VIDEO | JOSH'S ADVENTURE ALONG THE ADRIATIC

For the first time in my life I found my self in the unusual position of actually making it past the summer months and still having some annual leave left. The flop that was the Transcontinental Race was still smoldering in my mind and given that the reason that I had a weeks holiday left to take was the fact that I bailed on TCR after 1 day, it only seemed right that a long bike ride was due in order to rectify the situation.

Southern Europe has always fascinated me, its just different enough to northern Europe to feel that you are a long way from home whilst still being easily accessible by many budget airlines. The other bonus is that finding some sunshine at the start of the winter months is a much greater possibility. So with that in mind I found myself on the 6am flight from London to Split in Croatia.

My plan was simple... cycle to Athens in Greece. I had never visited Greece before so it seemed a good excuse to tick off another country whilst visiting a few of the old favorites, Montenegro and Albania. My plan was to bivvi most nights, however, I failed to take into account that despite the warm daytime temperatures it was still indeed winter and they dropped well into single figures at night. 

I decided to try and find some smaller roads on this trip to really explore some off the beaten track areas which made for some incredible riding. Check out the video below to see exactly what happened...