Generous Discounts:
I want to thank Niner Bikes, Primal Wear, and Bedrock Bags for deep discounts on merchandise that was critical for the success of Europa 360, my most ambitious bicycle tour to date: Niner Bikes RLT 9 RDO; Helix jersey and bibs from Primal Wear; and a variety of bike-packing bags from Bedrock Bags. I also want to thank Oveja Negra. Like Bedrock Bags, this is a locally owned, earth-inspired and loving company that manufactures bike-packing bags using human hands and traditional sewing machines. After my 2020 tour through the gritty, wind blown Great Basin Desert of Nevada and adjacent states, Oveja Negra replaced the zipper on my half-frame pack and shipped it back to me for no cost.
Public Support: Become a Patron
To help support Europa 360 and all of my subsequent adventures including the creative components (writing, video, images) that make their way to Patreon and my other social media channels (Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube), I've established a Patreon account where anyone can easily make a one-off or recurring, monthly donation using my own tier-based options. Using Patreon's intuitive and secure payment options, individuals and businesses can, e.g., buy me a cup of coffee each month by choosing my Tier 1 option here on my Patreon profile.
Europa 360 explored 6,449 miles of the European subcontinent through eighteen countries across many seas and mountain ranges, total climbing was equivalent to 6.7 ascents up Mount Everest (29,029 ft) from sea level, over ninety days. Since finishing Europa 360 (19 November 2022), my most ambitious tour to date, I have resumed working but I nonetheless remain well inside of the post-tour recovery phase, physically, mentally, and financially. Nonetheless, despite these ongoing challenges, I have already started planning my next by-bicycle tour for 2023. For more details, please consider becoming a Patron of Andre Breton Cycling where I'll be exclusively posting thoughts, dates, and more about my next tour over the next few months.
Europa 360 explored 6,449 miles of the European subcontinent through eighteen countries across many seas and mountain ranges, total climbing was equivalent to 6.7 ascents up Mount Everest (29,029 ft) from sea level, over ninety days. Since finishing Europa 360 (19 November 2022), my most ambitious tour to date, I have resumed working but I nonetheless remain well inside of the post-tour recovery phase, physically, mentally, and financially. Nonetheless, despite these ongoing challenges, I have already started planning my next by-bicycle tour for 2023. For more details, please consider becoming a Patron of Andre Breton Cycling where I'll be exclusively posting thoughts, dates, and more about my next tour over the next few months.
Europa 360: The Unknown and the Unknowable
After months of hesitation, I finally made the necessary decisions (when, how long) and then purchased, on the 8th of July, 2022, an expensive, round-trip ticket to Barcelona, Spain. With those decisions and tasks behind me, I officially set myself on another collision course with the unknown and the unknowable and despite those realities I also began to anticipate with excitement all that I would experience on my most ambitious cycling tour to date.
This tour would add to an ongoing, multi-decadal, series of adventures by boot, boat, motorcycle, and bicycle that I have, for the most part, unintentionally accumulated since I was about 25 years old. In my mid-twenties, I was as naïve about the world as a grasshopper turned loose on an interstate highway in downtown Los Angeles. However, I was also, then and now, deeply curious and so eventually I took all that naivete on my first long, for the most part unplanned, another habit of mine, solo tour.
That initial adventure began at the top of my childhood driveway in the suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts. From there, seated on an aged, 1982, Honda, CX500 motorcycle, I pointed the machine roughly southwest, a trajectory that brought me, in a few hours, directly into an ice storm in Pennsylvania. I survived that battle, barely at one moment when I nearly lost control of the motorcycle, due to slippery roads and frozen hands, on a highway alongside a dump truck. I subsequently rode on, a flashpoint that I never forgot behind me, down, down, down the east coast eventually into warm Appalachian valleys and beyond, to sunny Florida where I turned west towards Oklahoma and the Colorado Plateau.
Six months passed during which time I camped, hiked, journaled, sung, strummed, and otherwise motorcycled through 24 states across 16,000 miles of North American landscapes. When I returned to the northeast where the tour began, I did so with many lessons to contemplate and a great feeling of accomplishment maturing in my belly, treasures that continue to inspire me to do more exploring in my fifth decade among the living.
