Going Solo Adventures

The QuadEpic - England to Turkey story

In the early part of 2009 while travelling around Canada and Central America, I started to dream up a unique adventure.

When returning to my home town of Grimsby, after 42 months travelling the world that dream turned in to reality as all the planning and building of the QuadEpic bike commenced.

After 9 months of plotting, planning and hunting for sponsors the bike was finally complete and the expedition set off from Grimsby on the 1st May to Hull to catch the ferry to mainland Europe.

The bike made it safely across the North Sea and we disembarked in the Euro port of Rotterdam. With the team eager and ready for adventure, we pushed our way south to Belgium, visiting Antwerp and Brussels where we was rescued by Belgium Fire Fighters as the bike broke down outside their station.

We departed Brussels minus Dan as he quit the trip due to personal problems. So Neil, Mel and I pushed on south east to Luxemburg, camping where ever the days cycling ended. Once we had arrived in Luxemburg city Dan decided to try and get passed his issues and decided to rejoin and once again push on.

Now as a four again and every seat on the bike full we headed to Strasburg, France where we would meet the first of the 5 riders, Christine, who would be riding the support mountain bike that we was going to purches in Strasburg. Unknown to us Christine had damaged her Achilles heel a few days before her arrival while walking in Paris.

With Christine unable to cycle we decided to take her as far as Zurich, Switzerland on the quad bike while Dan cycled the support mountain bike. Tacking the mountains in the black forest and occurred an unfortunate failure of the brakes while doing speeds of 65km down a steep mountain.

Christine departed safely with foot in plaster from Zurich to return home to Canada. With the team back to 4 people the biggest challenge of the trip was ahead…. The Swiss Alps.

We spent 2 days cycling and pushing the bike up the physically and emotionally draining 2106 meter mountain to get over the San Gottardo pass. Once at the top we were rewarded with the effortlessly glide down the breath-takingly scenic road that would be our link into Italy, hitting speeds of 67kmp. This is one of the most memorable times of my life.

Once over the Swiss-Italian border, the QuadEpic adventure came to an abrupt end. Unfortunately Dan was unable to keep together his personal problems, the team therefore one man down could no longer continue. They all left each in there own direction.

I carried on cycling for a further 32km to leave the bike in the comfort of some Nuns in a small town called Malnate located 60km North of Milan.

Overall the Expedition lasted 33 days of the 90 planned to reach the final destination of Istanbul, Turkey.

QuadEpic would not have been possible with out the support of generous Sponsors and kind people met along the way.

Within a few days of returning home a new adventure was born, Going Solo - The Rescue!