In 2018 I cycled from London to the Black Sea, solo and unsupported. The story starts two years earlier, when I became the first person to paddle the length of the Danube on a stand up paddle board: 90 days and 3,000km from the Black Forest to the Delta. A river gives you a view normally reserved for fishermen and cruise ships, but a 14ft board and 110 litres of kit also mean the lovely towns and local markets you glide past stay tantalisingly out of reach. I knew I’d have to come back.

This time I’d ride alongside the river rather than on it, and I wanted to get there without flying. Eurostar’s bike rules and the internet’s total unhelpfulness about European trains settled it: I’d cycle from my own front door to the source. I set off on a Monday, a day late, because when the alarm went on the Sunday I decided I simply wasn’t ready and went back to sleep. It was the first lesson of the trip: it’s my adventure and I make the rules. That includes taking a train to Dover instead of 90 miles of lorry-filled main roads. From there it was France, Germany, the Danube and EuroVelo 6 through the heat of a summer that never dropped below 30 degrees. I rode early, napped when tired and followed my nose until the signs ran out in Romania and Komoot became my best friend.

Over 31 days I covered nearly 3,500km, averaging around 75 miles a day. Along the way I met a kind colleague and her bike mechanic husband who delivered a new saddle and a full service just when my bottom needed it most, a rickshaw world-record attempt, a couple finishing a round-the-world honeymoon, and two women kayaking the continent in a tandem boat. I finished on a cliff top above the Black Sea at 17:15 on 21st August, with my first thought being that I wanted to keep going. This is the story of that ride, and the many lessons I wrote in my notes along the way including the discovery that Chocolate milk is magical.