From Ebro to the Danube - is the recumbent bike is an evolutionary dead end?

After almost 43 minutes of sleep, we depart for the airport at 5.30 in the morning. Good thing I started packing on time, at 10pm. The slightly overweight luggage and the huge box containing the recumbent bike are checked by the kindly naive lady behind the check-in desk, so I hurry away from the scene of the crime, watching from a fair distance the group of porters loosing hope.

At Madrid airport, I put the bike together, slowly enough, but at least badly. Thanks to the unforgettable experience of the Paralympic sport of using the elevator with the recu + box combo, I manage to miss the bus to Bilbao. Never mind, there's another 5 hours later, which will get me there by 3am, at least I'm well rested or something. My lovely host is unlikely to wake up to the 32nd ring of the phone, so it's back to dawn sightseeing and chilling on the beach.

I spend the first few days at a colombian friend's house, who is moving into a new apartment today: so I take the recumbent up to the second floor, then in the evening to the fourth, if with the elevator was Paralympic, then without it is a real sport, the 50 kilograms bike with the bags is stuck at every turn of the stairs.

Bilbao, city of modern art, grass trams and flowers. Speaking of flowers, fun fact: Basque culture is characterised by the fact that it is the woman who openly wears the trousers in marriage, she has the money and she makes the decisions. After all, they may just be more honest than us Hungarians. The only thing more interesting than the incredibly green Basque hills is the ocean beach, where every pebble is a different colour. At the end of a day of walking, dinner is typical Colombian food, fried platanos ( a hard green banana fried in oil and tasting of potatoes).

After visiting friends, the real adventure starts in Zaragoza, cycling from the Ebro river to the Danube Bend. About a month of pure wilderness camping, 2700 km to home, through the passes of the Pyrenees and the Alps.

The early starts don't really work at first, the sun only gets up after 8am, and until then, the hell with it, you don't want to ride in the dark. On my first night I camp on the top of a bank near a waterfall, I don't risk a swim here, good thing I tried to shower for a week in advance yesterday. Compared to the Basque countryside, Zaragoza is almost a desert, with only snails and apples, but that's only thanks to the many irrigation systems. Speaking of irrigation... Homo sapiens has been to space, knows the structure of the atom and can transplant organs, but science hasn't got there yet, a simple rainfall make me completely soaked. I was wearing two raincoats and a pair of rain trousers, but after 80 km I am forced to pitch my tent again because my palate is the driest surface on me.

After a pretty serious day of pre-mountain climbing and clothes-drying, I set off on my first big crossing: climbing up to 1800 in the Pyrenees. Thank goodness the rain is only falling in 15-minute spells at first, so I can keep going. As far as we dare to call the 4 km/h grind a speed, because struggling uphill on a recumbent bike is more like winching. After half a day of scrabbling and avoiding the cows grazing in the middle of the road, I reach the top of the Pourtalet pass, where it's soaking wet and already quite cold in early October, but at least you can hardly see anything. It's a bit reassuring that I'm not the only crazy cyclist, just as a similarly drenched French woman emerges from the clouds opposite. From here it's almost 40km of rolling through beautiful scenery, only once do I encounter a stone wall, unfortunately he's the stronger one, but I escape with some lack of skin continuity.

After the Pyrenees, the hills of the French countryside will entertain you. Of course, the road has to touch the groups of houses scattered on the ridges one by one, and the French road planners missed the concept of a neutral line, so it's a bitterly beautiful rollercoaster ride all day. The poor chain is rather broken, but with the help of a few stones and a chain breaker I soon have it back on. Sadly, or rather the wrong place of course, I should probably have a rest. There's no shortage of riders on this one either: we cycle a few kilometres with 62-year-old Xavier, who was originally going on a two-day tour but happened to see the Atlantic Ocean in between, his second week on the road.

One of the biggest challenges of everyday wild camping is charging the electric gadgets. With the powerbank I could last a few more days, but the hub dynamo has killed my phone, so one fine morning he decides to go on holiday too. No picture, no sound, no charging from the local 'macdonalds' power supply. I take down the names of the villages in the right direction from an information board and with this paper and the conflicting directions of local aunties with amnesia, I drive all day. What can I say, it's much more exciting, even liberating.

