This bike was part of my body for the five month trip and still is. It is a Trek 520 touring bike and is fitted with front and rear panniers. It was purchased in 1995.

Some bikers love to talk endlessly about the technical specifications of their bike but I will spare you the boredom of this and just say that it has a chromoly frame and Shimano LX group set with bar end shifters. The bike is perfectly suited to ultra long distance transcontinental road touring. Its suitability for off road or dirt road cycling is limited because that is not what it is designed for. For travelling long distances on dirt roads a mountain bike may be better, but for my western European cycling tour this bike was perfect. It is comfortable to ride, extremely stable and supple and forgiving, just what you need when you are in the saddle all day every day.

As you can see, I had the bike heavily loaded up with panniers front and rear plus an additional backpack strapped to the back. I found that I could not have made do with less load on this extended tour when you consider all that I needed to carry. My load included:

• Tent
• Stove
• Cooking and earing utensils
• Camping mat
• Sleeping bag
• Guide books and maps
• Language dictionary or phrasebook
• Clothing
• Shoes
• Toiletries
• Camera and film
• Bike accessories, lubricant and repair tools
• Spare parts for the bike
• 2-3 days' food

I found that after such a long distance cycling with this weight, chain stretch became a problem and by the end of the trip stretch of the bike's Shimano chain had ruined the sprokets both front and rear. I would recommend replacing the Shimano chain that the bike is sold with with a much better quality Sachs/Sedis chain that does not stretch.

I also found that the rims, particularly that of the rear wheel fatigued after about 7250km. This fatigue of the rim was probably accelerated by the additional weight of the luggage over the back wheel. It is essential that the wheels are kept perfectly true throughout the ride otherwise fatigue of the rim is inevitable. Even with true wheels, I found that at the 7250km mark the metal of the rim had fatigued to the point where the metal was tearing around the spokes and at the edge of the rim. The bike was virtually unridable at this point and this happened to be when I was cycling in the far northern Norwegian arctic, miles from anywhere. By a stroke of good fortune I found a Trek bike shop in Tromsö where I was able to have the rear rim replaced - at great expense due to the high cost of parts and labour in Scandanavia.

Another important component of the bike were the tyres and I found that when carrying this weight, tyres of the maximum thickness possible are needed. This bike will take 40mm tyres but unfortunately is is sold with tyres that are much thinner. I had problems of punctures on such thin tyres when carrying this amount of weight. Since this trip I have used tyres with the maximum thickness of 40mm and doing so has eliminated the problems I experienced on this tour of incorrect tyre width.

Apart from these abovementioned problems this bike is a superb machine that carried me from Rome to Nordkapp and back and I love it.

Initially I tried the 2000m Stallersattel Pass (see map) which was officially closed but clear of snow. I mistakenly thought that being a lone cyclist, the fact that the pass was officially closed wouldn't matter and I would be able simply to slip through. However, I hadn't counted on the officiousness and regulatory strictness of Austrian culture. After toiling for hours up the very steep and narrow road to the pass an Austrian border official flatly refused to allow me to cross the pass. The Italian officials on the other hand couldn't care less and were content to amuse themselves by throwing snowballs at each other higher up the slope. After arguing with the officious Austrian for a while in my broken German I was forced to give up and cycle all the way back down the beautiful Stallersattel valley.

Here is a photo of me at the top of the Stallersattel Pass - you can see the boom gate closed. The Austrian official was nearby and wouldn't let me wheel my bike around and continue my journey. The Italians were playing in the snow beyond.

The Hochtor Pass on the Grossglockner High Route at 2505m is the highest crossing from Italy into Austria. To get to it I would have to climb more than 2000m in one day of cycling due to the hilly nature of the approach to the pass itself and the fact that there isn't just one pass but two, and a third lower one that I had to get over first on the road from Lienz.

Switchback after switchback took me steadily higher. I couldn't believe how much I had to eat - I stopped for a banana sandwich every 45 minutes! And that didn't include lunch!

Finally I reached the snow line and the last few kilometres of climbing was along a road that had been cleared by a snow plough and the snow was piled more than a metre deep either side of the road. The riding here was absolutely spectacular.

