Once in a while, I come up with a dream of doing something I've never done before - something that may be years in the making, and something that may turn out not to be possible or enjoyable. This three-month cycling trip through Europe was one of them.

I don't remember exactly when the idea was born, but I know that it was shortly after we finished New Zealand's Alps to Ocean route in December 2022. That was a 300km ride done as a self-guided but supported tour, with someone organising our accommodation, transporting our luggage and providing route information. I remember that even a 50km day was quite daunting to me back then - yes, even on an e-bike - and that my arms, legs and butt were sore every day. I was dosed up on ibuprofen and heavily dependent on strapping tape for most of it. But I also very clearly remember reaching the end and thinking, "Wow, that was hard - and yet I enjoyed every single day and want to do it all again."

That doesn't always happen. I've set off on other grand adventures before, and in many cases, I would enjoy some parts while preferring - or vowing ardently - never to repeat other aspects. The sheer amount of joy that I felt on each day of this ride was something I knew I wanted to re-experience in my life.

At the same time, Bruno and I were coming up to our next sabbatical. Back when we decided to spend our lives together, we promised each other that every five to ten years, we would take a break from our day-to-day lives to travel and do something different for an extended period. We originally meant to do a big trip in 2021 after I finished a two-year Executive MBA while working full-time (which also meant that he was busy taking on most of the household responsibilies), but then a pandemic happened, followed by some exciting career opportunities. Time ticked by. The ten-year deadline was approaching. And so, we started to toy with the idea of cycling in Europe for our next sabbatical in 2024-25.

Back then, we didn't yet know what a multi-month cycling trip would involve. We had only done two bike tours at that point - one in Italy back in 2018, and one in New Zealand as I mentioned - both of which were weeklong supported rides organised by a cycle touring company. I'd bought a bike a year or so ago, a basic commuter with a cute front basket, but I only used it to do 10-20km leisure rides along the river. That meant I was going to need to build up to this Europe trip, because it was going to be a bigger endurance and logistical challenge than any trip we'd ever done before. (I say "I" here because Bruno would probably have been able to make it work with minimal preparation, given his fitness, adaptability and general stubbornness.)

And so, the training and test runs began. I took a bike maintenance course with my best friend, learned how to use Komoot for route planning and navigation, and began riding with other people in unfamiliar places to build my adaptability. I switched to a hybrid bike and started working my way up to longer rides - first 30km, then 40km, and eventually 70km during our Easter trip to Japan. For Christmas 2023, we headed back to New Zealand to try our first self-organised multi-day bike tour around Queenstown, keeping to 50km-ish days as a starting point. I learned how to steer and balance on a fully-loaded bike, and we also tested our packing list, which we'd adapted from our multi-day hiking days. The trip was fun and went pretty smoothly despite our inexperience. (I did take a tumble, but that was when trying to mountain bike on a Grade 3 trail that perhaps wasn't the brightest idea in hindsight.)

Then in April 2024, it was time for a bigger adventure - a ride that we hoped would be fun in its own right, while also serving as our go / no-go trial for Europe. This was a ~1,000km loop around Taiwan, and our first multi-week ride in an unfamiliar country. Neither of us had firsthand experience of the roads or cycling infrastructure there, and I only had the barest sprinkling of rusty Mandarin from carpooling with Taiwanese friends during high school two decades ago. I planned and arranged the entire trip myself, with no idea how it would go.

That Taiwan trip is covered on this blog already so I won't go into details here. Suffice to say, we enjoyed it enough to decide to press "go" on Europe. There were plenty of things that didn't go to plan - starting from the very first day - and we also had a crash course on how to tackle long tours, but the headline was that we had a great time and would absolutely do it again, just preferably without any more 130km days in 35-degree heat.

With Europe officially locked in for January 2025, the planning started in earnest. After some research into visas, we concluded that we would only have three months in the Schengen area, plus up to another three months in one other country that had a bilateral agreement with Australia (e.g. the Netherlands). We deliberately decided to go in winter because it would be low season, making it easier to book accommodation at last minute, and also avoiding the heat, insects and crowds. That meant trying to find routes that wouldn't be snowy or too wet and cold.

