Cycle 3,000 miles through Europe in eight weeks

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After eight weeks and 3,000 miles of continuous cycling across Europe and into north Africa, Alan Kinshott (21) has just returned to his home in Birtley Rise, Bramley. His many adventures including sleeping on a beach in Tangiers during a sandstorm and having to live on bread and fruit for the last nine days after his money ran out.

Alan, who recently finished his course in statistics at London University, was accompanied by a friend from the university, Hugh Kendal-Ward, of Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire.

The pair set off with the intention of getting further south in Morocco than they actually went, but they stayed in Spain to see the fiestas.

When cycling in the Spanish mountains, Alan said that his inner tube was ripped when they were 15 miles from the nearest town. It took them a day to walk back for help.

Alan said that all the equipment they could take was a screwdriver, a spanner and a puncture outfit. If anything went wrong they had to improvise – usually with string.

At night, the pair even camped or just slept rough. When they bedded down on the beach in Tangiers, a sandstorm blew up and they had to wake up periodically to dig themselves out of the sand.

Beach Prowlers

To add to this prowlers kept coming round them trying to steal their bicycles and they finished up sleeping on the floor of a nightclub.

Alan said that the main roads had a very rough surface and often petered out into dust tracks.

Having completed his course at university, Alan is now waiting to begin his career as a statistician.

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