About Alan McWilliams
I ride an E-MTB in Western Crete, where each route is field-tested and documented with GPX files, grading, terrain notes, and historical context. These rides are designed for those who want more than distance and elevation — rides that also explore Crete’s landscapes of myth, resistance, and memory.
I previously bikepacked unsupported across Europe. After a heart attack and two years of recovery, I turned from bikepacking to E-MTB on medical advice — a change that allowed me to keep riding. Without pedal assist, I wouldn’t be riding at all.
My focus is structured exploration — combining mountain riding and historical fieldwork. I aim to ride off-road 50% of the time. Each route supports my book project Between Sea and Sky: History, Myth, and Memory in Crete, weaving together battlefields, resistance hideouts, ancient paths, mythology, and sacred landmarks.
Follow for tested loops and stories from Crete’s wild terrain — rides that measure not just distance and elevation but history and memory.
2,038 km
133:22 h
Recent Activity
- HistorianForLifeNovember 20, 2025
Great route Alan, in Kalyves on a ☕️ and 🎂 break. Once again apologies about absence this morning, but as already stated, didn't get invite till turned on phone as I was leaving the house.
- HistorianForLifeNovember 16, 2025
Great photos Alan, nice to hit the south island every now and again.
Alan McWilliams went cycling.
December 7, 2025
The ride covered 14.9 km with 510 m of ascent and 520 m of descent, mapped across a single sustained climb and one controlled descent. Moving time was 1 hour 07 minutes, with an ascent time of 42 minutes and an average moving speed of 13.3 km/h, reaching a maximum speed of 36.7 km/h on the lower run-outs. Gradients reached +22.5% on the steepest sections and –25.6% on the descent. The loop rose steadily from Fournes to the upper slopes above Meskla before turning across the hillside on mixed ground. Around 75% of the distance was off-road on compact earth, gravel, or double-width tracks, with several short S3 trail sections It was a contained, deliberate ride: controlled climbing, a measured traverse, and a clean descent back into the Keritis valley. I left Fournes in clear light, taking the short tarmac section out of the village before the gradient began to rise. The climb was steady, transitioning from paved surface to gravel and then to firmer earth as the line pushed toward the terraces above Meskla. The views opened early: the Keritis valley running north, the foothills tightening south toward the entrance of the White Mountains. The switchbacks above Meskla carried a good rhythm — nothing excessive, just enough gradient to keep pressure on the legs. The upper traverse had a quiet feel to it: rolling ground, mixed surfaces, patches of pine, olive trees, with the occasional narrow trail section adding interest. This part of the ride moved well, the terrain giving a natural pace without forcing it. The return run took a long, mixed-surface descent. Gravel held most of the way before the ground hardened closer to Fournes. The final tarmac section into the village was short and simple. Overall, the loop was well-balanced and suited to the purpose: a short winter ride with clear lines, manageable gradients, and enough variation to keep attention throughout. Fournes lies within the Keritis valley reprisals zone following the Battle of Crete (1 August 1941). Meskla did not host an SOE base, but it did support an ELAS detachment formed in 1943, which operated in the surrounding hill country and carried out the action that destroyed Schubert’s auxiliary unit on 1 January 1944. The Meskla Memorial records the losses of the community across successive conflicts from 1897 to 1945. Meskla Memorial & the 1944 Destruction of Schubert’s Auxiliary Detachment The Meskla Monument records the losses of the local community across multiple conflicts from 1897 to 1945. I visited the memorial mid-ride, after riding the terrain connected with the 1944 action at Meskla and Zourva. The ground I was riding formed part of the operational landscape of one of the most significant resistance engagements in western Crete during the German occupation. The Meskla Memorial – Local History in Stone The Meskla Memorial documents casualties from the Cretan uprising of 1897, the Balkan Wars, the Asia Minor campaign, and the Second World War, including those killed in air raids, reprisals, and German captivity. Surnames such as Sarantakis, Mavragakis, Lampakis, Valtadakis, Paraskakis, Fragkakis, and Roustanakis appear repeatedly. This reflects a long pattern of mobilisation and loss extending across half a century. These same family names are found in documentary and oral histories relating to resistance activity in Meskla, Zourva, and neighbouring settlements. The memorial is therefore not merely a list of the dead; it provides a structured record of the human cost paid by a single rural community across successive wars and occupations. Standing at the memorial brings the human background to the military activity I had already examined on the ground. Background to the 1944 Engagement – Schubert’s