Just a very short “news” post. We had a final couple of days trundling across Brittany, and exploring St Malo (thanks to our last WarmShowers hosts Muriel in Loyat and Jean-Yves in St-Malo). This was something of a relief, as the last few weeks up the west coast of France have been some of the hardest – endless rain, everything closed, expensive, surprisingly bad drivers, and our emotions all over the place as we approached the end, and worse, real life. France gave us a final quick drenching as we left Jean-Yves place for the ferry terminal (5 minutes away!). Finally, a comfy overnight ferry to Portsmouth and a short day’s ride back home.
- No rain, some sun
- Oh, a cycle track out of Portsmouth
- Unexpectedly mostly prudent & considerate drivers
- A ginormous supermarket with reasonable prices
- Hello everybody we missed.
Maybe South East England isn’t too bad after all.
We’ll do a last one or two real blog articles in due course. But in brief, here’s the final statistics:
- 722 days (16th April 2016 to 11th April 2018)
- 35085km ridden according to the bike computer (21800.8 miles). Well, a few of them might have been pushed up hills or through mud or sand!
- 24 different countries excluding the UK, three to five of them twice, depending on how you count.
- Two antipodes – places on opposite sides of the globe, near Wellington and Madrid.
- Hundreds or thousands of wonderful people.
- Six flights, and five ferries longer than river or bay crossings, four coach rides en route, three truck lifts, one train ride (these en-route, not counting side trips).
- One visit home for a family funeral (five extra days and four extra flights).
- About three sets of tyres and eight chains each. Two on the road welds, one fork replaced. One of the original wheels made it home, three were replaced.
- Approximately 200Kg of souvenirs and redundant clothes sent back to home.
The End, for now.
2silvercyclistsdotnet 
Dear Claire, dear Gideon,
your adventure still leaves me totally stunned, speechless and with open mouths. Congratulations! Please think of making this part of your life somehow available to the rest of the world, as a book, photo Story or similar. It was great to meet you in Vienna back then, and I will keep spreading the word about your trip. Enjoy home and perhaps one day we will meet again. Andreas
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Thanks Andy. I hope you and Helga are thriving, and Monica too. I tried to contact Monica, but perhaps her email address changed.
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Congrats on making it back home.
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Hi Ryan, nice to hear from you. I unpacked the food bag yesterday, and there at the bottom was our emergency supper – on of your mountain house dried meals! Much travelled. Possibly grounds to powder.
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Welcome home! I have loved keeping up with your progress and people often ask about you at school. I can’t begin to imagine the culture shock of coming back to normality so I hope you settle back with ease. If you fancy doing an assembly about your adventure just let me know! Love, Paula. X
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Truly magnificent effort by you two. Now the hard bit, adjusting to retirement. You can’t just retire, perhaps go backwards. You know the old cyclists maxim? “hills hurt but sofa’s kill”.
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Incredible journey! We talk about yall often to our friends and other travelers that stay with us at Crystal Beach Texas. We were happy to spend time with both of you. Safe Travels on the next Journey.
Mike and Peggy Villareal
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Cheers Mike & Peggy. It was lovely staying with you guys too! Still remember the amazing fish stew (although not what it was called!). Alas, the next journey for us is called “back to work” and “moving house”. But still, in preparation for a future mountainous journey, we’ve crossed the floor and established a base on planet Honda – brrrm brrrm!!
Do you have anything planned, Mike seemed pretty speed on a bike?
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