At the summit of the main pass was a short tunnel (see photo) and then after the the tunnel the road descended through the snowy mountainscape to a lake and then climbed up yet again to the second pass.

After leaving Salzburg I headed west into Munich and then continued westwards following the Danube, then worked my way north through the Schwarzwald and then along the Rhine to Koblenz. Then I followed the Mozel upstream for a while and finally crossed the border into Belgium on 3 Jun.

I had heard that Bruge was a beautiful city, preserved virtually unchanged since the 15th century. So my route after Salzburg was largely driven by a desire to visit this city and that's why I kept prevailing in a westerly and northerly direction after crossing the Alps.

Finally, on 5 Jun after riding through heavily traffic and some horrid industrial landscapes and sprawling suburbia I at last arrived in beautiful Bruge.

It was worth the long detour.

As the photos show, Bruge is a beautiful city, almost unspoilt by modern development. It is like a 15th century city in the 20th. There were 20th century cars, tourists, cafés and shops but the buildings were all of a different era. There were serene canals and gardens. The weather was perfect and there was a great view from the bell tower in the centre of town.

I stayed at a hostel located close to the centre of town and met some nice people there and we went out to dinner together that evening. Actually, I had to have 2 dinners because by now all the cycling had given me the most enormous and insatiable appetite. So after enjoying dinner out at a Bruge restaurant with my hostel mates, I returned to the hostel and ordered a second dinner at the hostel kitchen and devoured that before heading to bed.

Next day it was time to begin my quest to reach Nordkapp, Europe's northernmost point, and this took me into Holland and Amsterdam.

The journey from Bruge to Nordkapp was long, dull and wet for the most part, through mostly flat and uninteresting country punctuated only rarely by memorable highlights.

Amsterdam was certainly not one of these highlights, I took a great dislike to this city except for the Van Gough museum which was well worth the visit. Northern Germany was flat and dull. Denmark was more scenic but still flat. Gothenburg and Stockholm were definite highlights, two wonderful cities which punctated the otherwise dull cycling, and I met up with some old family friends in Stockholm.

Then came the dreadful cycle northwards through central Sweden. Endless miles of forest, lakes and mosquitoes. Yes, mosquitoes, not in their thousands or millions but their uncountable trillions. For nearly 2 weeks I pushed northwards through unchanging countryside, soaked through by rain that never let up for more than a few hours, leaden grey skies and the ever present immeasurable swarms of mosquitoes. The air was thick with them. The only way to avoid them was to ride faster than they could fly, which fortunately wasn't too fast. Whenever I stopped to camp it was a battle against insurmountable odds against the mosquitoes. Only when inside my tent was I protected from them, and in time the netting of the tent became clogged with the dead ones, ones who met their end trying to get in or out.

So why am I describing all this in the highlights chapter? Because the ordeal and the monotony ended. It ended in spectacular fashion when I reached the arctic Norwegian coastline and when, on 10 July 1996, the weather finally cleared, revealing the spectacular coastal scenery depicted in these first two photos, left. It was stunning riding through this country where in midsummer there was still snow only a few hundred metres above the coast, and where deep blue fjords and lakes made deep incisions into the coastline, and where mountains rose steep out of the sea.

Then it was time to head away from the coast and cross arctic tundra to Olderfjorden from where it was only a day or two's ride to Nordkapp. On this leg of the ride I met up with a Danish couple, a Japanese guy and a German man and we rode to Nordkapp together.

It was superb riding across this arctic landscape. The road snaked its way across the tundra, there was snow all around, there was almost no traffic, and it never got dark. The weather held passable for a few days. It was truly incredible riding. The photos to the left show the ride across the tundra on the way to Olderfjorden and the sun at midnight.

From Olderfjorden the route took me northwards along the coast to Honningsvåg. The scenery along here was stunning as the road wound its way around the coast, ducking in and out of short tunnels. The weather held good for most of the day.

Nordkapp is actually located on an island just off the coast of mainland Norway and today I caught a ferry across to the town of Honningsvåg on this most northerly of islands.

The people I was cycling with were great and we rode to Nordkapp together.

