15th September 2026
Click here to see our Route & Photos
Well it finally happened, Val joined the 60 club. She wanted to celebrate her 60th birthday in her favourite place San Stefanos on the lovely island of Corfu , she asked friends and relatives who were available to come to Corfu to celebrate with her so along with her son SOG and daughter DOG with Tom the Blue, GI Jane , The Running Man , Bloody Karen and her daughter Robster The Lobster , Val’s grandchildren as well as Peggy Lou and myself that’s just what we did.
A few weeks before this was to happen on one of our Thursday night adventures Graham said he’d had an brilliant idea. Bless him he comes up with some quite silly ideas but this time it was, an absolute brilliant one. He said “ what do you think of hiring a couple of e-bikes while we are in Corfu and having an adventure one day ? ” I told him I thought that was an awesome idea and said I was definitely up for that. That night I’d planned a rough route to the village of Pagoi where they filmed the scene of the overturned Citroen 2cv from the 1981 James Bond film FOR YOUR EYES ONLY starring Roger Moore as 007. There is now a famous bar there called the Spiros Bond 007 Cafe bar. I sent the route to Graham almost immediately. “ bloody hell pal you’re well up for it wasn’t sure if you would be!” was his reply.
Now all we had to pick a day we could go, I jokingly said on Val’s birthday but Graham thought it might be a better idea to go another day, to be honest I think he was right. The day we decided on was Tuesday a couple of days after the big party so we would hopefully be well recovered. Tuesday morning arrived but we had a little problem, there was a power outage all over the NW of the island. Peggy Lou and myself had gone down for breakfast and due the power cut were still waiting to be served when Graham arrived. Eventually we headed off to hire our bikes. Firstly we need our supplies, 2x 1lt water and 3 bananas that would keep us going.
We arrived to hire our bikes and we were glad to see there was a basket on the back “ that’s great pal we can put our banana and water in them “ Graham said as he proceeded to eat one banana straight away so we had one bottle of water and a banana each.
Graham due to his height had to adjust his seat, but this meant he struggled to get his leg over, luckily I was on hand to assist him with getting his leg over. Now, as Extreme Biking goes this was bloody Extreme Biking. The temperature was already in the mid-30s when we set off, and the first thing we had to negotiate was the steep climb out of San Stef. As we rode out of the village some of the people from the local bars recognised Graham and cheered us up the hill.
Now we’re Extreme Bikers as you know but The Running Man was on another level. He was up every morning doing 3 & 5 mile runs up and down the hills in that heat, an absolute legend.
Once we reached the top of the hill the road turned rather flat, if a little uneven and potholed which caused one of us an issue. When we stopped to take on water, Graham discovered to his dismay that he’d already lost his banana out of the basket ” it must have fallen out coming up the hill” he said dispondantly. I could see his disappointment so I reassured him that I would share mine with him.
We set off as we weaved our way via Arillas to Agios Georgios when we got to the very steep hill down to Agios Georgios’s Bay from here we could see the restaurant Porto Timoni that we had ate at on several occasions during previous holidays together . I called out to Graham, “Better check your brakes before you…………” Too late he was on his way down, so I set off straight down behind him like a good wingman should . Amazingly he’d made it to the bottom in one piece . We stopped again here to take on fluids. “Oh bugger, pal,” Graham yelled out . “You’ve lost your banana now too pal . Well it was 3 bananas, 2 bananas, 1 banana. Now it’s no banana.” Don’t think we’d get in the Banana Bunch. If you’re old enough you know.
Now bananaless and in need of some cheering up we thought we’d take a cool selfie in Agios Georgios before we set off up the other side of the Bay. Now that side isn’t as steep a climb, but it continues for miles. Graham was getting a little annoyed with himself as he struggled with the selection on the right motor power and gear combination so I reassured him he was doing excellent , for an Ebike virgin.
The countryside is amazing, field after field of olive trees occasionally broken up by the odd derelict building. The heat was now beginning to ramp up, and we were very thankful that we hadn’t lost our water bottles as we once again stopped to drink the precious fluid. It was here Graham told me a TRUE STORY. ” Do you know the reason us Brits drive on the left?” , he went on to inform me it is due to the vast majority of Romans being right handed and it made it easier to walk on the left so they could draw their swords , as Graham put it “ without messing around in a fight “. As we stood at the side of the road Graham spotted something noisy coming towards us. It turned out to be an improvised Tuc Tuc style of vehicle that a farmer had obviously hashed together it was a right Heath Robinson affair but he did give us a wave as he passed by.
Shortly we passed the site of what looked like a very serious accident with the crash barrier hanging over the cliff edge. I didn’t get too close my fear of heights was giving me the ebee gebees. Just around the corner from this was the turning for the 007 Bond Bar, somewhere we had both visited many times before but never on bikes, and we made it.
We sat down outside and ordered a couple of refreshing Mythos beers with the lady that owns it and has run it for years, she always brings out the photo books of Roger Moore and cast and crew that her father took at the time and also tells us “ the boy on the bus with the curly hair is my brother.” Shortly a German couple arrived , sat down and ordered some food . I took the photo albums over to them and the lady thanked us . She then enquired where we’d rode from , we told her and she jokingly said “ ohh not from ze UK zen “ we all had a little chuckle. As I returned to my seat , Graham commented “ done our bit for the Anglo German relations there pal” . Well we hadn’t started a war so he was probably right.
