Europe 2024 - Looking Back

Our 2024 bikepacking trip is over and we're home again. We cycled a total of 1337 miles (2151 km) with 49843 feet (15192 metres) ascent. We were away for 38 days but only cycled for 30 days in total, meaning that we averaged about 45 miles (72 km) a day although this was not at all evenly distributed with longer distances covered in France than in the much hillier Spain.

The bikes are in the garage awaiting a proper clean. The tent and other camping gear has been cleaned, aired and put away until the next time.

And we're already discussing and evaluating ideas for a bikepacking trip in 2025!

So, how was this year's trip?

In short, it was tremendous. Last year's trip was good but this year's was better. Much better. The weather was better. And the route was better. Last year it never felt particularly warm and we had one very rainy and cold week. The route included some pleasant and sometimes scenic sections that ran alongside canals and rivers. The River Meuse had some especially scenic sections. But a lot of the route passed through farmland which whilst pleasant (it's green and quiet!) was not exciting and lacked novelty and diversity.

This year's route was much better than M1 had expected. The environments we cycled through were very varied and often a delight. There was a lot of coastline, sometimes with sand dunes. There were large expanses of forest, several awesome wetlands, and in Spain, hills and even mountains. Apart from in England and one tiny bit of Spain (on a road we should have never chosen in the first place!) this was a low traffic route, too. A high proportion of our cycling was on dedicated cycle paths, completely away from roads. 

The Vélodyssée in France was a treat. M1 had felt a little unenthusiastic about the prospect of the Vélodyssée and had unreasonably assumed we'd cycle through a lot of beach resorts with lots of tourists. There was also a fear there would be large numbers of cyclists crowded onto the route. It's a fairly flat and "family friendly" cycle path after all. But neither of these issues materialised. Yes, we cycled through a few resorts but generally it was fine. Only Biaritz was a challenge to cycle through. And the Vélodyssée itself was quiet. We saw other cyclists every now and again but we were never trapped behind a procession of cyclists as had been feared. 

The time of year we chose was probably a big factor in the great experience we had of La Vélodyssée. We chose to go before the school summer holidays were upon us, leaving at the start of the last week in May and cycling until the end of June. We risked very variable weather in exchange for there being fewer tourists. It paid off. We probably got a hint of what Vélodyssée can be like in peak season when we cycled around Ile de Ré.

The mix of environments gave us the bonus of quite varied and abundant wildlife to watch and identify as we travelled. 

Amongst the many species of bird we sighted were a number that were new to M1 and M2 or at least new to the "life list" maintained by the Merlin app that M1 uses.

"New" species of birds spotted on this trip

 

Birds were the stars of the show but there was a beaver, some very noisy frogs and a number of Stars of Low Budget Sci-Fi crayfish as well!

During the first few weeks of the trip we followed our usual pattern of camping for four or five nights each week and using Airbnb for the other nights, slotting in one or occasionally two days of rest. But when we got to Spain campsites near to the places we wanted to travel were hard to find and we switched to using Airbnb, Bed and Breakfast establishments and hotels. M1 missed his lovely tent. M2 did not. 

Nantes was the location for our first rest day. As usual we paid lip service to the concept of "rest" and did some sightseeing in the city, the highlight of which was the The Machines of the Island.

But let's not forget the cycling. What was it like to cycle this route?

We cycled in three countries, each delivering a distinct cycling experience.

Cycling in England is always mixed. Some of our route to and from Portsmouth was in countryside and with relatively low amounts of traffic and it was enjoyable enough. Some of it though was fairly dreadful, with what felt like hours of constant traffic noise and far too many cars and other vehicles. We didn't always feel completely safe. But that's cycling in England. Day 1, where we cycled all the way from just outside London down to Portsmouth in one day, covering nearly 74 miles (117 km) and 4344 feet (1324 m) of ascent was tough and we paid for our ambition over the remainder of the first week.

Cycling in France in contrast is almost always wonderful. There are cycle paths seemingly everywhere. During week #1 we cycled west along the coast, following Eurovelo route EV4. We then cut across country on one of the regional cycle routes and followed the Brest to Nantes canal. Cycling by a canal is always good. It's flat and there's usually wildlife to spot. Obviously it can get a little uninteresting after a while but after Nantes, everything changed and we cycled from there across to the Atlantic coast to follow La Vélodyssée all the way to Spain.