After reaching Honningsvåg a cold damp sea mist rolled in. However this did not deter us and for some reason we decided to ride the last 10-15km to Nordkapp at midnight, to take advantage of the midnight sun.

The cold mist reduced the visibility but even at this time of night it was possible to ride with no need for torches. At one point the cloud lifted enough to give this view of windswept arctic fjord on the islan of Honningsvåg.

Finally we reached the northernmost tip of this island and there we found tollgates where they wanted to charge 30 kroner for the privilege of riding the last 100m to Nordkapp. Well I had ridden some 6700km from Rome so I wasn't about to pay 30 kroner for the last 100m so I just rode around the boom gate and the toll collector didn't come after me - I was already cold and wet and he was cosy, warm and dry inside his toll booth so I had nothing to lose, unlike him, so he let me pass.

Nordkapp itself was a bit of a disappointment, nothing much there except a heated indoor tourist complex and a cold dull monument on the northernmost rock where this photo was taken. We couldn't see much so after a while we rode back to our tents in Honningsvåg for what was left of the "night".

The following day the weather worsened considerably and I remained in my tent all day - this was the first rest day in the 3 weeks since I had departed Stockholm. The quest for Europe's northernmost point was over.

Where to now?

This decision was made easier by the fact that the rear rim of my bike was almost completely worn out and the bike was barely rideable. Thousands of kilometres of riding with heavy panniers over the back wheel had strained the rim to the point where the metal was starting to break down in places. Major warping and cracking of the rim was occurring in places. The rear rim was in urgent need of replacement. And to make matters worse the weather had turned bad again. But as luck had it there was a ferry that ran from Honningsvåg to Tromsö, a large fishing town on the Norwegian coast. So after the rest day at the Honningsvåg camp ground I boarded the ferry for the rain lashed voyage to Tromsö. The ferry trip took 17 hours and arrived at Tromsö in the dead of night but of course in the land of the midnight sun there was still light to see by. Miraculously within metres of the ferry terminal and clearly visible was a bike shop, and a Trek specialist at that, and in the window were gleaming bikes, wheels, rims, even my own model was there on display.

So I spent the remainder of the night trying to catch a little sleep sheltering from the rain under some garbage bins and waited patiently for the bike shop to open the following morning.

This was my campsite on the first night after leaving Tromsö with my bike's rear rim newly replaced and working fine. The sunshine you see here was the first I had seen in a long time, the sun only came out after I had pitched my tent. The rest of the day had been a symphony of grey.

Despite cycling with a brand new rear tyre and rim I had two punctures in the rear tube that day!

As you progress further along the archipelago the scenery becomes increasingly spectacular. I can't remember exactly where these photos were taken but the fact that the weather was passable helps me narrow down the possibilities considerably. These photos are of the spectacular coastline in the centre of the above map of the Lofoten Islands.

As I worked my way southwards down the Norwegian coastline the scenery became progressively more mountainous, more challenging, and more dissected by deeper and steeper fjords. Between Bodö and Trondheim I followed coastal roads fragmented by fjords. Such roads presented an opportunity to enjoy good quality bitumen road free of traffic. This is because the car ferries that linked the fragmented sections of coastal roads only operated at certain times, so this meant the road between each fjord was only used by cars at widely spaced intervals. This left the road completely free of traffic for almost the whole day and I could enjoy the coastal scenery at my leisure.

For a couple of days I would find myself queuing along with cars, tourists and occasionally other cyclists, waiting for a ferry to take us all across the mouth of a deep Norwegian fjord. Then, once dropped on the other side the cars and tourists would roar off leaving me, the lone cyclist to enjoy the emptiness of the Norwegian landscape with only the occasional other cyclist and the rain for company.

Solo cycling was for me now becoming a lonely undertaking as by now I had entered my fourth month of cycling alone. I had exhausted all my English reading material and had begun to hunger for English speaking people, English books and English countryside. As I made my way south down the coast of Norway I gave some thought to the idea of crossing to the British Isles, just across the North Sea, and so I made my way south to Bergen, from which sea passage to Newcastle Upon Tyne can be obtained.

Below is a photo showing the nature of the scenery along this traffic free and sparsely populated section of Norwegian coastline.

