I moved to live in Liberty, Missouri with my American wife about a year ago and my bicycle – a custom built touring bike made by Hewitt Cycles near Manchester in the UK – has sat in the garage gathering dust ever since! So it’s a little strange writing about an incredible bicycle adventure I took on that same bike with my brothers a few years ago. I feel like I’ve been disloyal to that bicycle and avert my gaze whenever we get the car out of the garage.
But I know that as more committed cyclists, you will probably enjoy a brief description and a short video or two about what we did. My extra motivation for writing this contribution to your newsletter is that my youngest brother Sam now runs a bike tour company, Ride&Seek. Sam leads bicycle tours in Europe and Australia and one of his tours: The Hannibal Expedition, that starts in Barcelona and finishes in Rome, actually grew out of our mutual adventure three years ago. He’s looking for recruits! But more on that later.
So what was this incredible adventure!? We had the opportunity to make a six part, BBC Television documentary called On Hannibal’s Trail, following the invasion route of the Carthaginian general Hannibal on bicycles while telling the story of his war against ancient Rome. (We’re talking about the Carthaginian warrior here, not Hannibal Lecter who eats people). With a BBC camera crew in toe, over 10 weeks we cycled and filmed our way from the southern Spanish city of Cartagena, up the coast of Spain, through southern France, over the Alps and down Italy and then over to Tunisia.
How did a few Australians manage to pull this off? I’d worked for some years as a reporter for BBC News in Spain, brother Sam is an archaeologist and middle brother Ben, the clever one, is an IT geek and genius. We’re all history nuts, and my brothers more than me, are experienced cycling dudes. The BBC liked our idea and the result is still airing on satellite networks around the globe, the latest is Viasat.
You can watch video of us cycling up Mont Ventoux - with fully laden panniers for extra suffering value - here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7mKsDmDDI0
And for a sense of how we told the history side of our adventure – the ancient battles and all that – have a look here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yQO_FqumDo
The cycling was a great way to experience the history and it was this combination that made the journey so interesting for me. We felt that the Carthaginians, Rome’s arch enemy for three long Punic Wars in the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C., have been unfairly treated in our history books, and virtually forgotten. This was a chance, in a humble way, to shine some light on the civilization that essentially invented our modern alphabet, were the first serious navigators and who came that close to destroying the Romans.
My brother Sam now runs a Hannibal Expedition which covers much of the best riding to be had in Spain, France and Italy while experiencing culture, fine food and wine.
He also runs cycling tours of Australia
. For more information check out the website:
http://www.rideandseek.com/He can offer special discounts for Kansas City Metro Bicycle Club members. For example, if you get 5 people to come on the 2013 Hannibal expedition (it starts in September), one of you comes for free.
He also does Custom tours in Europe or Australia for bike clubs which, apart from great culture and food, would include things like a branded itinerary and branded jerseys.
All the best
Danny Wood
Liberty, Missouri