforts.  Hopefully Jacqui and I will find each other at the end of each day!  We are sorting GPS tracking technology!

Nothing personal!  I'm thinking of the charity CRISIS https://www.crisis.org.uk/   I am doing this ride to satisfy a personal itch rather than for charity.  However, if anyone feels inspired to give generously I would be thrilled if you considered a donation to Crisis.  Most homeless people have desperately sad stories to tell and a large proportion have underlying severe mental illness.  On my ride, when I'm feeling especially tired and sorry for myself I will try to reflect on all the advantages I enjoy in life and thank my lucky stars!

There's more to this than driving on the right! Tolls Spain and France are big on road tolls.  Driving up to a busy toll booth in a campervan, sat on the "wrong" side without a passenger isn't much fun.  However you can get a little gizmo to stick on your windscreen which allows you to use the telepeage gates which then enables your vehicle to be recognised, the gate opens automatically and the toll is taken from your account.  Brill!!!  You register your vehicle on the Sanef site, pay a deposit for the device along with a E10 annual fee.  We've just been over to France and checked it out, it works :)  Germany, Belgium and Denmark don't have many tolls.  Sweden and Norway are number plate recognition and an invoice is then sent to your home address, which isn't very handy if you are away for a few weeks.  Fortunately you can register for a service which emails you and allows you to pay with a credit card online. Alternatively you can get an

22nd Feb 2018 Out on Longstone Edge this morning, one of my favourite lanes.  Lovely morning but bitingly cold cycling home into an easterly headwind.   I've been way down on normal mileage this winter owing to other priorities so need to up the fitness level and lose a few pounds.  Like all cyclists I can bore for Britain talking about training regimes, thresholds and zones.  Top priority for me is to enjoy my rides, which means I won't need too much will power to get out and ride.  It's not difficult to enjoy riding in the Peak District so long as you make sure to look around and enjoy the view!  On the trip itself I'm planning to ride around 80 miles daily for 5 days a week so I need to build up some endurance.  Weather permitting I'll be doing a mixture high intensity short rides and longer "sweet spot" rides which roughly means riding a bit out of puff but not gasping.  Unless the weather warms up I won't be doing many 80 mile slogs espe

A big thank you to Rob Dixon at Igloo Cycles for getting my bikes in pristine mechanical condition all ready for the trip as well as advising on the right spares.  I've been going to Igloo for the past 6 years and have always had brilliant service and advice.   Highly recommended!

28th March 2018 At last!  All the preparations we can think off have been made. Van chocker.  Stacking the bike rack a bit like doing a Rubic's cube but sorted. Have just had a bumpy night on Portsmouth - Santander ferry with a F8 gale imminent.  Great breakfast though.  Arriving Santander 17.15 UK time

29th March 2018 For some reason I thought central Spain would be dull and featureless.  Coming around a bend in the road after passing Salamanca the Sierra de Candelario appeared, heavy with snow and looking much more impressive than on this photo..  Varied scenery throughout the day so looking forward to coming this way again the week after next.   Sunshine and 15 degrees takes it's toll This pic may be best appreciated by people who have endured communal campsite toiletting and washing facillities, it's a niche subject.  On our campsite in Caceres each pitch has it's own facillities.  This toilet, this wash basin and this shower are OURS and no one elses.  It is sad but this makes this site very special!  It is imaginatively called "Camping Caceres"

31st March 2018 More leisurely than grand.  Our campsite is 5km along the coast from Tarifa so Jackie and I rode in for a great tapas lunch at Lola's.  A sunny sit on the beach out of the wind staring over to Morocco and then along the causeway which leads to Isle de las Palomas.  The island is a military zone with no access without prearranged permission.  So, our start was  100m shy of the southern tip of Europe.

1st April 2018 A great first day of proper riding with a rare, brisk easterly wind to blow me along in the sunshine.  Meanwhile, Jacqui packed away Ivan, drove to our campsite, set up on site, tracked my progress and had a beer ready for my arrival! You can see today's ride here  Strava day 2   So we are now at Puerto Santa Maria on the north side of the Bay of Cadiz, We are close to Jerez, sherry country, so Jacqui, as well as sorting out Ivan, managed to buy essential supplies.

Click here to see the ride details on Strava 2nd April 2018 A bit of a weary drag today on A roads across a fairly featureless landscape.  The good thing was that Spanish A roads have a nice hard shoulder/cycle lane along both sides which makes riding a lot more relaxing. To while away the time I tried to think of the songs I reliably knew all the words to.  Sadly this amounted to a smattering of nursery rhymes and  Danny Boy.  In the end I opted to sing la la la la la la in the style of Van Morrison which worked very nicely for around 10 miles. Tonight we are at Camping Villsom, just south of Seville.  Ivan had a good journey until 50m from the site, where the approach road had been replaced by a building site.  This required some complex manoeuvres by Ivan's jockey but he finally arrived safely.

