As the great Graeme Obree once said, “My biggest fear is not crashing this bike at 85km/hr and losing my skin—it’s sitting in my chair at 90 and thinking, ‘I wish I’d done more!'”

And so, here we go again!

I will ride my bike with 22 others from Barcelona Spain to Rome Italy, for 31 days, about 1700 miles with 157,000 ft of climbing. We kit up with wheels down on August 24.

The trip is called Hannibal, named after whom historians and military minds consider one of the world’s greatest generals, Hannibal Barca.

Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps in 218 BC initially with 80,000 infantry, 12,000 cavalry and 37 elephants was one of the major events of the Second Punic War, and one of the most celebrated achievements of any military force in ancient warfare. Bypassing Roman and allied land garrisons and Roman naval dominance, Hannibal managed to lead his Carthaginian army over the Alps and into Italy to take the war directly to the Roman Republic.

Our ride group will roughly retrace Hannibal’s route through the Pyrenees, the Alps and the Apennines mountains, not quite as historic as General Barca, but historic for our tour company Bike Odyssey….this is their 10th anniversary of the Hannibal tour! I thank them for the opportunity to participate.

I will try to post at the end of each grueling day with a few photos and Relive video(open the video link if you want to see photos!).

The blog will have 3 components: 1. review of the day’s ride,  2. a little history of the area and/or Tour de France/Giro d’Italia and 3. a little Hannibal history. Afterall, that is why I am going on this trip!

Please send comments to me along the way, this flatlander will want and need positive encouragement!!

Ola… A bientot… Ciao…..Cheers!

It would help me immensely if you could leave me comments. It will help me ride faster and stronger!
Adeu, Au Revoir, Addio and Happy Hunting!