Auxiliary Unit Following the Italian capitulation in September 1943, German forces in Crete relied increasingly on local auxiliaries for internal security and counter-insurgency tasks. One such force operated under Friedrich Schubert, a German-born Greek who led paramilitary units used to track ELAS fighters, arrest suspected supporters, and carry out punitive actions in rural areas. Testimonies from western Crete describe a pattern of harsh methods attributed to these auxiliaries. German archival documentation for their operations on Crete is limited, but the available record aligns with broader German security policy at the time, particularly in areas of established resistance activity such as the foothills above Meskla. On 1 January 1944, a detachment of Schubert’s auxiliary force entered the Meskla–Zourva area. Their likely objectives were reconnaissance, intimidation, and the identification of individuals believed to be supporting ELAS operations. The terrain in this area — broken limestone, steep slopes, narrow tracks, and favourable observation points — assists irregular forces familiar with the ground. The local ELAS detachment, formed in July 1943 and supported by residents of Meskla and Zourva, prepared an ambush in this terrain. ELAS testimonies and later oral histories state that: 1. The ambush succeeded decisively. 2. Several members of the auxiliary group were killed during the engagement. 3. Others were captured. 4. A guerrilla court was convened in the area. 5. Confessions relating to earlier operations were taken before final decisions were made. These procedural details come from ELAS sources and cannot be independently confirmed from German records. However, the outcome — the complete destruction of the detachment — is historically well established. The elimination of this unit removed a significant local threat and demonstrated the operational effectiveness of ELAS when operating on favourable terrain with local support. Linking the 1944 Events to the Meskla Memorial The Meskla Memorial records families who had already suffered losses in earlier conflicts: 1897, the Balkan Wars, and the Asia Minor campaign. Their sons and relatives lived through the German occupation and supported resistance efforts with the knowledge that reprisals were a real and immediate risk. The Meskla–Zourva action must be viewed within this broader context. The same families named on the memorial appear throughout the oral and written evidence concerning ELAS activity, German reprisals, and auxiliary operations. The memorial and the 1944 engagement form a continuous historical narrative, linking earlier conflicts to the lived experience of occupation and resistance. By riding first through the terrain where the events unfolded and then reaching the memorial at the midpoint of the route, the sequence reflects the historical relationship: action first, commemoration later. The ground explains the event; the memorial explains the cost. As with all E-MTB Club historical rides, my aim is to integrate terrain, history, and accurate route analysis. Riding this ground enables us to understand: • the tactical considerations behind the 1944 ambush • why the terrain strongly favoured ELAS forces • how German auxiliary units operated • and how local geography and local memory remain inseparable The Meskla Memorial and the events of 1 January 1944 are part of the same story: a sequence of conflict, occupation, resistance, and community loss that shaped this region. Jagdkommando Schubert (Schubert’s Auxiliary Detachment) Many of my rides pass through areas marked by events from the German occupation of Crete. One of the most violent groups operating here was Jagdkommando Schubert, led by Oberfeldwebel Fritz Schubert. The unit was formed in 1942–43 and operated as a German-controlled paramilitary detachment made up largely of local collaborators and convicted criminals. It was not a regular Wehrmacht unit. Schubert first arrived on Crete in 1941 as an interpreter. By mid-1942 he had taken command of a small armed group around Krousonas. In 1943 he was reassigned to Chania under the Feldgendarmerie. General Bräuer later released him from brief imprisonment and allowed him to form an irregular “hunting detachment” with wide freedom of action. The group’s purpose was the suppression of resistance and the intimidation of civilian populations. Their methods included beatings, torture, hostage-taking, burning of homes, and executions carried out without legal authority. They operated mainly in Crete but were also deployed to Macedonia. Two of the worst-known atrocities were: • Kali Sykia (6 October 1943): Women and an elderly man were locked inside houses, which were then set on fire. • Chortiatis (2 September 1944): Following a resistance ambush, the detachment and associated forces killed 146 civilians. Many were burned alive. After the war, Schubert was tried for war crimes. He was convicted for the murder of over 250 civilians and executed on 22 October 1947. Many of his local collaborators avoided punishment, but the memory of the group’s actions remains strong in the villages affected.