Europa 360 represents my most ambitious bicycle tour to date. Before concluding in the same city where the tour began (Barcelona), I anticipated that I would ride as many as 6000 miles but instead approached 6500 miles including overnight ferry crossings of the Baltic, Adriatic, and Tyrrhenian Seas. I crossed the Pyrenees, twice, the Massif Central in southern France, the Carpathians in Slovakia, the Alps in France, and the Dinarides or Dinaric Alps in the Balkans.
My 2019 bicycle transect of the European subcontinent from Scotland to Turkey (Istanbul), prior to Europa 360 my longest tour, was a useful reference for guessing how many feet I might ascend during Europa 360. On the 2019 tour, I rode 4,392 miles in 63 days and amassed 230,751 feet (70,333 meters) of climbing along the way, equivalent to nearly eight times up Mount Everest (29,029 feet, 8,850 meters) from sea level.
For Europa 360, I would ride from Barcelona to Barcelona via Helsinki (Finland), Dubrovnik (Croatia), Palermo (Italy), and Toulon (France) in 84 days, amassing a total of 6,449 miles (10,378 km) with 195,347 feet (59,542 meters) of elevation gained along the way, equivalent to ascending Mount Everest 6.7 times from sea level. Despite riding many more miles, my transects through the Alps during Europa 360 were slightly less ambitious than my 2019 tour.
This tour would add to an ongoing, multi-decadal, series of adventures by boot, boat, motorcycle, and bicycle that I have, for the most part, unintentionally accumulated since I was about 25 years old. In my mid-twenties, I was as naïve about the world as a grasshopper turned loose on an interstate highway in downtown Los Angeles. However, I was also, then and now, deeply curious and so eventually I took all that naivete on my first long, for the most part unplanned, another habit of mine, solo tour.
That initial adventure began at the top of my childhood driveway in the suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts. From there, seated on an aged, 1982, Honda, CX500 motorcycle, I pointed the machine roughly southwest, a trajectory that brought me, in a few hours, directly into an ice storm in Pennsylvania. I survived that battle, barely at one moment when I nearly lost control of the motorcycle, due to slippery roads and frozen hands, on a highway alongside a dump truck. I subsequently rode on, a flashpoint that I never forgot behind me, down, down, down the east coast eventually into warm Appalachian valleys and beyond, to sunny Florida where I turned west towards Oklahoma and the Colorado Plateau.
Six months passed during which time I camped, hiked, journaled, sung, strummed, and otherwise motorcycled through 24 states across 16,000 miles of North American landscapes. When I returned to the northeast where the tour began, I did so with many lessons to contemplate and a great feeling of accomplishment maturing in my belly, treasures that continue to inspire me to do more exploring in my fifth decade among the living.
Europa 360 represents my most ambitious bicycle tour to date. Before concluding in the same city where the tour began (Barcelona), I anticipated that I would ride as many as 6000 miles but instead approached 6500 miles including overnight ferry crossings of the Baltic, Adriatic, and Tyrrhenian Seas. I crossed the Pyrenees, twice, the Massif Central in southern France, the Carpathians in Slovakia, the Alps in France, and the Dinarides or Dinaric Alps in the Balkans.
My 2019 bicycle transect of the European subcontinent from Scotland to Turkey (Istanbul), prior to Europa 360 my longest tour, was a useful reference for guessing how many feet I might ascend during Europa 360. On the 2019 tour, I rode 4,392 miles in 63 days and amassed 230,751 feet (70,333 meters) of climbing along the way, equivalent to nearly eight times up Mount Everest (29,029 feet, 8,850 meters) from sea level.
For Europa 360, I would ride from Barcelona to Barcelona via Helsinki (Finland), Dubrovnik (Croatia), Palermo (Italy), and Toulon (France) in 84 days, amassing a total of 6,449 miles (10,378 km) with 195,347 feet (59,542 meters) of elevation gained along the way, equivalent to ascending Mount Everest 6.7 times from sea level. Despite riding many more miles, my transects through the Alps during Europa 360 were slightly less ambitious than my 2019 tour.
