The European Divide trail: 7800km from Norway to Portugal

You want me looking at a camera, like right down the lens? Yeah, I definitely feel more comfortable looking at someone. I always feel weird just looking straight down the lens. My name is Angus Young, and I'm a chemistry teacher and ultra-endurance cyclist. And I'm also the holder of the fastest time on the European Divide Trail. The European Divide Trail was invented and put together by Andy Cox, and he was trying to emulate one of the most famous routes in the world, which is the Great Divide mountain biking route. The route was finally announced in 2021, in the middle of the year, and it was, you know, to a great fanfare, the longest continuous bikepacking route in the world. And it goes all the way from the Arctic Ocean, the Barents Sea, in North Norway, to through Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Germany, France, a bit into Switzerland, Spain, and then finally finishing off in Portugal. I saw the route, and I was like, that looks amazing. I wonder how fast it can be done. And once you have that thought, you can't really get it out of your head. I didn't need to be fast. I just needed to be able to continuously pedal my bike every day for 16 hours, 18 hours, and then recover. So, that's relatively easy. Tiring stuff. I just, I should be able to cycle this. That is one snap. Ah, that was wonderful. I'd be lying if I said that I was still feeling super positive. For the first, probably three or four days, it was my hands that were starting to hurt the most. Just like vibrations from all of the bumps and everything. And then it was my neck. You spend loads of time sort of tucked into an aero position, like that. It was my hands, and then my neck. The next thing that started to hurt was my bum. If you're riding in one pair of shorts for a month, it's gonna start hurting. My knees, my back hurt at times, everything. Essentially, over the whole course of the trip, every muscle started to hurt at one point or another. So, it's raining. Again, I'm in the Vosges. It's about 32 degrees. Not easy. Before I started the event, preparation is obviously really key, and you need to prepare in a number of ways. The obvious things are stuff like preparing your body physically. So, I was riding my bike as much as I could, trying to hit 20 hours most weeks. Develop that fitness, that ability to just go for hours on end. I probably put around 50 hours of preparation just into the planning of knowing what I was gonna have ahead of me. And that time is invaluable when you're on the route. You don't wanna be stuck in the middle of nowhere with no signal, wondering when your next meal's gonna come from. In addition to preparing my body physically through training and my ability to just keep riding, I also had to build up some fat reserves, which was probably the most fun which I had in the build-up. So just eating as much as I possibly could each day. I arrived at the start line maybe eight kilos heavier than I would be if I was to try and do a shorter race. And that's because there's no way you can possibly eat as much as you're gonna be burning. When preparing for such a long event like this, one of the most important things is to make sure you pack correctly. If you pack too light, you're gonna get too cold, you're gonna run out of food, and that's gonna eventually mean that you're gonna have to give up. Whereas if you go too heavy, the more you carry with you, the slower you're gonna go. Yeah. Norway's an amazing country and there's so much more to discover there. The route only just starts in the tip of it. And then before 80 kilometers, you're straight into Finland. Probably the bit that was most memorable in Norway was the start. It'd be rude to come to the Barents Sea in the Arctic Ocean and not go for a swim. So here I am, start of my 7,600K journey. I left the beach with no real idea as to what I had ahead of me. I knew that for the next at least month, it'd be me on my own with a whole continent to see. And I knew there'd be ups and downs, but I had no idea where I'd arrive or what I'd see. And that was exciting. Lots of reindeer in Finland. Just reindeer everywhere. Sweden's got such an amazing network of roads. And on the map, you can't, you never tell if it's gonna be an asphalt road or gravel. And you might find yourself on 200 kilometer stretch between two towns. And it's just pristine gravel, straight line. And you're like, this is amazing, like smooth gravel, everything. And then after a couple of hours, it starts to take its toll on you. All you're seeing is trees pass you either way, either side. You can get your head lost in it. Sometimes you can just zone out and then, you know, it feels like you've been running 10 minutes and you've covered 200K. But other times, time passes really slowly and every pedal stroke starts to hurt. The thing that really stood out to me was the fact there was no darkness this time of the year. So, it was great because it meant I didn't need to worry about charging my lights. I could ride for as long as I wanted until I got tired and then just get going again. So, it's about nine in the evening, day four. And now I'm in a Swedish forest. As ever, really. Last two days have been pretty good going. It's been about 90% on fast gravel like this with the odd bit of road and then the odd sketchy sort of hyperbike section that made me think it really needs to be included. But the sun's out. Oh, and the mosquitoes. There are so many mosquitoes in