01:10
14.9km
12.8km/h
510m
520m
Alan McWilliams went mountain biking.
November 25, 2025
The ride covered 43.5 km with 1,140 m of ascent and 1,057 m of descent, mapped across six climbs and seven descents, with a moving time of 2 hours 26 minutes and an ascent time of 1 hour 27 minutes. Maximum gradients reached +21.3% on the climbs and –20.7% on the steeper drops. Average moving speed held at 16.8 km/h, with a maximum of 60.6 km/h on the long tarmac run-outs. Around 45% of the route was off-road: loose gravel, embedded stone, narrow terrace lines, goat paths, and the shaded approaches to two small gorges. It was a controlled, disciplined ride, the kind where the terrain sets the pace and rewards attention rather than speed. I left Kokkino Chorio in the clear morning light, climbing toward Drapanos with that familiar early rhythm — steady turns, cool air, the village still behind me. From the top the line fell through Xirosterni, the road quiet, the kind of stretch where the land wakes slowly. Litsarda came quickly, the turn onto the Monastery Climb taken without breaking cadence. The slope rose as expected: rough, direct, and honest, a warm-up for the work that lay further south. Rider’s Church gave its usual pause — a point of reset before turning toward the interior. From here the road tightened, the land folding into itself, and the first long line of off-road roads opened below Metochi. The track cut across stone, brush and terraced olives, heading toward Platanos. It was the kind of country where the line shifts without notice: one moment old tarmac, the next a broken mule route, then a farm track with loose rock and the dust of generations on it. The crossing under the National Road marked the shift toward quiet ground. On the far side the track rose again, carrying me into the approaches of the two gorges. The earth darkened with moisture; shade pooled beneath overhanging trees. The terrain tightened into natural corridors — narrow, steep in places, broken in others — the sort of ground where riders, shepherds, and walkers all choose the same line because the land leaves no alternative. Beyond the second gorge the climb into Nippos opened wide and fast, trees retreating as the village drew near. A long, clean tarmac drop carried me straight into Vrysses where I stopped at Καρκανης — the dairy shop that anchors the village. Coffee, cold water, and a few words with the staff who seem to always know when riders are on the move. The return line began with the main gravel climb above Vrysses — a steady pull, the surface loose in parts, predictable in others, the kind of ascent that rewards patience rather than power. From the top the ridge track toward Litsarda stretched out cleanly, carrying views in both directions: the White Mountains to the south, Apokoronas falling north toward the sea. Stone, slope, olive, and air all in one frame. Xirosterni rolled beneath the wheels, Drapanos came and went, and the last descent into Kokkino Chorio marked the end of the loop — familiar, measured, and exact. But the day carried one more note: the wells near Kaina. A Vernacular Water Landscape What lay beneath Kaina was more than a cluster of old wells. It was a whole vernacular water landscape, built quietly over generations and left to blend back into the slope as if the hillside itself had shaped it. The stonework told its own story: different phases of construction, older surfaces half-swallowed by soil, newer layers patched in with concrete by hands that needed the water more than they cared about symmetry. Some of the wells were cut directly into the rockface, square mouths framed in thick mortar, the lines still showing the mark of a mason who knew exactly how the limestone fractures. Others sat lower down, rectangular basins laid out in series, joined by narrow channels that carried water from one pool to the next. At first glance they looked like troughs, but the spacing and depth said otherwise — these were washing tanks, the kind used before piped water reached the villages. Women once stood here with boards, soap, and patience, turning the steady flow from the cliff spring into a daily rhythm of work and conversation. Above them, small apertures hollowed into the rock — not natural — signalled access points to channels cut behind the surface. These openings weren’t defensive and they weren’t agricultural storage. They were simple, functional: allowing someone to reach in, clear silt, unblock a feed, or divert water further down the terraces. A whole management system hidden in plain sight. What struck me most was the mix of methods. The oldest sections were dry-laid stone, tight fitted, almost Cyclopean in places. Next came the Ottoman-period basins — the proportions were unmistakable, deeper and narrower, designed to maximise flow in a confined space. Finally, 20th-century concrete poured in thick slabs, forming new tanks that respected the old ones rather than replacing them. Layer upon layer, each generation adding what it needed without erasing what came before. The whole complex sat at the natural