The Trip Travel Algorithm

80/40 miles per day + 80 days

This is The Trip Travel Algorithm, the formula for success for our journey - call it a trip philosophy if you like. It's the way we're going to travel, it's a psychic place.

Read on - it'll make sense...

The Model

Eighty miles per day. That's what I (the pilot and blogger) reckon is a good average for relaxed touring on tarmac. During fifteen years touring in Europe I came to the conclusion that a trip always seems to have the right ratio of riding and resting, moving and mooching, traveling and touristifying if you're doing about 80 miles per day - across the journey as a whole.

Of course, that can mean riding for 240 miles on one day and then staying in the destination for three nights. In fact, that's the 'ideal' model this idea is based on. But it can also mean doing 500 miles in a day (heavy going!) and staying six nights in the place you arrive in. Or you can do a series of short days; 80-120 miles (can stop for a leisurely lunch!), stay overnight and do the same again the following day. Or whatever.

In short, you can mix it up.

On a bad day...

Africa

However, from Senegal to Angola there may not be tarmac and the 80 miles per day might be an optimistic target. The roads will probably not allow the daily distance within a reasonable time. And we've been advised many times to avoid riding in the dark.

So, from Dakar (Senegal) to Matadi (border DRC/Angola) - appx 4000 miles - the aim is to average 40 miles per day. Same philosophy, more modest mileage.

300 Days

On this basis, to make the distance from London to Cape Town via Nordkapp (Norway), Helsinki, Warsaw, Munich, Milan, Barcelona, Gibraltar then Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, DRC, Angola, Namibia, Botswana while taking in St Petersburg and The Victoria Falls en route and reaching our most southerly point at Cape Agulhas, will take roughly 300 days. Give or take.

+ 80 days

However - and here's the good bit -  we actually have a total of 380 days for the trip.

So we'll be able to apply the 80/40 formula - and still have a further 80 days to use as we see fit. Resting, eating, drinking, dancing, musicing, chatting, meeting, digressing, mending, recovering, detouring, sunbathing, backgammoning and many, many other gerunds.

Who knows what m'lady A and her pilot will do?😮😃

We're very excited. What do you think?