This is the part of the site for nerds and insomniacs. Go on, indulge yourselves!

What we took with us on our trip:

- one shell each from Crail beach (thanks to Hania Allen). Mediaeval pilgrims carried scallop shells to Santiago and used them to scoop drinking water out of streams on the way.

- 4 bikes; an off the peg Dawes Super Galaxy 2003 fitted with Shimano SPD pedals; a Claud Butler frame with Shimano custom parts; a Flying Scot frame with Shimano custom parts and an ancient old frame, painted with hammerite radiator paint, fitted with two borrowed wheels and a new gearset. (We all ran on 27 gears but with different ratios. Ken found himself over-geared on the Pyrenees; Gus and Alastair just found themselves knackered!) These were all road bikes, which certainly had the edge over the mountain bikes on tarmac. If you are riding the Camino itself (most of it is just a rough dirt track), a mountain bike would probably be more comfortable but we managed ok on the bit we did. You need a lot of gears, good tyres and strong wheels. The route is hilly and the bike kicks about a lot.

- front and rear panniers and bar-bags by Ortlieb, Vaude and Altura. (Bar bags went everywhere with us on and off the bike, holding all valuables.) We took too much luggage. In the second year, we reduced from four panniers to two without any noticeable loss of amenity. Be mean with your packing. It's worth it.

- tents, two-season sleeping bags, camp pillows, towels. (lightweight sleeping bags would have been better.)

- 2 stoves, pans, coffee maker, cutlery, plates, mugs, 2 kilos of porage, honey, raisins, coffee, corkscrew. (Having porage on board guaranteed breakfast wherever we were and saved us twice from going to bed in remote places without an evening meal.)

- cycling kit: Scottish Saltire jerseys by Foska.com (thanks to Granny Work for the gift!); Other jerseys,socks and shorts by Lusso and others. Cleated cycling shoes.

- cameras, film, notebooks, sketchbooks, pens and pencils, radios, mobile phones, Palm handheld computer and keyboard.

- a change of clothes and shoes for off-bike wear, clothes washing liquid

- headtorches, bikelights, midge candle and lighter

- first aid kit, nivea cream, insect repellant, suncream, sting cream

- energy drink powder, water bottles (avoid french mandarin-flavour energy drink; it works but it tastes like baby-puke and lingers faintly in your bottle for six weeks afterwards).

- relevant pages from a spiral bound edition of the 2004 Michelin road atlases of France and Spain, routemarked nightly in advance in fluorescent pen and held in Ortleib's wonderful bar-bag mounted map case.

- Amis de Vezelay pilgrim guide with maps and route descriptions

- (between us) spare tubes, a spare tyre, spoke spanner, multitool, tyre levers, pump, chain tool, lube and spare bolts and screws.

The worst problems we had were six punctures, a broken chain, a back wheel that went out of true, a squeaky bottom bracket and a mystery click. There were two crashes (no names), both from almost stationary positions, but no injuries.

. . . (right, that's it, I'm falling asleep already! - ed)