break in the valley, where water would have pooled anyway. It was positioned with precision — above the flood line, below the dry ridge, shaded by plane trees tall enough to have stood through several lifetimes. Whoever built it understood the land intimately. They knew how water moves, how limestone sweats in winter, how springs breathe differently depending on the season. Even now, long after daily use has faded, there is a sense of order to the place. Troughs sit in sequence. Channels run straight. Steps lead from one level to the next. The design is too deliberate — too human — for chance. In many ways it mirrors the vernacular systems found across upland Crete: workspaces that doubled as social spaces, practical architecture shaped entirely by terrain and need, built with what was at hand, repaired as required, rarely abandoned until the last possible moment. Standing there among the moss, the fallen leaves, the old stone shining through the damp, it was easy to see the continuity of the island. Water, labour, and the daily effort to make life work on the slopes. No monuments, no plaques, no declarations. Just the quiet persistence of people who shaped the land one wall, one channel, one basin at a time — the kind of heritage that rarely makes it into guidebooks, but says more about Crete’s endurance than any fortress ever could. Μαντινάδα – Mandináda English Where hidden wells remember lives the maps forget to show, the land keeps faith with those who passed — and those who still must go. Greek Στὰ κρυφὰ πηγάδια ζοῦν ζωὲς ποὺ οἱ χάρτες δὲν μετροῦν, καὶ ἡ γῆ φυλᾶ τοὺς περαστούς, ποὺ ἦρθαν καὶ ποὺ ποροῦν. Back Translation In the hidden wells live lives the maps do not record, and the land guards all who passed, and all who travel onward.
02:38
43.5km
16.6km/h
1,140m
1,140m
Alan McWilliams and others went mountain biking.
November 23, 2025
The ride covered 23.9 km with 900 m of ascent and 900 m of descent, set along a single long climb and mirrored descent line. Moving time totalled 1 hour 42 minutes, with an ascent time of 1 hour 10 minutes and descent in 32 minutes. Gradients reached +17% on the steeper sections and –17.7% on the way down. Maximum speed recorded was 47.3 km/h, averaging 13.5 km/h across rough mountain track, loose limestone, wet soil, and early winter mist and 90% off-road. It was a direct route — nothing hidden, nothing wasted — a straight push into the White Mountains and back again. We left Theriso under a low ceiling of cloud, the village quiet in its morning routine. Above the road the slopes rose in muted colour — chestnut, oak, and plane trees holding on to the last of their autumn. The first metres of track were already climbing, a steady pull that left no doubt about the character of the day. Mist shifted between the trees, thinning, thickening, and folding back again, as though the mountain were deciding how much of itself to show. As the ascent steepened the surface changed. Loose gravel and broken stone took over, each turn revealing another stretch of pale limestone scarred by weather and history. Further up, the clouds rolled across the ridgelines in slow sheets, drifting through pines and low scrub, softening the edges of the landscape. It was quiet — no engines, no wind, just the rhythm of breath and the steady grind of the climb. Higher still, the colour deepened. The autumn tones below gave way to cold rock, pockets of brush, and the dark lines of cypress clinging to the slopes. The track wound upward in long, testing metres. Several times the mist closed completely, leaving only the next few metres of gravel visible, the world shrinking to sound, breath, and effort. By the time the highest point came, the mountains were half-veiled, the ridges lifting above the cloud line like islands. Below, valleys opened and closed under drifting banks of white, their patterns momentarily visible before disappearing again. No photograph can catch the movement of mist in the Lefka Ori; it is the mountain’s own slow breathing, older and more deliberate than anything on the road. The descent followed the same line, but the world had changed. Breaks in the cloud showed the full width of the valley, slopes running in colour from rust to deep green. The stones rattled under the tyres, the corners tight, the surface shifting with every metre — fast in places, cautious in others. Mist pooled in the hollows and lifted on the ridges. It was a descent that required attention: no complacency, no drifting, just the clean, direct flow of line and gravity. Theriso came back into view below, its trees bright against the grey sky. The statues in the square — Eleftherios Venizelos, the Chali brothers — stood as they always have, watching the road, marking history in a village that has known more than its share of revolt and resilience. The descent ended where the climb had begun, the loop closed, the ground covered with nothing hidden and nothing spare. The mountains held their silence. The mist continued its slow movement. The ride was done. The Long Revolt of Theriso Theriso is not merely