Click here for details of ride 3rd April 2018 Ride into Seville was pretty busy with a mixture of dual carriage ways and cycle lanes.  Some very grand looking buildings and a river.  Need to come back.  Negotiating the autoroute type exit roads I noticed a car with a blue flashing light ahead.  A very nice man got out and suggested I stop and have a little chat.  Well I think that's what he said but communication improved when he practised his English.  A very dangerous road for cyclists he said, discussed where I needed to go and then moved on to discuss my bike, the merits of a steel frame and my mudguards.  He loved my mudguards.  I was able to give him some helpful advice following which he escorted me onto an exit lane and bid me a fond farewell.  Such a nice man. Our journey now takes us along the N630, more interestingly called the Ruta de la Plata, which follows an old pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela.  It used to be the main road round here go

Click here to see details of today's ride 4th April 2018 For months I've been thinking about getting to Merida nearly as much as getting to Nordkapp.  It marks the planned end of the first block of riding and I had no idea how well my body would hold up.  Also, Jacqui has had the task of managing Ivan - fueling, watering, draining, finding our pitch for the evening, along with washing, shopping, cooking and, well just about everything bar pedalling. Fortunately everything has gone, more or less, to plan and J and I are still enjoying each others company!  Things are going so well that we have postponed the rest day until after we get to Caceres tomorrow.  I won't say any more because things could go tits up at anytime. I have been thinking a lot about pacing myself, and, as we cyclists call it, "recovery".  Recovery involves resting, sleeping, eating lots of protein and avoiding alcohol.  I've done ok except for the last bit. Merida is the

Click here for details of today's route on Strava 5th April 2018 A short day to Caceres today with a rest day tomorrow.  Some pleasant scenery on route passing a couple of castles. Caceres is another World Heritage Site on account of it's medieval town centre.  It's a short bus trip from the site . Cycling will resume on Saturday with a 2 day haul up to Salamanca before another rest day to explore the city.  Northern Spain here we come!

6th April 2018 Had a good day exploring the wonderfully preserved old town of Caceres.  Here are a few pics.

Click here for details of today's ride on Strava 7th April 2018 Today's ride headed towards the Sierra Candelario, one of a range of hills lying between north west and south east Spain.  As the morning gloom cleared snow capped mountains up to 2500m in height started to appear.  This evening we are near the town of Hervas a little way up the pass between the mountains.  Tomorrow's ride will continue up the pass to 1200m before dropping down to Salamanca. We have seen a huge variety of birdlife as we have passed through Extremadura from huge Griffin Vultures to, completely unknown to me, little song birds.  Yesterday we had an Iberian Magpie perched on the bike rack.  Storks nested on chimneys are a particularly common sight. Jacqui has been having a miserable time with a painful upper leg for the past 3 or 4 days which has stopped her from sleeping.  The cause was a bit of a mystery until this morning when she developed a typical shingles rash. 

click here to see details of today's ride 8th April 2018 Some heavy duty climbing today Looking back down the hill 5 miles into the climb After the top of the pass comes the run downhill which is great except it was getting cold, 6 degrees and showers. The cavalry arrived in the nick of time.  Coffee, walnut cake and a change into winter clothes.  I'm blummin pampered! So, we are now at a very nice campsite just outside Salamanca having ridden/driven 468 miles from Tarifa and are bang on schedule.  We are at the start of a cold snap with the possibility of snow over the next few days.  Tomorrow we are exploring Salamanca and then, snow permitting, for the following 4 days we will be heading to Pamplona

9th April 2018 The forecast cold snap has well and truly arrived, 3 degrees today but no snow yet, just a few showers.  Salamanca certainly lived up to expectation. A beautiful city with some stunning renaissance architecture.  The highlights were the Plaza Mayor and the cathedral (despite this being closed for a special occasion today) The next 4 days are likely to be quite hard riding eventually taking us to Pamplona if all goes to plan.  Given the weather there will be a finger and toe count at the end of every day.

Click here to see details of today's ride on Strava 10th April 2018 Sean Kelly is an Irish cyclist who dominated the early season Belgian "classics" in the eighties.  The worse the weather the better Sean did.  Rain, hail, sleet and wind were his friends.  He was one of professional cycling's hard men and if he had pulled open one of Ivan's blinds this morning he would definitely have had a smile on his face.  It was wet, very wet, and brass monkey cold.  Now I am definitely not in the Sean Kelly mould, I'm a cycling softie.  So, we concocted a plan to meet up half way along the planned ride to consider bailing out and taking refuge in a near by campsite. As it happened, there was a nice tail wind to push me along, the road was smooth, fairly flat and very quiet.  After 50 miles there was Ivan, a sight to treasure.  Feet warmed by the hot air heating, cheese and choriza baguette, cup of steaming coffee and a complete change of clothing.  That and

Click here for details of today's ride on Strava 11th April 2018 Woke up with a sore right ankle today, mild achilles tendonitis.  It's been niggling for a little while.  The treatment is basically to rest, fat chance!  So it's been a case of reducing intensity of excercise.  Today I've attempted to do this by relaxing my right leg whilst pedalling like fury with my left.  In so doing I think I have developed my own unique style of riding but don't think it will catch on.  Never mind, I managed 78 miles and the ankle isn't too bad tonight. It was a bit of a humdrum ride so we thought we would show a little about life on the road with Ivan.  We have an app which gives us possible places to stay over night, ranging from inner city car parks to up market campsites.  Although the app includes user reviews we are never quite sure what we have let ourselves in for.  So far we have stayed in a mixture of "campervan stops" and camp sites.Tonight w

Click here for details of today's ride on Strava 12th April 2018 Best scenery of the trip so far as we headed through Rioja towards it's capital, Logrono.  Green fields, wooded hilltops and rustic villages all ringed by snow topped mountains.  Another flipping cold start though 2 degrees feeling like minus 20.  Just starting to warm up as we met up for lunch at the small village of Tosantos which has a hermit church built into the cliffs. Ivan is parked by the main church of the village which has also served as a refuge for Pilgrims. Today's route has largely run alongside the Camino de Santiago.  We saw many foot sore, heavily laden pilgrims.  Made me glad to be cycling. In the afternoon the sun made a reluctant appearance and it actually started to feel warm. We are now at Logrono, the capital of Rioja, staying at Camping de la Playa, a very nice site situated by the River Ebro, which is, somewhat worryingly, in spate and rising.  Had a stroll