Skip to main content

Welcome!

Welcome to the Big Bike Year!


Well sportsfans, we made it.  We are here at the airport, all checked in and through security, and I can breathe easily.  It's been a pretty big prep time to get us here, bigger than I anticipated, but as I lean into that weird limbo of sitting in the international terminal waiting for the next phase to begin, the tiredness is wafting away and the vision of a bike, a tent, great laughter, and some good cheese and bread is calling - BIG TIME!

We've named our blog The Big Bike Year after one of my favourite movies, The Big Year.  The story of two people diving into a year to honour and play with a deep part of themselves that feels too decadent, too trivial, too unworthy to allow to go wild.  Well, we're going wild, baby!  So instead of Jack Black and Steve Martin, it's Mike and I launching out into a crazy space of flying-by-the-seat-of-our-pants adventuring with our bikes and a tent, and not a lot of kit, cycling around Europe, maybe Northern Africa, maybe some of the UK, maybe the Balkans...who knows!  We start in France and hope to cycle the summer through Scandinavia, coming back through the Baltic countries, then back to France for a good rest.  But we just don't know what paths we'll discover, people we meet, weather we come across, so let's just see what happens. 

Bring on THE BIG BIKE YEAR!



Comments

  1. Bob n JenMay 11, 2025 at 5:37 AM

    See you over here soon! Weather here is perfect… blue skies and light breezes

    ReplyDelete
  2. GermancyclinggirlMay 11, 2025 at 5:42 AM

    And let the fun begin. Stay safe and enjoy the journey and maybe see you in the road 😁

    ReplyDelete
  3. BecMay 11, 2025 at 5:51 AM

    Travel safe and have fun! Looking forward to hearing about all your adventures

    ReplyDelete
  4. MeeshMay 11, 2025 at 11:34 AM

    Yippeee! Proud of my brave, adventurous friends and look forward to following your journey xoxo

    ReplyDelete
  5. CeliaMay 12, 2025 at 1:57 AM

    How wonderful! A grand adventure for us all to follow - I expect photos of cheese, flower fields and wonky tents please

    ReplyDelete
  6. PaulMay 12, 2025 at 2:44 AM

    So look forward to following your adventures!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Rochow!May 13, 2025 at 2:58 AM

    Great news - so very jealous of you both as I sit hear tapping away on my laptop! So I can vicariously travel with you both, please send lots of pictures and commentary. Travel safe x

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

5000km - TICK, Mont Saint Michel - TICK, Crazy rainy mud riding - TICK, Normandy - AMAZING!

 WOOHOOO - 5000KM!  We did it. MASSIVE LEGENDS!! But let's get down to the journey of the last week.  So much action, so many amazing things to see, so many intense emotions - buckle up for a long post with a billion pics, and even a video.  There are really four parts of the last week, so let's keep things organised and go in order... 1. Leaving Saint Malo and heading to Mont Saint Michel - around 55km We leapt out of bed (not really) early to get on the bike cause we knew we had a long ride ahead with unstable weather.  To our delight after climbing our way out of Saint Malo, waving to the local hunter who passed us with his sausage dog and shotgun, we were in gorgeous farming country, the sun started to come out, and when we crested the final hill of the morning could see the famous Mont Saint Michel out there in the sea waiting for us.  We couldn't believe it - we were only 20km in and with the clear weather we could see all the way to this gorgeous 100...
3 comments
Read more

Mike's Update on "Life on the Road"

It's me again... Mike, thought it was time to update that map ... here's the new one... that's 1,750km of action! Yep...as predicted by Serena last time... we're currently on a double rest day in Jönköping (on a huge lake - kind of a beach side vibe ... downtown is pretty .. see pics below), it's about half way to our Swedish target of Stockholm. I'm so amazed that we're here, I've been looking at Jönköping on a map for months... it's surreal! We seem to be settling into a pretty great routine. Every day is amazing and huge and full of challenges and surprises and incredible beauty, but they all seem to fit into a general pattern. Getting up and on the road early, really works for us. We started doing it to avoid rain, but it just seems to really give us a kick start each day. We're making great progress and feeling confident and very happy with the route we chose! Last update we were at the end of our first Route 1 day in Varnamo, camped by the ...
3 comments
Read more

We Made a New Friend and Everything Changed (plus a wrap up of the last part of our journey)

This is our new friend, Renate.  We met her in a supermarket cafe three days ago - we were stopping for a few supplies and a light lunch (and to grab some strawberries from the strawberry van out the front) - and she nearly tripped on our backpack.  She heard us speaking English and we started talking.  She had holidayed in Australia 20 years ago and loved it, her English was fantastic and she was curious about us.  We spent over an hour chatting - Renate is from Lübeck, a very old and historically important city in northern Germany, and about 70km from where we were sitting in the cafe.  Renate raved about the city, and highly recommended a visit, and promised to give us a tour of the city if we came. We had no plans to head there, our route was taking us north, rather than heading East.  It was so weird though, as we said our goodbyes and swapped phone numbers, and headed off again on the bikes, I told Mike I wanted to go to Lübeck. I was strangely emotio...
5 comments
Read more