We sat chatting and then I had a brilliant idea. Why don’t we pose like James Bond outside the bar, so that’s just what we did but sadly we weren’t able to re-enact the pose stood back to back with our Walther PPK guns in the air. Graham actually looks more like Peter Crouch doing the robot dance in one of them, but with a bit of Ai , voila.
Graham informed me that earlier on in the week he’d been stung on his big toe by a wasp and that it was a right mess “ wanna have a look my bestie ?“ he asked simultaneously removing his trainer and sock “ phew “ Graham exclaimed “ they stick , want to smell my sock” . I politely refused but immediately enquired about his big toe therefore deflecting any upset in my decline of his offer. His toe indeed look sore, just as he was showing me , flash , bang whallop he was stung by a wasp on his finger as he tried to flick it off his leg. Wasps definitely aren’t Grahams best friends and I’m sure they won’t be on his Christmas list.
We thanked the lady owner and she gave us a complimentary key ring , a nice touch. We decided that we’d have a wander around Pagoi . The village is very run down in parts but has tons of character. Graham stopped me in my tracks, he’d spotted an old derelict building up a path. So as always, off we went to explore. It was in fact an old graveyard and the building was all that remained of what looked like a church. The first thing we spotted was that some of the graves looked like they’d been opened “ flaming eck pal think there’s been some grave robbers in here “ Graham remarked and suggested we didn’t hang around just in case.
We left the graveyard behind as our conversation turned to wood lice and cockroaches. Graham told me another true story . Once he was in Lanzarote sat on the toilet having a poo. One of the screws were missing from the toilet base and when he looked down he saw “ 2 antenna poking through the hole ,TRUE STORY pal “
A very severe thunderstorm was forecast for later that day so we took the threat seriously and decided our best action was to head back towards San Stef. Our way back was now almost completely down hill and because we both knew the way back we changed the lead position quite frequently. This may have been Grahams downfall
As he led the way down a steep section of the road we gathered too much speed to take a corner, that could only result in one thing we had to leave the road and go through an olive grove. Then it was a bit of a blur, things went into slow motion, Graham being over 6ft tall and his saddle raised to the maximum crashed straight into an olive tree, luckily being a little shorter than graham I mangled to avoid it even though I had skidded and landed on the floor. I turned to see graham hanging out of an olive tree looking at angrily, I picked an olive branch up off the ground and offered it to him but he didn’t see the funny side.
Once we’d composed ourselves and given the bikes a once over graham realised that the bike’s brake levers were on opposite sides to our bikes in the UK right rear, left front , “ bloody hell pal I’ve only just realised the brakes are the wrong way round no wonder I crashed “ . I thought to myself we’d been riding for over an hour and he’s only just realised, oh boy . We did a bit of off-roading through the olive trees before we rejoined the road and made our way back to Arillas via the hugely steep hill ascending from Agios Georgios. That was too much for us even on E-bikes and we had to pause halfway up and once again at the top , we were knackered.
We now took a different route down back into San Stef where we met up with Peggy Lou and Val at Waves beach bar for lunch. As we had lunch Val made me laugh, Graham was talking about some king and queen chairs he’d seen , Val immediately corrected him “ they’re called thrones for gods sake “.
It was whilst we had lunch Graham was instructed by Val that he was to accompany their children and grandchildren a fun ride aboard an inflatable Couch pulled through the sea at high speeds by a speed boat. When Graham returned he informed me that he’d injured his left arm and in his words “ can’t move it proper, it’s right killing , done me that ride pal!”. I immediately took sympathy on him but he instructed me that he’d get straight back on his bike , a true Extreme Biker. I also knew that as my bestie, he wouldn’t want to let me down.
We left San Stef on the northern side of the village and headed up to the top of the steep hill where the Romanza hotel sits where Graham and Val have enjoyed many a holiday including her 50th birthday where we and all her family and friends took over the hotel to celebrate it.
Graham now led the way as he knew this part of the island very well, well he thought he did . We came to a small village where Graham informed me that it is where a lot of the locals live that work in the resort, he said “ yeah it’s erm, erm oh it’s on tip of my tongue erm I’ll get it in a minute “. I thought to myself I’ll have to put him out of his misery so I looked at it on the map “ it’s Avl” that’s as far as I got “ Avliotes” he exclaimed, “yeah got it before you could look it up “ I wasn’t going to argue with him so I let him have his little victory, especially as he was humouring himself by saying “it’s av- your- lettuce ,ha ha, do you want my lettuce “ giggling away to himself.
Sadly it was now time to head back and drop the bikes back. Graham took us to the more scenic route back which also passed a football ground . It now meant the bikes were almost completely out of charge but we carried on , we’re Extreme Bikers aren’t we.
We’d had a fantastic adventure around Corfu seeing the sights, meeting new people as well as old friends. Graham encountering yet another tree and we both agreed we’d definitely have to do another one when we’re back.
A foot note. The thunderstorm didn’t hit until that evening but when it did, oh boy was it a monster driving rain, fork lightning lighting and thunder that made you go deaf. Even this didn’t stop GI Jane & the Running man from walking or sailing down to wave the grandkids off, they were like 2 drowned rats though GI Jane did tell the Running Man off for SPLASHING her 😂.
Bloody Karen and Robster the Lobster had gone to Afionis for the evening and to get a photo of the stunning sunset the island offers but they were obviously disappointed due to the weather but they captured an amazing photo of the sun accompanied by a lightning bolt, which I think could definitely win a photo competition. I’ve used the picture but if Bloody Karen wants to copyright it , she’ll have to sue us. No need to message today, so we’re done, til next time.