And as already mentioned, the French national cycle route La Vélodyssée, which is part of the enormous Eurovelo route EV1 was just fantastic. It's fairly flat and so quite fast to ride. We averaged more than 60 miles (96 km) a day on this part of the route. And the environment is surprisingly varied. There were a few beach resorts, a huge amount of forest, unspoiled sections of coastline and (M1's favourite), several expanses of wetland which were full of birds.  

When we crossed the border into Spain, much changed. The flat, easy cycling of La Vélodyssée was left behind and our legs were reminded of their duty! Our entire time in Spain was spent in the Basque country. It's hilly and even has a range of small mountains. We broke all our bikepacking records with 5420 feet (1652 metres) ascent on our ride from Bermeo to Bilbao.  And M2 successfully tackled her first mountain on our first day in Spain, ascending Mount Jaizkibel which was featured in the 2023 Tour de France!

The Basque country is beautiful as well. M1 visited Spain a lot in his childhood and associated it then with beach holidays and a relatively arid landscape. The Basque country though is green and hilly and scenic. Some of the coastline is spectacular. Many of the towns we visited were lovely and completely unknown to us previously. San Sebastian we knew of and its reputation is justified. Bilbao was a great place to spend a few days and a good destination for a weekend city break. Orduña was quite a discovery. The centre of the old town was very attractive (just ask the Storks that live there!). And then of course there was Vitoria-Gasteiz. A lovely old cycling-friendly town that had the added surprise of a music festival where we saw Queens of the Stone Age!

Not every one of the miles cycled as shown in our stats were in fact cycled! This is not an attempt at deceit. It's simply a result of M1 forgetting to pause his GPS watch a few times. We got stopped in our tracks by a closed road (DISASTER!) when cycling from Bilbao to Orduña and solved that particular problem by travelling by train a whole three miles to get past the road closure. 

We probably walked a couple of miles when we left our bikes and hiked down to visit the amazing Gaztelugatxe and back up again.

And what about equipment? How did that fare?

The bikes did very well indeed. M2 had no issues whatsoever. M1's "The Mule" had a flat front tyre one morning. This seemed to have been caused by a tear in the inner tube that exactly followed a stamp in the surface that is created during the manufacturing process so it may have been a defect or weakness in that tube. It was not a puncture as nothing had pierced the tyre and there was no object inside the tyre that could have caused the tear. Our faith in Continental Contact Plus tyres is undiminished.

M1 had bought a new Juice 24000 mAh power bank for this trip but it didn't have quite the capacity needed for up to six days in a row of charging a smartphone and GPS watch. We got by but this will have to be replaced ahead of the next trip. It was extremely slow to charge to full capacity as well.

M1's trusty Suunto Ambit 3 GPS watch started to exhibit problems unfortunately. Twice it stopped recording the route without warning. It's quite old and will be replaced soon, probably with a Suunto Peak Pro.

Everything else was great. Even the old, bottom of the range Acer Chromebook that gets carried around in one of M1's panniers for blogging and general use, mile after mile. It's being used right now as it happens :-)

Food was once again a hit. Neither M1 or M2 are fond of restaurants. We're simple folk :-) There's not much that we enjoy eating that makes us happier than French baking. Croissants with Almond were the favourite of this trip although we also discovered the joy of "Drops" or Pain Suisse and the French mastery of the crumble of which raspberry crumble was the best. M1 ate his body weight in cherries which were piled high in all the supermarkets in southern France and in Spain. And of course we ate a fairly large amount of cheese. Obviously. In Spain we sampled the Basque speciality, pintxos and especially enjoyed the fried shrimp we had in San Sebastian. And we went through numerous cans of olives stuffed with anchovies, an old favourite of M1's only to be found in Spain apparently.

2025 is on our minds. Maybe we'll sail to Spain and do a circular tour of Spain and Portugal. Maybe we'll sail to the Netherlands and focus on the Netherlands, Germany and maybe Poland. Who knows. We have plenty of ideas. We will be spending the coming months researching and evaluating each idea and eventually settle upon an exciting plan for 2025.