Cycle Touring - What is it like?

Learning Curve
I started my journey having no experience at all with cycle touring. I had ridden road and mountain bikes before but I didn't really know what to expect with cycle touring. 

The very limited training (50k) and test rides that I had done I knew would in no way prepare me for what was to come.


What I found in the first 3 days of biking shocked and scared me. I wondered how I was ever going to push a bike that weighed 40kg and handled like a bus across France let alone to Cape Town.

The first month was a massive learning curve. I basically had to learn how to ride a bike again as it was like nothing I had ever ridden before. I got a lot of things wrong initially. My foot position was all wrong, the cadence was to slow, my knees were all over the place and my gear changes were appalling.

All the things I got wrong lead to either physical pain or me getting off the bike and pushing it. For the first two week every where hurt. Feet, legs, ass, arms, shoulders and my back but I knew that once I had got through the first month that things would get easier.

Aside from the bike riding there was other things I needed to learn. Navigation with the GPS was key. I spent quite a bit of time in the first month going in the wrong direction or along roads that were not suitable for biking. I had to learn where everything was in my panniers and what the best way was to pack everything. 

I also had to learn how to live in a tent and how to camp efficiently. I now have an established routine for camping that makes setting up the tent, washing and eating much easier than it was initially.


Travelling by bike
Each day is different when you travel by bike. You often don't know what to expect in terms of terrain, the type of road you will be on, the weather, the traffic and the environment around you. You really don't know whats going to be around the next bend and in that way its always interesting. 

Travelling by bike is almost always interesting but its not easy. 
During the first month I would wake up at 9am, spend over an hour getting my gear 
together and then get back on the bike.


I would bike for around 2 hours then eat lunch for half an hour and then bike again until 4pm. 

At 4pm I would look for a campsite on the GPS and get there as soon as I could. 

I would arrive at the camp, take the panniers off the bike and then collapse on the ground and sleep. 

Half an hour to an hour later I would put up the tent, cook something, eat, shower, stretch read something on the kindle and go to sleep again at 9pm. 

I could do this for 3 days in a row then I would have to have a day off. I was too tired to do anything on the day off so it was spent reading, sleeping, eating and stretching.


I was travelling between 50k - 75k per day in relatively flat terrain. At that rate it would take 2 months just go to get across France.

 Now after two months and nearly 4000km things are much easier. Before I started I thought it would take 3000km to get the fitness back and to have everything about travelling by bike organised and it was about right.

My navigation is now pretty good, camping takes much less time and although I do often collapse for half an hour after a ride I can ride 5/6/7 days without a day off and although I am tired I am not exhausted. I am usually away from a campsite around 8am and 100k days on the flat are quite common. I have had two weeks in the hills now and I am doing around 75k a day at the moment. I have been a bit limited as the campsites are not so common in Croatia/Montenegro so I have to be careful of how far I go each day. I do aim to have to up to 100k/day in the hills soon.


Life is a roller coaster you just gotta ride it
Riding a bike for 5-10 hours a day is a physical and mental roller coaster and where you are on the roller coaster depends on lots of different things. 

What you have eaten, fluid intake, physical fatigue - both on the day and what has been accumulated for the week, the environment around you - flat/hills, road conditions - asphalt,shingle, dirt and the weather all play a part in how you perform when you are out on the bike.

However the most important thing is how you feel. When riding a bike you have to accept that there will be hills, there will busy & rough roads, there will be hot/cold/wet weather and it will physically hurt. All of this is inevitable. 

How you respond to all these factors is the most important part of riding a bike long distances and there are two ways that I do this. 

Firstly I only worry about what I can control. I cant control the weather, the road conditions or the terrain but what I can control is my food intake, fluid intake and how much I rest. So I make sure that I have plenty of fluids during the day, that I eat a good breakfast, eat during the day, in the evening and that I sleep as much as is required. If its cold I dress appropriately and if its hot, as it often is, I drink more water.

Secondly I only think in terms of today and tomorrow. Where do I need to bike to today, and what do I need to do to get ready for tomorrow. Its very short term thinking which has lead me a little astray in terms of navigation but it keeps me focused on what is important. 
That is getting to the next point in the journey.
Thinking that I have 15000km to go is a little overwhelming so just worry about the next 100k and that makes it much easier.

For all the difficulties of travelling by bike there are many great rewards. 

There are times when the scenery is outstanding, the weather amazing and the there is no place in the world you would rather be. 

These are the moments that I remember and all the others just seem to disappear from my memory.

Its a very strange thing riding a bike, its a roller coaster of emotions on a daily basis and its a hell of a lot of fun.