Title: Spain to Norway on a Bike Called Reggie
Author: Sykes, Andrew P
Published by: Summersdale
Year: 2017
First published: Summersdale, 2017
Date reviewed: 06.17
ISBN: 978-1-78685-170-3 (Kindle edition)

It tells the story of his solo bike ride in 2015 from the southernmost tip of Europe, Tarifa in Spain, to its northernmost point, Nordkapp in Norway. He covered 7500km in just under 100 days. In a change from his previous book he has abandoned the straightjacket of a one-chapter-a-day format. Instead he writes one chapter for each degree of latitude he completes – all 35 of them. This gives him more flexibility to be selective in what he writes.

So we get a mix of his cycling experiences: the weather and the terrain; food, hotels and campsites; some well-chosen snippets of history; descriptions and stories about some of the people he meets along the way. As anyone who’s ever done a long-distance bike ride knows, each of these can become important at some point. Sykes’ self-deprecating and sometimes quirky humour is still there, more natural and less forced than in “Along the Med” – that editor again, I guess. His travelling style is still the same though. He has an overall plan and a general idea about his route, but each day’s ride is taken as it comes rather than being meticulously planned.

I started identifying with Andrew as he got further north in Norway, as a long time ago I did a five week ride in Sweden and Norway when the central part of the peninsula was genuinely remote. In fact his track and mine coincided for a short section somewhere between Lillehammer and Trondheim. I can appreciate how it must feel to be riding into the wind and rain in the far north, wondering where the next opportunity will be to dry out and buy some food and a hot drink. At least on my journey I didn’t have to face the tunnels – I didn’t come across any (if indeed any had been built then).

Well-deserved congratulations to Andrew. It was an innovative challenge and an epic ride, and he kept going even when his spirits were low on those ‘Mercedes days’. Writing this in the summer of 2017 I can’t overlook an unwritten message in the book; he did the whole journey without formalities or a single delay at any of the national borders. Let’s hope that’s still possible in 2020.

A planned visit to Provence in April prompted me to read this book some 12 years after it was on the best-seller lists. It’s hard now to see what the fuss was about – maybe the TV serialisation was more to blame. The book gives a sympathetic picture of life in Provence, and has its amusing episodes, but it wouldn’t entice me to uproot and head for the estate agent’s office.