My 2019 cycling trip has been more than 5 years of ideas that has slowly been refined over time. As always things will change and I value people’s input.

In 2013 I spent 87 days cycling in France, the UK and Belgium, seeing the Tour De France in the French Alps and then visiting England for a men’s and women’s ashes test matches before crossing English Channel back into France to see the D-Day sites and Australian Western Front sites in northern France and Belgium. So when I looked at the sporting calendar for 2019 I realised that not only with the both ashes series be back in England but also the men’s cricket World Cup will be on and as well women’s Fifa World Cup will be in France. There is a clash between cricket and football world cups but cricket World Cup finals are afterwards, so should be in England at least. Having as well enjoyed the 2015 Fifa Women’s World Cup in Canada and last year enjoying the men’s version in Russia, it made sense to combine it all.

Since the men’s ashes doesn’t finished until mid September my idea of visiting Spain then had to be changed to April/May instead of September. It actually works better that way with logistics. For a while I had planned to fly to Morocco from Australia in March and then cross to Spain, however I realised that in the time I had available I would have had to rush through Morocco to enable enough time to then still rush through Spain to get to France in time. Having learnt from last years trip where I felt at times I was rushing through countries spend less than a week in many. So this year have decided to try to slow down more. This will also mean I will probably not visit Portugal, learning Spanish and re-learning French is hard enough.

As always route will change but here is my rough itinerary. Ideas welcomed.

April 15 fly Melbourne to Madrid via Dubai.
Then cycle south to Seville using some rail trails before looping around to Albacete via Ronda using more rail trails, estimating this will take me until end of April.
Then train to Madrid to enable me to vote in the anticipated Australian federal election, having spent time in countries where people couldn’t vote when I was born I take this privilege as something I should do and considering Spain was under from what I have read so far a brutal Franco dictatorship for 40 years, I would like to vote there. Will talk about Spain more later but the Spanish civil wars sound horrible and is really the entree to WW2. 

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From Madrid head north to Basque region, looks like a few rail trails there and an interesting cultural difference to rest of Spain before crossing into France not sure exactly but probably near Pamplona before making my way to Bordeaux by May 27 to get TGV to Paris in time for French Open tennis. 
Then have a week or so to get to Valenciennes for Australia first World Cup match against Italy on June 9, so possibly looking at going via Reims, Luxembourg and Bastogne.

June will be my rest month off the bike as I will be spending more time using trains to go between places during the Fifa World Cup as Australia 2nd and 3rd matches are in the south of France at Montpellier and Grenoble and not sure where any potential knockout matches will be yet but I do have tickets for both semi finals and the final which are all in Lyon.

As an Australian citizen I can spend up to 90 days in Europe without a visa so by mid July will need to leave so the plan at this stage is to train from Lyon to Rosporden in Brittany. Some French trains take bicycles while other do not, especially around Lyon they do not, so have had to search for the right one.

Will leave France from Roscoff crossing English Channel to Plymouth. From there have a week to get to Taunton for the first day of the women’s ashes test match on July 18 before another week to get to Chelmsford for a T20 match before visiting Cambridge having enjoyed seeing Oxford in 2013. 

Will then try to find a train that will take me to Scotland, cannot books train more then 3 months away and they have varying prices. Did consider Ireland but don’t have enough time and I need to be in Leeds for a men’s test match by August 25 so it worked better that way to loop via Scotland and the Lake District. Then have 3 weeks to get to London from Leeds for the oval test match before flying the direct Qantas flight from London to Perth, Australia, on September 17.

I could have flown onwards directly to Melbourne but the flight cost the same to have a stop over in Western Australia and I get to keep the 30kgs of luggage. So will have 2 weeks to see WA again most likely will head north from Perth to Kalbarri and then loop back to Perth to fly home October 2.

Will post maps soon to show my ideas more clearly.