Europa 360: Concept
The preconceived, armchair motivated idea for Europa 360 was to fly to Barcelona, assemble my Niner Bikes RLT 9 RDO somewhere in the baggage claim area and then ride from the airport into the countryside west and northwest of the city. As that implies, a priori I didn't intend to explore Barcelona at the beginning of the tour, I would save that for the conclusion when I returned and closed the loop that inspired the subtitle for this tour, Barcelona to Barcelona by Bicycle.
Beyond the sounds of taxis and airliners, my plan was to ride north to the foot of the Pyrenees then ride up and through the heart of the range into the Principality of Andorra before descending down the other side into the birthplace of my ancestors on the Breton-side of the family, into France. Those would be the opening scenes of a very exciting bicycle tour that I knew then, before it began, and I can confirm now, post-tour, would push my mind and body to a new, personal best and with those accomplishments bring insights worth sharing with friends, family, and strangers for the good of our home, planet earth, our species and biodiversity, all living things.
As I had done on all of my previous tours, I would "chunk" my way through massive mind and body challenges that Europa 360 would inevitably deliver, one section of one part at a time and many smaller sections as well. Three parts for Europa 360 easily fell-out in my minds-eye, the largest "chunks" that I would visualize and use to recognize the most significant accomplishments of the bicycle tour. These massive spatial units also served as the main categories for making further divisions and within those even more, chunks within chunks within chunks until I was chunking my way across a part of a day, a particular climb, etc, effectively overcoming one challenge at a time as I closed the gap to the city where the tour began.
For the opening scenes of Part one, I would ride through the foothills of the Pyrenees west of Barcelona and then make a direct assault of the Pyrenees through the Principality of Andorra before crossing into France and eventually riding north, along the Rhone, etc, to Belgium. From Belgium, I would turn east to the Netherlands and Germany including a planned stop in the city of Hamburg. A days ride from the Elbe, I hoped to arrive to the town of Rostock on the Baltic Sea, where I'd board a ferry boat to Denmark. A day or two later, my guess during the planning phase of the tour, a ferry-boat crossing across a narrow straight would bring me to Sweden where I would ride on to Stockholm.
I hoped to have enough time to ride up and over the Baltic Sea from Stockholm but if not then would cross the Baltic on a ferry boat to Helsinki (or Turku) and by doing so cut-out about 1600 touring miles and ca. three weeks of pedaling. Assuming I took the short route across the Baltic Sea, then Part 1 of the tour would encompass ca. 2400-3000 miles (3863-4828 km).
From Helsinki, the beginning of Part 2 in my mind, another town where I hoped to visit friends on this tour, I would ride south as quickly as possible, by now concerned about mid-autumn cold spells, through Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Bosnia, and Croatia. I planned to board another ferry boat at Dubrovnik (Croatia), this one bound for Bari, Italy on the opposite shore of the Adriatic Sea.
The earliest visualizations of Europa 360 included a visit to the historic city of St. Petersburg. This would have been my first visit to Russia. However, given the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and other Russian government crimes-against-humanity, I knew prior to departing for Barcelona that any exploration of Russia would have to be postponed beyond the foreseeable future. I anticipated that Part 2 of the tour would encompass ca. 2060 miles (3315 km).
Part 2 ended, in my mind, on a ferry boat bound for Bari, Italy, the opening scene for Part 3, a complete transect of the Adriatic Sea. From Bari I would ride west-southwest across Italy's southern third, along "the boot", from heel to arch to toe, eventually to Villa San Giovanni where I'd board another ferry, this time to cross the narrow Strait of Messina between mainland Italy and the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily.
My arrival to Messina would initiate a series of island and boat experiences including complicated logistics that would eventually leave me back on the mainland in Europe. During the planning stages of Europa 360, I visualized the last step of this island-hopping experience as a by-boat transition from Bastia (Corsica) to Nice, all in France. Part 3 would likely encompass ca. an additional 1625 miles (2615 km).
Out of respect for that ambitious, three Part route and the limits of our human minds and bodies, when I purchased my round-trip flight to Barcelona I integrated the maximum number of days that I could stay in Europe in any 180-day period, 90 days to complete Europa 360, Barcelona to Barcelona by Bicycle, nearly a month longer than the 63 days it took me to ride from Scotland to Turkey in 2019. Using my gut, which I often do when planning and riding my bicycle tours, and rough calculations of distance, my thinking was, prior to departure, that success was favorable but not guaranteed. Worst case, my hope anyway, was that I might have to forego riding up and over the Baltic Sea, about 1600 miles, and instead cross from Stockholm to Turku or Helsinki on an overnight ferry boat.