Being a data geek at heart, I scraped a decade of monthly weather data by city to shortlist potential areas for cycling for each month of our trip (January to April) based on temperature range, rainfall days and rainfall amount. I then cross-referenced this with Eurovelo gpx files to come up with potential routes on a map. Bruno then refined this by looking into the actual trail conditions for those routes and making some adjustments (e.g. trading some less-developed parts of Spain for more time along the Atlantic Coast and Loire Valley of France). It was a big trip to handle for relative newbies, and the task was quite daunting at times, but we also knew we were aiming for a rough directional plan rather than a day-to-day itinerary so we didn't need every detail. We just needed to be able to make it to our departing flight before our visas expired.

In the meantime, I continued cycling regularly (except during a tailbone fracture from sitting too hard on my bedframe while folding laundry, because yes, I'm that coordinated) and also began preparing in more detail for a five-week training ride through the South Island of New Zealand in October 2024. The original plan for that trip was to do the South Island leg of the Tour Aotearoa route because the idea just seemed very cool. In the end, we ended up deviating from that because State Highway 6 turned out to be more dangerous than we were comfortable with, but we still did 1,300km of bike touring on much more varied terrain than Taiwan. We also refined our gear list and learned a few more things about how to pace and plan big cycling trips - particularly the "arrange accommodation as you go" kind of trip.

Then, before we knew it, we were in Europe. We knew we were riding from San Sebastian to Amsterdam and had to arrive by a specific date. We had a rough route in mind, mostly following Eurovelos 1, 6 and 15. Bruno had mapped the theoretical distance of that route as well as our potential stops along the way. To sense check our routing decisions en route, I'd also calculated our daily budget, target average distance per cycling day, ratio of cycling to rest days, and some hard limits (no more than three consecutive cycling days or more than 90km of riding per day). This was all based on what we learned from Taiwan and New Zealand. It was expected that we would plot each day's route and book our accommodation as we went, adjusting based on weather, health, accommodation availability and other relevant factors.

For me, this level of flexibility is rare. I'm someone who often plans my trips more than one year out, books flights as soon as points fares are released by the airline, and arranges accommodation not long after - though I'm generally happy to leave the exact activities of each day a lot more fluid. The sheer amount of uncertainty on this trip was quite uncomfortable at first, and I think adapting to that was one of my big personal accomplishments. We never knew what each day would bring, whether in terms of terrain and weather, or unexpected road closures and encounters - but the trick was to just keep riding, one leg at a time, because doing that for long enough meant that we would eventually get to where we needed to be, and could rest before doing it all over again. Learning to find accommodation while cross-referencing unfamiliar cycling routes and distances also went from being a confusing task to a standard activity.

I won't go into the daily details of the ride because that's already covered here. There some key realisations and learnings that are worth capturing, though. For example, over the first few weeks, we realised that we needed more rest days than we originally planned. This became evident in Bourcefranc-le-Chapus (where I just wanted to stay indoors after several days of cold rain) and in Nantes (where I needed time to recover from minor injuries and saddle sores). I felt like I was riding more because I had to than because I wanted to, and I also wasn't sure that the physical side was entirely sustainable. Since our goal was to enjoy this trip rather than just get to the end, I knew we had to make some changes.

After some number crunching to see what we could afford, we bumped up our target average daily distance by 5km per day, then reduced our target cycling day target from 64% (9 days per fortnight) to 60% (9 days out of every 15 days), essentially giving us an extra rest day every two weeks or so. That meant we could do an extra multi-day rest block, or do some two-day cycling blocks instead of three-day ones. Those rest days weren't only for recovery and hiding from wild weather - they were also for laundry, bike maintenance, and research for the next leg of our ride (keeping in mind that the route planning and accommodation bookings could sometimes take most of a day because we were so unfamiliar with everything). That seemingly small adjustment made a huge difference for the rest of our tour. From that point onward, I rarely felt desperate for a rest day, and was also often more energised during rest days and evenings. That made for a richer and far less stressful experience.

