Veloroute 6 took me out of Austria, into Slovakia for two hours (the bridge over the river to the pretty stuff was cut in half) and dumped me in Hungary. If there’s one thing I like it’s cycling into different countries on cycle paths.
Author: Sam Pougher (page 4 of 4)
An accurate portrayal of how my arse feels.
As far as comical place names go, Hardegg wins. Hands down. I personally don’t think it will be topped. After camping in the Narodni national park on the Austrian border (and being rumbled by ticks and flies) this was the first village, and it was a zinger. Despite the early morning storm it still looked pretty, like a supermodel wearing a binbag, although like most places in Europe, it liked to don it’s religious beliefs on it’s sleeve, but let’s not get me started on religion, eh?
Trainspotting
Wild camping’s technically illegal in Germany. Strange that. As far as I’m concerned, if you can’t find a nice secluded bit of forest to camp in as a cycle tourer in Germany, you may as well pack up and go home (and that comes from someone who pretty much needs a sign with a big arrow to point out a wild camping spot). It’s littered with huge woodland with massive pine trees, I couldn’t get enough.
You know when you get that feeling where you think there’s more than meets the eye? Like if you’re at someone’s house and accidentally open the wrong drawer to find ball gags and whips. That’s the feeling I got from Luxembourg. The place is just too damn full of money, smug people and tourists, they’re hiding all the rough stuff, I know it. I bet there’s another hidden city in Luxembourg that’s full of boozers, betting shops, go-go bars and greasy take-aways populated by shit-faced ugly people who hurl abuse at each other and ralph up the side of a bus stop. So, Scunthorpe, but in Luxembourg.
‘At some point, you’re going to shit it’.
That was a mate’s venerable advice a week before I left (I assume he means it in both senses of the phrase). He then went on to add that he thought it’d be when I got into France, realised that my handful of French words wasn’t enough and that I couldn’t understand a thing anyone was saying. Read more
A fully laden Tangerine Dream
09:33am, Thursday 28th May 2015.
One day late, but better late than never. After a couple of hours stuffing things into bags and strapping them onto the bike, I was off. Aided by Marc Broughton who kindly pointed his camera at my mug (whilst I managed to look in the opposite direction) and set up a solitary firework out of a pair of my old handlebars to mark the beginning of this trip, how poignant.
The firework to mark the beginning, and irritate neighbours.
I’m a bit of a kit-nerd.
I like the idea you can just jump on a bike, start riding, and then you’re on a cycle tour. I really do. But for me, I want some stuff that’s really good at doing it’s job. This lead me to almost autism levels of research and review reading before I bought anything, and I mean anything, even my tyre lever took a couple of hours on a Wednesday morning at work. Read more
I once read that preparing to go on an indefinite cycle tour was easy, and that it could be split up into three easy steps –
1. Buy a bike
2. Quit your job
3. Start riding
The rest just sorts itself out… Read more
I’m off for a bike ride in a bit. I’ll tell you all about it later