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Welcome to my cycle touring page

My first cycle touring trip was a week or two spent cycling around Tasmania in 1991. Carrying my camping gear and food in a backpack rather than panniers made this a backbreaking effort but by the end of the trip my appetite was whet for a more ambitious cycle touring trip in the future.

Then, in 1996, equipped with a Trek touring bike and front and rear panniers, I undertook a 5 month solo epic cycle tour around Europe. The idea for this trip was sown when my family went on a holiday to Italy to celebrate my mother's 60th birthday. I decided that I would join the birthday celebrations in Florence, after cycling there from Rome. I would then spend the next 5 months cycling wherever each day took me. It became an epic trans continental cycling tour in which I worked myself steadily northwards through Italy and then into Austria via the Grossglockner pass through the Alps. I then rode across Germany and northwards into Belgium and Holland. By then I became consumed with the objective of cycling as far north as I could go, and thus I continued through Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway until finally reaching Nordcapp, Europe's northenmost point in July of that year. I then cycled southwards through the fiords of Norway to Bergen, from where I took a ferry across to England. I spent 6 weeks cycling through northern England, Scotland and Wales before finally ending the journey in London, some 5 months after pedalling out of Rome.

The trip was perhaps the most epic and memorable undertaking of my life.

In 2011 I returned to Europe with a new bike (and the same panniers) and rode from Vienna to Istanbul. This was another great adventure, cycle touring is such a great way to explore the world.

I hope you enjoy the writeups of these trips and others that I put on this site from time to time.

The 1996 European Cycle Tour
Balkans Cycling Tour, Vienna to Istanbul, May 2011

Mountain Biking Through Central Madagascar, September 2014

Cycling south from Madagascar's capital Antananarivo, through central Madagascar and then on rough tracks to the remote Andringitra National Park

Other Cycle Touring Trips

Peloponnese Cycle Tour, Greece, May-Jun 2013

Rodopi Cycle Tour, Bulgaria, Jun 2013

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This web page created 3 Dec 2007, last updated 10 May 2015.

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