We actually ended up doing far more "touristing" than I expected - from castles and museums through to wineries and markets. We weren't always able to stop at attractions en route during a cycle day because some places didn't seem particularly safe for leaving our bikes and panniers unattended, but we took advantage of the rest days for exploring new places, going on walks and doing loop rides to nearby attractions without fully-loaded bikes. This made me feel like we got a much better taste of the distinctiveness of each place we visited, and had a chance to enjoy the journey rather than just getting to each destination.

As the trip continued, we also grew more comfortable with detouring off the Eurovelo trails. That's largely thanks to the impressive network of cycling infrastructure in France, Germany and the Netherlands, as well as the cycling-friendly culture. It became evident that we could pick practically any direction and find a fairly safe way to cycle there. Our more notable detours - Bordeaux, Sancerre, Burgundy, Colmar and the tulip fields of the Netherlands - were each memorable in their own way, with plenty of natural beauty, history, gastronomy and viticulture that we felt lucky to experience. I'm glad we had the core Eurovelo routes to guide our planning for this first big Europe ride, but in the future, we'll have the confidence to chart our own course a lot more.

The confidence is partly from familiarity and experience, and partly from getting fitter and better-prepared as the trip went on. For example, I got a new saddle that made a world of difference to my wrists and butt, and a waterproof jacket that actually kept me dry (and therefore warm-ish). I could also see my strength and stamina building in slow yet tangible ways - from slight increases in my average speed, to being able to ride at a higher gear and with less e-bike power with each month that passed. I now know I can sustainably do a tour like this, and come out feeling healthier, stronger and happier. That knowledge makes a big difference.

As we found our rhythm on our ride, we also settled into our roles. I would look for comfortable and bike-friendly accommodation within our distance and budget range (sometimes easy, sometimes not), then co-ordinate with each host around arrival times, bike storage and other logistics. This often involved juggling options for multiple days at once, because each day's accommodation location would affect the cycling distance of other days. I also made sure we had food, laundry, medication and other supplies; researched attractions and potential side trips / detours; and decided where we would spend our rest days. Bruno would research and plot our cycling routes, often with dry and wet weather versions; do any heavy lifting of bikes (narrow winding staircases were Type 2 fun); keep the bikes clean-ish; charge the batteries daily; make security decisions; and look after the visa and bike selling logistics. We tended to do any bike maintenance and repairs together, and everything else was just left to whoever had more energy. En route navigation and pacing was generally me, except in the larger cities, where Bruno would lead. It worked well and I like that we fell into it quite naturally, playing to our natural strengths and preferences.

The end of the ride seemed to arrive in a blink. Much as I knew it was coming, I wasn't prepared for the sense of loss that hit me. I also wasn't ready for the ride to be over. If we could afford the funds and the time (visa-wise), I could have happily continued riding for several months, or perhaps even the rest of the year. We had found a cadence and approach that worked amazingly well, and I'd fallen in love with the slow, meandering lifestyle of cycle touring - wandering from place to place on two wheels, feeling the wind in my face and the power in my legs, taking in the sights along the way, and letting each place surprise me in its own unique way. Even if some days were tough going, the next one would bring a fresh start and new discoveries. At night, I would fall into a restful sleep, having accomplished what I set out to do.

It's taken the bulk of the last two weeks for the bittersweetness to fade and be replaced by a sense of gratitude, contentment and slight wonder that we have ridden 3,700km across Europe - and we not only made it safely and healthily, but had an incredible time along the way. I feel like a proper "voyageur sportif" now! We have created so many precious memories together, and I can look back on every single day of this journey and find something to make me smile. Now that the sadness is gone, I just feel very lucky that we were able to do what we did, and also to have had the support of friends and family along the way.

I'm also glad we took the leap of faith to set out on this journey in the first place - not just over the past three months, but in the two years that led up to it, with everything that we did to train and prepare and turn a vague idea into reality. It's been a dream come true, and it turned out to be even more amazing than I imagined. Although we're already talking about future cycle tours in Europe, I think this one will always have a special place in my heart.