What’s With The “Slightly Less Big Bike Trip”?

Almost two decades ago, Julie and I closed the front door of our suburban house in southern England, got on our bikes, cycled into town to drop the keys off at the real estate agent’s office and headed very slowly and very indirectly to New Zealand. The kids had left home, we’d quit our jobs, sold the house and, as Julie so eloquently put it, we were unravelling our life’s jumper. That was the start of our Big Bike Trip in late April 2007. Over the following eight months, we took in 20 countries and clocked up 10,000km on the bikes, with four months cycling in Europe and another four in Asia. We arrived in Christchurch in early January 2008 and made about re-knitting our life’s jumper in Aotearoa. 

Setting off from our house in Bedford, April 2007

Post-cycling beachside drinkies, Thailand, November 2007

Now in late April 2025, we’re doing something similar, but not quite so dramatic. This time, it’s going to be ‘The Slightly Less Big Bike Trip’. With Julie having retired from teaching several years ago, I finished work four weeks ago and we’ve flown to the UK with our bikes. This time we’re intending to be away for around six months while friends house-sit for us. No jumpers will be harmed in the making of this trip.

We’re spending a month in the UK with family and friends, before taking trains and a ferry to Copenhagen to stay with friends, then setting off on our bikes for around three months. The three-month timescale is significant. I’d originally planned to a a big speech-bubble-shaped ride from London to Harwich, ferry over to Hook of Holland and then a big loop around the Low Countries, southern Scandinavia, the Baltic States, Poland, the Czech Republic and then back London-wards via the Rhine. That was until my (former) colleague, Sophie, reminded me of the implications of Brexit on travel in the Schengen Area countries. We can only be in the Area countries for up to 90 days. So this has required some foreshortening of the planned trip. Now, we’re going to head straight to Copenhagen, train over to Malmo, cycle around southern Sweden to Stockholm, ferry to Turku in Finland, cycle around southern Finland to Helsinki, ferry to Tallinn, cycle southwards through Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, then into Poland and (hopefully) get as far as Krakow, before taking another train back to the UK - all within three months. As it turns out, we need to be back in the UK for late August, anyway - for a long weekend extended family gathering in the Lake District and a follow-up week at a nearby Center Parcs with the kids. Then, we’re likely to spend most of September tripping about and doing some walking in the UK before heading homewards via Oman, where Hannah and Tom are currently living. That should get us back home around the end of October, in time for the summer months, although our return flight is yet to be booked.

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