a starting point for a climb; it is one of the nerve-centres of Crete’s long history of defiance. The mist on the slopes does more than hide the ridgelines — it hides the routes taken by armed bands, messengers, and villagers who carried the cost of revolt on their backs. From the Chali brothers, who fought in the 1821 uprising, to the Theriso Revolt of 1905 led by Eleftherios Venizelos, this small village has punched far above its weight in the long struggle against Ottoman rule and political stagnation. The Ottoman presence in these mountains was always tenuous. The highlands were too difficult, too loyal to their clans, and too quick to rise. From the mid-17th century onward, the Ottomans held the towns, but the mountains remained Cretan — a place where rebellion was not a political act but part of life. Even today, climbing through mist in November, the land still carries that sense of resistance: steep slopes that favour the defender, hidden gullies that shield movement, and the silence that makes every sound matter. The statues in Theriso are not ornamental. They are anchors: reminders that these hills have sent men into revolt generation after generation, often with little hope of victory but an unshakeable belief in dignity. Riding here, the history is not abstract. It sits in the earth itself. Reflection what the mountains give back Rides like this one sharpen thought. There is something about a long, straight climb — no diversions, no loops, no soft alternatives — that forces a man into honesty. The mountains strip away noise. They remind you of those who came before, who carried heavier loads and risked far more than the discomfort of gradient and altitude. Up in the mist, with no sound but breath, effort, and the quiet movement of cloud, the mind settles. You think about the land, its history, its people, and what it asks of anyone who moves through it. You think about why you ride, why these routes matter, and why bearing witness to place — through riding, writing, or simply paying attention — is its own form of respect. When the descent begins and the valley opens again, you return carrying something the climb gave you: perspective, steadiness, and a sense of the continuity that binds this island together. Mandináda English Where cloud and mountain meet in silence, old struggles never die, and every rider learns the truth the Cretans hold nearby. Greek Στης ομίχλης τ’ ακροβούνια, οι αγώνες ζουν βαθιά, κι’ ο κάθε αναβάτης βρίσκει την κρητικιά αλήθεια ξανά. Back-translation On the misted mountain heights, the old struggles live deep, and every rider finds again the Cretan truth they keep.
01:46
23.9km
13.5km/h
900m
900m
Alan McWilliams went mountain biking.
November 20, 2025
The ride covered 37.6 km with 1,010 m of ascent, mapped across seven climbs and six descents, with a moving time of 2 hours 13 minutes and an ascent time of 1 hour 22 minutes. Maximum gradients reached +21.9% on the climbs and –20.9% on the steeper descents. The route moved through low valleys below Exopoli and rose into the broken limestone slopes behind St George’s Monastery, combining loose gravel, embedded stone, rough farm tracks, and narrow lines between olives. It was a steady, honest day’s riding, the kind that leaves its record not only in data but in the legs and the memory of the ground crossed. We left Kokkino Chorio at 08:30, the village still half-asleep under the early light. The climb to Drapanos was steady and unhurried, the air cool enough to hold the last trace of night, the road empty except for goats nosing the verges. From the crest the line carried us down through Xirosterni and into Litsarda, where the descent of the Seven Bends let the wheels run free, fast tarmac flowing clean and easy. Ten kilometres passed in quiet movement before the land tightened, drawing us on toward the work of the day — the off-road country beneath Kalamitsi Alexandrou and Kalamitsi Amigdali, between Vrysses and Exopoli. This is hilly country, folded, stubborn, layered with generations of labour. Olive groves quilt the slopes, their lines broken by ravines, terraces, and pockets of scrub. The first turn off the tarmac was downhill; it brought rough stone and loose gravel, and next the track climbed through stands of burned brush. Charred branches still reached skyward like old scars, reminders of summers when fire carved its way across these hills. Yet below, the olives endured; terraces of green rising out of blackened ground, roots deep enough to withstand fire, drought, and misfortune. From the higher ground the White Mountains filled the horizon, their ridges sharp and clean in the morning air. Valleys lay patterned with groves and orchards, every strip of earth shaped by hands that have long understood this land’s demands. A descent dropped us into deeper country, the stones rattling under the tyres, the track shifting from one surface to another without warning. The track that followed was undulating and broken — the kind of ride earned metre by metre. Loose gravel, embedded rock, narrow cuts between thorn and