Why did I start with a recumbent bike? In the long run it's more comfortable, I'm almost rolling in an armchair, there's less aerodynamic drag and it's probably a few percent faster. Of course, there are plenty of drawbacks, it's a nightmare on terrain and Hungarian roads, but the socialising function makes up for it: everyone smiles, asks where I'm going, why it's good, or whether I'm disabled. And the cows... I'm a strange creature with this bike, of course people look at me, the dogs hate me, but I can't get used to the cows' reaction. The whole herd stops chewing and with frozen expressions wonder if this thing with the snail-like root rolling around is real or if they should just stop with the weed.

Then, on the Mediterranean coast, I'm greeted by excellent cycling infrastructure, flamingos, Camargue water horses and endless sandy beaches. It's all partly a surprise, as I hadn't really planned the route in detail, so around every bend there's an unexpected gift, such as the suspension-bridge cycle path along the Rhône river, a medieval town where for an hour not a soul was around; a huge portion of dog poop that I stepped in with both shoes and then with my trousers; a group of 30 pensioners just as I was changing my smelly trousers; or the well-known Dutch couple on the cycle path, whose videos I had watched while packing for the journey.

Everyday gifts come not only in the form of experiences, but also in the form of food: almonds, figs, apples, grapes, khaki (fruit), and sometimes stewed pomegranate, and even walnut-cracking is in progress, much to the delight of the truck drivers. Despite all this fruit and triple calorie intake compared to the weekdays at home, I can still see that I've been spending every minute of my time outdoors for almost 2 weeks now. I must be looking worse and worse, because I'm being asked at the checkout at the second shop to show what's in my bag. Drones, so they are routinely disappointed. It's no secret that, in the middle of October, hygiene is a bigger challenge than electricity, but if there's no laundry or shower, there's always the mountain stream and public nudity.

Leaving the Rhone, the sheepdogs chase you over the 2188m Petit Saint-Bernard pass, then a day's ride to the Po valley. As far as the eye can see, the road leads through harvested rice fields, with 1 bend every 30 km. There is nothing of interest here, or perhaps that is the only thing, nothing. It's a place to be alone, to contemplate life's affairs for 150 kilometres a day, but the best thing about travelling is that you end up unwittingly in the present and then have to sit through a play called Gratitude, directed by Nature. They play it every day. Anyone who still has the faintest doubt that the world is a good place should just get on their bike (if not, they can get one from the train station bike shed) and set off for a few days on the road. Which isn't that big deal, because I meet cycling travellers every day, for example Jean is riding from Marseille to Istanbul, we had an excellent day pedalling together. Then there's the Warmshowers network, ( like Couchsurfing, but it's specifically for bike touring) whereby strangers welcome you into their homes, prepare you a meal. My host from Trento has cycled all over Europe, and his neighbours even speak a little Hungarian, so the evening is spent in family-like conversation, and we enjoy apple pie. Of course, it's not every day you find a host, and Lake Garda is the ideal place to get a master's degree in wild camping (there's nowhere to go but beach or private land or vertical rock wall), so I end up bivouacking in a cave-like boat shed, the front wheel of the bike already lapped by waves.

I also do the obligatory sights of the Italian Alps on two wheels, so I take the bike up to the high mountain pastures of the Alpe di Siusi, where no one has ever ridden a recumbent bike before. No point of course, the Dutch designed this evolutionary dead end in transport history for flat terrain. Instead of fields of tulips, I'm now pushing the machine up a 12% gradient, while a line of pensioners on their electric bikes pass me by. No effort, straight back. With a smile on their faces.

After the passes of the Dolomites, the road takes us through the still streaming waters of the Drava, and for the last 900 km my sister joins me. Soon the milky white Slovenian fog engulfs us and we emerge just before the hills of the Őrség. From here it's really just a few potholes and then, in the drizzling November rain, the familiar silhouette of Visegrád Castle reveals itself. After exactly 1 month of cycling and 2700 km, the bike finally slips out at the last corner, and I am softly embraced by the long unseen Mother Earth.