On 21 August 2022, the first day of the Europa 360, I began posting daily updates to my social media channels (Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube), a habit I maintained all the way to the conclusion of the tour on 19 November 2022. A few weeks after the tour ended, I uploaded 212 videos, my complete on-tour, video journal compilation, to this playlist on my YouTube channel. I am gradually adding many more details to my Europa 360 webpage, including the actual routes that I rode on Parts 1-3 of the tour. Please check back from time to time for updates or become a member of my Parteon community where I'll be posting exclusive updates about my post-tour creative projects and also ideas for my upcoming, 2023, bicycle tour.
Beyond the sounds of taxis and airliners, my plan was to ride north to the foot of the Pyrenees then ride up and through the heart of the range into the Principality of Andorra before descending down the other side into the birthplace of my ancestors on the Breton-side of the family, into France. Those would be the opening scenes of a very exciting bicycle tour that I knew then, before it began, and I can confirm now, post-tour, would push my mind and body to a new, personal best and with those accomplishments bring insights worth sharing with friends, family, and strangers for the good of our home, planet earth, our species and biodiversity, all living things.
As I had done on all of my previous tours, I would "chunk" my way through massive mind and body challenges that Europa 360 would inevitably deliver, one section of one part at a time and many smaller sections as well. Three parts for Europa 360 easily fell-out in my minds-eye, the largest "chunks" that I would visualize and use to recognize the most significant accomplishments of the bicycle tour. These massive spatial units also served as the main categories for making further divisions and within those even more, chunks within chunks within chunks until I was chunking my way across a part of a day, a particular climb, etc, effectively overcoming one challenge at a time as I closed the gap to the city where the tour began.
For the opening scenes of Part one, I would ride through the foothills of the Pyrenees west of Barcelona and then make a direct assault of the Pyrenees through the Principality of Andorra before crossing into France and eventually riding north, along the Rhone, etc, to Belgium. From Belgium, I would turn east to the Netherlands and Germany including a planned stop in the city of Hamburg. A days ride from the Elbe, I hoped to arrive to the town of Rostock on the Baltic Sea, where I'd board a ferry boat to Denmark. A day or two later, my guess during the planning phase of the tour, a ferry-boat crossing across a narrow straight would bring me to Sweden where I would ride on to Stockholm.
I hoped to have enough time to ride up and over the Baltic Sea from Stockholm but if not then would cross the Baltic on a ferry boat to Helsinki (or Turku) and by doing so cut-out about 1600 touring miles and ca. three weeks of pedaling. Assuming I took the short route across the Baltic Sea, then Part 1 of the tour would encompass ca. 2400-3000 miles (3863-4828 km).
From Helsinki, the beginning of Part 2 in my mind, another town where I hoped to visit friends on this tour, I would ride south as quickly as possible, by now concerned about mid-autumn cold spells, through Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Bosnia, and Croatia. I planned to board another ferry boat at Dubrovnik (Croatia), this one bound for Bari, Italy on the opposite shore of the Adriatic Sea.
The earliest visualizations of Europa 360 included a visit to the historic city of St. Petersburg. This would have been my first visit to Russia. However, given the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and other Russian government crimes-against-humanity, I knew prior to departing for Barcelona that any exploration of Russia would have to be postponed beyond the foreseeable future. I anticipated that Part 2 of the tour would encompass ca. 2060 miles (3315 km).
Part 2 ended, in my mind, on a ferry boat bound for Bari, Italy, the opening scene for Part 3, a complete transect of the Adriatic Sea. From Bari I would ride west-southwest across Italy's southern third, along "the boot", from heel to arch to toe, eventually to Villa San Giovanni where I'd board another ferry, this time to cross the narrow Strait of Messina between mainland Italy and the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily.