The final pitch into Bergen was perhaps the most scenically spectacular and adventurous week of the entire trip. This incredible week began on a wet and rainy afternoon at the town of Andalsnes from where I rode out, making my way towards the Trollstigen Pass. This pass, if you believe all the hype and the many stern warnings on huge road signs on both sides of the pass is a treacherous narrow switchback road fraught with danger and not to be attempted by anyone except the most experienced and properly equipped drivers.

As it turned out the pass was no more than a steep switchback road carved into the mountainside, spectacular by any measure and a challenging ride, but nothing like as treacherous as the hype made it out to be and as a seasoned cycle tourer more than 3 months on the road it was just another wet pass on a just another wet day.

Here is a photo of me with my bike on the Trollstigen pass, and the view down upon the switchback road, showing the way I had come.

Once I reached the top of Trollstigen pass I reached a high alpine moor surrounded by peaks as depicted in the photo to the left.

I pitched my sodden tent off to the side of the road near the top of the pass, utterly dejected and frustrated by the bad weather, and swore an ultimatum. This time I would not take the tent down and move on until the weather improved. Hughie the god of all weather was on notice.

Next day I woke to leaden skies as usual and the prospect of more rain. My ultimatum to Hughie hadn't worked and I figured that I'd just get bored waiting here for fine weather and if I did I'd eventually die of hunger anyway. So it was off into the rain again.

But then all changed.

As I approached Geiranger Fjord, the clouds began to peel back and the sun broke through. Geiranger Fjord was stunning but touristy. The road plummeted steeply down into this deep incision and up the other side. By then the weather was clearing for good.

So next day, 5th August, I rose early and rode a massive 141km in perfect weather to finally reach a high alpine plateau. So thrilled was I to have fine weather at last I just kept riding and riding, and chose the highest point on the route as my place to camp. The photo to the left shows the view from my camp site on 5th August 1996. I took a bracing swim in one of the small lakes near the tent and as I lay in my sleeping bag I could hear the creaking and cracking of nearby glaciers. This made a marvellous change from the sound of rain on the tent!

The 6th of August was another fine day with more superb nordic scenery. I descended steeply off the high plateau where I had camped the previous night and worked my way through incredibly steep country to the shores of Sognelfjord, one of the longest in Norway. From there I took a ferry to Gudvangen and what a stunning journey this was. This photo shows the scenery near Gudvangen, the ferry journey went along this incredible deep fjord.

There are few routes through these mountains suitable for a cyclist because of the large number of long deep tunnels, dark and poorly ventilated, roaring with speeding motor vehicles, and no place for a cyclist. So wherever possible I sought ways to Bergen that avoided such tunnels and this ferry ride was the only way to get from where I was to where I needed to go without going through huge tunnels many kilometres long.

One such tunnel I managed to avoid by making an almost impossibly steep climb out of the valley shown in this photo. This climb was the steepest I had done so far in the entire trip and was almost impossible to pedal up, even in the lowest gear. This climb gained me this great view and managed to bypass a road tunnel but the height gain was immediately lost again when the minor side road I was on dropped steeply down to rejoin the main road.

This was just the beginning of my tunnel dodging adventure. Over the next 2 days I followed whatever roads led to Bergen via the fewest long tunnels. Even so, I was confronted by roads burrowing their way into the mountainside at every turn. Many of these deep tunnels had routes around them for cyclists, but some didn't. For the ones that had no side route I took the plunge and braved the cold, dark polluted air, pedalling as hard as I could through the tunnel, dazzled by headlights and daunted by the roar of buses inches away.

But there was one tunnel that I will never forget.

The ferry from Bergen took me to Newcastle from where I cycled to Hadrians Wall in northern England, then north into Scotland and on to Edinburgh. After spending a day of tourism in Edinburgh I rode north towards the Cairngorm mountains. Here is a photo of the rural scenery north of Edinburgh:

The Cairngorm mountains were lovely and the weather held. Here is a photo of Loch Morlich at the foot of the Cairngorm mountains:

Here is a photo taken on one of my wanderings in the Lakes District.

A day walk in the Lakes District.

How are you supposed to pronounce the name of this Welsh village?