Normally at the end of a cycle trip I attempt to mostly make up accurately compile our trip statistics and interesting facts.

This time I’m saved the effort by Baby Bear Chris doing the job for me, by including these mostly made up absolutely true facts and figures as part of his end of cycle speech:

Distance cycled – 300.6 km. With 10 people cycling, that’s a total of 3,006 km or the equivalent of cycling from London to Gibraltar (although we are not quite sure why you’d want to!)

Ascent gained – 2606m (8459ft).  With 10 people cycling, that’s a total ascent of 26,060m or the equivalent of summiting Everest 3 times 

Calories burned per person during the week – 8972cal. With 10 people cycling that’s a total of 89,720cal, or Enrique’s (our driver) evening meal. 

Time cycling – 19hrs. With 10 people cycling that’s 190hrs, or 8 days.

In other news, we had:

1 late bag

0 punctures

1 broken wheel

150 litres of water drunk

6 melons eaten

20 limes eaten (hmmmmmmmm I wonder what these may have been used for?!)

5 bottles of Cachaşa drunk  (see above)

206 beers

2.6kg of rice (eaten by Richard)

1 gran who could do the splits

3 super heroes (and 3 super guides)

7 sets of garlands

1 more hill to go…

1 grade too low

3 ferries taken

1 arm, 1 foot and 1 mirror lost off Douglas’s bike (superhero bling malfunction)

17 bites on Simons leg (I think this is an underestimation)

1 litre of pus drained from George’s bites (ewwwwww)

1 hour to get Jackie drunk on Caipirinhas 

3 skinny dippers 

3 people fell off

200 times a day Sarah unclipped her pedals (cheeky!)

1 person who REALLY hates camping, who informed us 27 times

52 group shots taken by Merillo 

112 selfies taken by Enrique the Driver.

9 new friends made
1 awesome adventure!

Phew, thanks Chris – I’m glad someone was paying attention to the important stuff so I didn’t have to!
Every road trip needs a playlist, and a cycle roadtrip is no exception.  The following tracks kept us smiling (almost) during our darkest Tenko hours, and became the irritating ear worm soundtrack to most of our waking moments (yes, Girl From Ipanema; I’m talking about YOU. Baaaa ba ba, ba ba ba baaaa…):

• Rio (Duran Duran)
• Copacabana (Barry Manilow)
• I Gotta Feeling (Black Eyed Peas)
• Girl from Ipanema (Stan Getz & Joāo Gilberto)
• Road to Nowhere (Talking Heads)
• Teenage Kicks (The Undertones)
• Fat Bottomed Girls (Queen)
• Americano (Lady Gaga)
• Bicycle Race (Queen)
• Fuck You (Lily Allen) …this was a late edition as ‘Song of Day Two’
• 1999 (Prince)
• Purple Rain (Prince)
• Sunny Afternoon (The Kinks)
• Benny and the Jets (The Red One Rocketman) …still not sure why this makes the playlist!
• Delilah (Tom Jones) …especially for Richard
• This is the Last Time (Keane)

After reliving all of that I’m feeling nostalgic for our trip, so I’m off to don some Lycra, find my iPhone and an ice bucket, grab a Caipirinha and press play.   Looking forward to the next cycling adventure already. Can we go now? Can we?