Welcome

Listen,
This is a blog by Phil and Luke (probably mostly written by Phil) about their time on the road cycling from London to Romania.
I'm not sure why I started in the past tense seeing as I'm sat in a comfortable office in central London the evening before we're about to set off, maybe I'm planning on looking back at this one day, who knows? Suffice it to say I've never written a blog before, in fact I'm not much of a writer at all, but I do have a little bit of experience cycling and I'm hoping enough time on my hands to put some words down about the things we see and expereience in 3 weeks in the saddle travelling thorugh Europe. I hope you enjoy it, and even if it transpires that only my mum bothers reading it, im sure it will go down well and I'll be glad to have made the effort. (Hello mum)

I'm not sure how we've ended up with a route that encompasses 7 countries and over 2000 miles, just a desire to see new places and to push ourselves I suppose. We did Lands End to John O'Groats in April last year along with 5 other mates and caught the cycling bug. A year preparing, worrying, planning With the UK ticked off a Europe trip seemed like a natural challenege and step up and the River Danube, making its way East through Germany, Austria, Slovakia and Hungary made perfect sense. The only question was how far to go. Sadly without the freedom that (f)unemployment would give we are limited by how much time we have for the trip. Therefore some of the more elaborate destinations, Athens, Istanbul etc that I would have liked to consider were immediately ruled out, so we booked two flights from Bucharest in 3 weeks time and set about making a route.

To be honest I have no idea what the next 3 weeks will bring. I hope to put a load of photos and thoughts from the road up here. Apologies if we go a few days without any updates, but rest assured we'll either be cycling or sleeping. Most likely therell be detailed descriptions and photos for 4 days of Dover and Calais followed by weeks of silence! I hope you enjoy the ride, theres a long way to go but I know itll be worth it.

From London NW1, Phil