Ashley Burke's Web PageCycle Touring Page Select an area of interest:
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Welcome to my cycle touring page
My first cycle touring trip was a week or two spent cycling around Tasmania in 1991. Carrying my camping gear and food in a backpack rather than panniers made this a backbreaking effort but by the end of the trip my appetite was whet for a more ambitious cycle touring trip in the future.
Then, in 1996, equipped with a Trek touring bike and front and rear panniers, I undertook a 5 month solo epic cycle tour around Europe. The idea for this trip was sown when my family went on a holiday to Italy to celebrate my mother's 60th birthday. I decided that I would join the birthday celebrations in Florence, after cycling there from Rome. I would then spend the next 5 months cycling wherever each day took me. It became an epic trans continental cycling tour in which I worked myself steadily northwards through Italy and then into Austria via the Grossglockner pass through the Alps. I then rode across Germany and northwards into Belgium and Holland. By then I became consumed with the objective of cycling as far north as I could go, and thus I continued through Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway until finally reaching Nordcapp, Europe's northenmost point in July of that year. I then cycled southwards through the fiords of Norway to Bergen, from where I took a ferry across to England. I spent 6 weeks cycling through northern England, Scotland and Wales before finally ending the journey in London, some 5 months after pedalling out of Rome.
The trip was perhaps the most epic and memorable undertaking of my life.
In 2011 I returned to Europe with a new bike (and the same panniers) and rode from Vienna to Istanbul. This was another great adventure, cycle touring is such a great way to explore the world.
I hope you enjoy the writeups of these trips and others that I put on this site from time to time.
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The 1996 European Cycle Tour |
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Balkans Cycling Tour, Vienna to Istanbul, May 2011 |
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Mountain Biking Through Central Madagascar, September 2014 Cycling south from Madagascar's capital Antananarivo, through central Madagascar and then on rough tracks to the remote Andringitra National Park |
Other Cycle Touring Trips