Scandinavia. Anyone that goes there will tell you it's fine if you're riding because you're going fast enough but they can't get you. But as soon as you stop, about halfway through Sweden and I was just cycling along a nice, smooth gravel track and suddenly I hear like a crack. So, I don't know exactly what's happened but I hit a stick, I think. And it's pulled my spoke right out of the hole. There it is. It's amazing because, well, there's the spoke and it has just snapped. Oh, it snapped the nipple. Okay. Spoke broke. Bad. But then, I realised it wasn't actually the spoke that broke and it was just the nipple. So, I got my spare nipple out. Ooh-ah. Okay. And we are done, we are good to go as if nothing ever happened. As long as it doesn't happen again. In Denmark, the biggest thing I had to fight with was the sand. Everything up to that point had been really hard-packed. I spent a lot of time on the beach. The beach is actually okay to ride on because it's fairly hard-packed. If you ride by the shore, the sand is nice enough that you can go on there. But the route occasionally sort of went inland into some of the looser stuff, into the sand dunes. And that was maybe one of the toughest points of the trip. Day 11 now, I think. It's Denmark. Coast. Into a stormy headwind. All day. On a beach now at the moment. Which is quite fun, it's normal. But, normalty wears off pretty quickly. I spent a lot of time pushing through sand dunes as well. The GPX track gets a bit funny at times. So, I've had to make the odds diversion. But, it's raining, obviously. But it's okay. It's not going to get warmer, I'm sure. Lots of kebabs. Kebabs are really good. The Germans do great doners. But other than that, nothing. Progress was really slow. I had to replace my tyres. I snapped my handlebars. I lost my phone. In Germany, my rear brake failed. So, I had to replace my tyres. In Germany, I snapped my handlebars. I lost my phone. I snapped my handlebars. I don't know if you can see that. But that is one snapped handlebar. Um, and I came off. No, rear tyres because I was getting pretty, um, bald. But, more annoyingly, I've lost my phone. I thought it might have been in this port-a-loo. And it's not there. Yeah, so my front brakes failed. Um, I think the, something might be cracked in the shifter. Yeah, the Giro was just spectacular. I definitely want to go back. There were so many times when I was just, you know, having such a brilliant time. Wanting to share it with other people. So, I was getting my GoPro out and I was just, like, filming away. Look at that. Tell you what. I'm over the moon right now. Sunset. Beautiful trails. Tunes going. Bike works. Best I've felt all trip. Slow progress today. That's because the trails have been techy and fun. Bit of bushwhacking. But now it's been a bit of fast gravel for a bit. And, beautiful Giro. It's class. Loving it. I was really expecting, after the Giro, for it to get easier. But it didn't. Man, I am so hot right now. Just got no power. And it's only going to get hotter. Which is why I, uh, feeling a little bit down about it. Because Garmin, I'm not going to lie, in the shade, it reads like, about the same as 34 at the moment. South of France was way harder than I was expecting it to be. It was probably the hardest section of the route. Because the elevation profiles look quite tame, but it was just loads of really rocky, tough terrain. That got me. And it was, like, 45 degrees. Mmm. Yeah, so I'll probably ride for another, well, until half eleven or so, and then get my few hours. It's going to be difficult, because once I get into Spain, things might slow down a little bit. Because it's very hilly. But I'm feeling happy. Like, my legs are good. these last couple of days I've been suffering with the heat. Quite a lot. Um, especially, like, with the slow hiker bike stuff that there's been a bit of. But, um, it doesn't mean too much. But I hope, hopefully, yeah, it could get worse. Might acclimatise. Yeah, I think the thing I'm worried about the most is my bike failing. Again. Because there was a close call with things like the handlebars and the brakes. It took me a few days to get them all sorted. And I had that buffer, but if anything else goes wrong, I get them. Don't know why I should. But, you know, you always have little doubts. Catalonia was by far the most beautiful part of the route. Trails were fantastic. The mountains were, you know, otherworldly. And it was so different to everywhere else which I've been to on the route. There's something about, like, orangey soil. And that, in combination with the green trees, just, you know, blew me away. Portugal, baby! So, Portugal was really hard. The route in Portugal. I was expecting it to be quite easy. Like, once I crossed over the border, the farmland tracks, there were just so many locked gates. Once you got closer to the coast, heading south, it got hillier and hillier and hillier. And what you might expect to take, you know, an hour or so, you end up taking four, just because it's so steep and you have to push your bike. And then the last little section was basically a hike-a-bike along the cliffs. I remember arriving at the finish in Cabo and I'd spent a month, basically, on my own. And then you hit this tourist spot and there's just people everywhere. And I was like, I had no idea what to do. I'd had to spend the last month with one focus, which was to get to the finish as quick as possible. It's all quite surreal. A lot of people. Don't really know what to do now.