This is an early stage in my bike touring career so everything is new. Thankfully the Interweb is full of helpful stuff including this website where I can record my most intimate thoughts!

For starters this forum (http://www.thorncyclesforum.co.uk/) has been a mine of information and advice. I found this when researching bikes for the tour. Thorn make fabulous bikes and are well known in the cycle touring world, apparently.

After some digging around I heard of a Scottish bike manufacturer who had a similar reputation. A bit more research and I found Shand Bikes in Livingstone (https://www.shandcycles.com/). A visit to the factory resulted in an order and me collecting Jimmy in March 2022.

Jimmy is the Stoater model with a handmade steel frame and came with a 2x11 GRX600 drivechain, a front hub dynamo and rear rack. I added a Saltire for good luck.

In the summer of 2022 Laura (my long suffering wife) and I were scheduled to go to Knoydart in Scotland. So I decided that I would try my first cycle tour from Mallaig to home, in Dunbar. I planned the route to have similar mileage as this big tour - 50miles or 80km per day. It was a successful experience and was useful to allow to try out some of the kit I bought.

Then came the process of working out what I needed. Northern Spain in April could be chilly and Albania in June is likely to be toasty. I will have two 20l panniers, one 6l bar-bag and some sort of rack bag - maybe a small daysac. Somehow I need enough clothing for a week of cycling in cool or hot weather and something to wear off the bike. For reference, the maximum volume of hand luggage on a flight is 40l.

A packing list was duly prepared, pruned and increased over the planning period. A test pack is due 2 weeks before departure.

The route is generally set however the plan is to book accommodation a few days ahead and adjust the route to suit where I stay. Route planning will be done on a mobile app called Komoot. Each saved route is then synched to a handlebar computer which will both record what I do and tell me when to change direction. Maps will be loaded to my phone, tablet and handlebar computer. At the moment I don't plan to use paper maps - I would need loads of them for this route. However if the technology plans fail I may end up buying maps on a country by country basis.

During the trip I'll keep a blog here and will post some daily comments to Facebook. Some photos will be posted here with the majority shared via Facebook. Hopefully I can keep it interesting enough to encourage people to read it.