My arrival to Messina would initiate a series of island and boat experiences including complicated logistics that would eventually leave me back on the mainland in Europe. During the planning stages of Europa 360, I visualized the last step of this island-hopping experience as a by-boat transition from Bastia (Corsica) to Nice, all in France. Part 3 would likely encompass ca. an additional 1625 miles (2615 km).
Out of respect for that ambitious, three Part route and the limits of our human minds and bodies, when I purchased my round-trip flight to Barcelona I integrated the maximum number of days that I could stay in Europe in any 180-day period, 90 days to complete Europa 360, Barcelona to Barcelona by Bicycle, nearly a month longer than the 63 days it took me to ride from Scotland to Turkey in 2019. Using my gut, which I often do when planning and riding my bicycle tours, and rough calculations of distance, my thinking was, prior to departure, that success was favorable but not guaranteed. Worst case, my hope anyway, was that I might have to forego riding up and over the Baltic Sea, about 1600 miles, and instead cross from Stockholm to Turku or Helsinki on an overnight ferry boat.
On 21 August 2022, the first day of the Europa 360, I began posting daily updates to my social media channels (Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube), a habit I maintained all the way to the conclusion of the tour on 19 November 2022. A few weeks after the tour ended, I uploaded 212 videos, my complete on-tour, video journal compilation, to this playlist on my YouTube channel. I am gradually adding many more details to my Europa 360 webpage, including the actual routes that I rode on Parts 1-3 of the tour. Please check back from time to time for updates or become a member of my Parteon community where I'll be posting exclusive updates about my post-tour creative projects and also ideas for my upcoming, 2023, bicycle tour.
Europa 360: Au-delà du Concept (beyond concept)
Tour Overview

Below I break the tour down into its largest sections, the biggest "chunks" as I like to refer to any spatial unit that is useful when trying to close an often much larger gap, that I visualized before departing Barcelona. Part 1 was further divided, a priori, into sub-units based on pre-planned rest blocks with friends in France, Belgium, and Germany.
Part 1, Barcelona, Spain to Helsinki, Finland, like the other sections, was an ambitious journey by bicycle, and perhaps any means. Thanks to friends along the way and plenty of luck, I closed the gap in 34 days including six days spent completely off the bike, resting.
Part 2 got underway on 28 September following a wonderful visit with friends in Helsinki. From there, I was on my own and much of it through totally unfamiliar country. I closed the gap, Helsinki to Dubrovnik, Croatia, in 19 days, arriving to the old town in a highly depleted state.
In the absence of any power left in my legs and a fully depleted central-nervous system, I rebooted the tour, initiating Part 3, when I departed Dubrovnik on a ferry bound for Bari, Italy. Once in Bari, I began a implemented protocol of patience, discipline, and determination to reach Barcelona on 13 November, 84 days after departing the same town at the start of the tour. Rest and exploration in Barcelona followed, with two friends, before I flew back to Denver, Colorado with a treasure trove of experiences and insights.
Part 1, Barcelona, Spain to Helsinki, Finland, like the other sections, was an ambitious journey by bicycle, and perhaps any means. Thanks to friends along the way and plenty of luck, I closed the gap in 34 days including six days spent completely off the bike, resting.
Part 2 got underway on 28 September following a wonderful visit with friends in Helsinki. From there, I was on my own and much of it through totally unfamiliar country. I closed the gap, Helsinki to Dubrovnik, Croatia, in 19 days, arriving to the old town in a highly depleted state.
In the absence of any power left in my legs and a fully depleted central-nervous system, I rebooted the tour, initiating Part 3, when I departed Dubrovnik on a ferry bound for Bari, Italy. Once in Bari, I began a implemented protocol of patience, discipline, and determination to reach Barcelona on 13 November, 84 days after departing the same town at the start of the tour. Rest and exploration in Barcelona followed, with two friends, before I flew back to Denver, Colorado with a treasure trove of experiences and insights.
Tour Highlights, Statistics, and Links
Compete Tour GPS Data & Map: https://ridewithgps.com/trips/107812133
Compete Tour GPS Data & Map: https://ridewithgps.com/trips/107812133
Part 1: Barcelona, Spain to Helsinki, Finland
Embedded in Part 1 were three pre-planned rest blocks with friends, each three nights in duration, which provided a total of six days completely off the bike (rest days). In my mind, I used these rest blocks to divide Part 1 into four sections or sub-units (aka, "chunks"): Barcelona to Entrepierres, France; Entrepierres to Mechelen, Belgium; Mechelen to Hamburg, Germany; and Hamburg to Helsinki, Finland. Below I provide elevation profiles and, in the captions, other details for each section.
More details coming soon ...
More details coming soon ...
Dates: 22 August to 24 September (34 days)
Distance: 2,791 miles (4,492 kilometers), 82/100 miles per day including/excluding six rest days
> distance and miles per day include a few short/insignificant crossings and a ca. 40 mile (63 km) crossing from Rostok, Germany to Gedser, Denmark and a ca. 160 mile (260 km) transect of the Baltic Sea from Stockholm, Sweden to Turku, Finland.
Climbing: 101,349 (30,892 meters)
GPS Details: https://ridewithgps.com/trips/103927960
Distance: 2,791 miles (4,492 kilometers), 82/100 miles per day including/excluding six rest days
> distance and miles per day include a few short/insignificant crossings and a ca. 40 mile (63 km) crossing from Rostok, Germany to Gedser, Denmark and a ca. 160 mile (260 km) transect of the Baltic Sea from Stockholm, Sweden to Turku, Finland.
Climbing: 101,349 (30,892 meters)
GPS Details: https://ridewithgps.com/trips/103927960
Part 2: Helsinki, Finland to Dubrovnik, Croatia
In the absence of any established friends along Part 2 of Europa 360, I relied on opportunity whilst I listened to my body to ultimately conclude on where I'd take much needed rest days to conquer the massive and diverse geospatial landscapes between Helsinki and Dubrovnik including the Carpathian Mountains and the Dinaric Alps. More details coming soon ...
Dates: 28 September to 16 October (19 days)
Distance: 1,731 miles (2,785 kilometers), 91/108 miles per day including/excluding 3 rest days
> distance and miles per day include a ca. 54 mile (87 km) ferry crossing of the Gulf of Finland from Helsinki to Talinna, Estonia.
Climbing: 39,553 (12,056 meters)
GPS Details: https://ridewithgps.com/trips/116296582
Distance: 1,731 miles (2,785 kilometers), 91/108 miles per day including/excluding 3 rest days
> distance and miles per day include a ca. 54 mile (87 km) ferry crossing of the Gulf of Finland from Helsinki to Talinna, Estonia.
Climbing: 39,553 (12,056 meters)
GPS Details: https://ridewithgps.com/trips/116296582
Part 3: Dubrovnik, Croatia to Barcelona, Spain
In the absence of power and the constraints of a central-nervous system that was fully tapped-out by the first two sections of the tour, I set out, on Part 3, with kindness and patience for the rider foremost in my mind as I rolled off of the ferry boat that brought me across the Adriatic Sea from Dubrovnik, Croatia, the night before. More details coming soon ...
Dates: 21 October to 13 November (24 days)
Distance: 1,928 miles (3,103 kilometers), 80/102 miles per day including/excluding 5 rest days
> distance and miles per day include a few short/insignificant crossings and three significant ones: ca. 133 mile (214 km) transect of the Adriatic Sea from Dubrovnik, Croatia to Bari, Italy, ca. 289 mile (465 km) transect of the Tyrannian Sea from Palermo, Sicily to Cagliari, Sardinia; and a ca. 208 mile (334 km) transect of the Ligurian Sea Sea from Bastia, Corsica to Toulon, France
Climbing: 54,445 (16,595 meters)
GPS Details: https://ridewithgps.com/trips/116297054
Distance: 1,928 miles (3,103 kilometers), 80/102 miles per day including/excluding 5 rest days
> distance and miles per day include a few short/insignificant crossings and three significant ones: ca. 133 mile (214 km) transect of the Adriatic Sea from Dubrovnik, Croatia to Bari, Italy, ca. 289 mile (465 km) transect of the Tyrannian Sea from Palermo, Sicily to Cagliari, Sardinia; and a ca. 208 mile (334 km) transect of the Ligurian Sea Sea from Bastia, Corsica to Toulon, France
Climbing: 54,445 (16,595 meters)
GPS Details: https://ridewithgps.com/trips/116297054