limestone: every section called for concentration, balance, and patience. It was the simple, honest difficulty of riding in Crete, where the route itself decides the pace and the rider must adapt. Here the Byzantine shadow deepens. These slopes, now quiet beneath olives, once formed the inland spine of the Byzantine thema of Crete, the administrative district governing the island before the Arab conquest of AD 824 and again after the reconquest of AD 961 under Nikephoros Phokas. The Byzantines preferred defensible highlands; valleys were watched from chapels and outposts, and communication passed by mule, by foot, or by the bells of churches. Many of the small stone chapels in these hills — whitewashed now, modernised in part — began as Byzantine foundations. Their orientation, their apses, and even the stones in their walls still follow patterns set a thousand years ago. The groves may be newer, the tracks rearranged by centuries of labour, but the land still holds the order the Byzantines imposed: height as security, chapels as markers, village lines drawn around water, stone, and sanctuary. Through it all the olives held their watch. Some centuries old, swollen and twisted; others young, slender, and bright with new leaves. The olive here is more than a tree — it is ancestry, endurance, and the measure of time. In these groves a man senses the continuity of Cretan life: its long memory, its resilience, its quiet insistence on surviving whatever history demands. During the years of German occupation, these same groves carried a different burden. Reprisals were harsh: villages burned, men executed, and olive trees — the lifeblood of every household — were felled in punishment. To cut an olive was to strike at identity, sustenance, and future all at once. Yet the roots endured. From the stumps came green shoots, fragile at first, then stronger. A quiet defiance offered in the only language the land knows: persistence. St George’s Monastery stood among the groves, its bell silent, its walls newly washed. The space around it carried the calm of a place used for gathering — for talk, for prayer, for the simple pause that turns labour into life. I leaned the bike against the fence, its presence out of place and yet somehow fitting — a traveller’s moment in a landscape that has seen centuries of them. Before the monastery the track fell, running down between olive groves straight into Monastery Climb, loose dirt, rocks, and gravel. After St George’s Monastery we hit the tarmac for the climb towards Vamos. On each side olive groves, the occasional space in the trees opening a new view: a valley shaded by plane trees, a terrace cut into stone, the flash of the sea far off. From one rise I caught a village in the distance — its church dome lifting above the green, its bells ready to cross the valley when the hour came. The final kilometres carried more rough ground, the track twisting across the slope, the mountains ahead constant and unmoved. Whether the GPS records it or not, these hills keep their own measure. The truth of the ride is not in the data alone, but in the weight of the climbs, the silence of the groves, and the light that changes the land as the day unfolds. Mandináda English Among the groves where empires passed and old foundations lie, the hills still guard the riders’ path beneath the watchful sky. Greek Μες στ’ ελαιοχώραφα περνώ, που οι αυτοκρατορίες χαθήκαν, κι’ οι λόφοι φύλακες βαρείς, στ’ ουρανού τα φώτα μείναν. Back-translation Through the olive fields I ride, where empires once disappeared, and the hills stand heavy guardians, beneath the lights of the sky.
02:13
37.6km
16.9km/h
1,010m
1,010m
Alan McWilliams went mountain biking.
November 18, 2025
The ride covered 41.9 km with 920 m of ascent and 900 m of descent, reaching a highest point of 320 m and a lowest point at sea level. Time riding was 2 hours 18 minutes, time climbing was 1 hour 28 minutes. The average speed of 18.1 km/h with a maximum speed of 55.6 km/h across six climbs and five descents. Gradients reached +15.0% / –17.1%, confirming what the legs already knew — a ride earned rather than taken. Before describing the ground, it is worth stating the principle that belongs to both mountains and men. “The greatest liberty is to rule oneself, for no man is free who is slave to his fears or his desires.”¹ That idea, spoken long before bicycles, nation-states, or fuel, still works in silence above stone. Freedom begins inside a man and is later proved by how he stands when no audience is present. These hills do not award freedom, but they allow it to reveal its owner. As a friend said "Live the life you love." We met at 08:30 outside Piperakis Bakery in Almyrida, where the first decisions of the day were made over coffee rather than maps. No rush, no briefing; the understanding is always the same — ride steady, ride honest, read the ground. At 09:00 we rolled out, tyres whispering on the first stretch before the earth took over. The approach to the Roller Coaster served as the warm-up: short punches, quick recoveries, olive terraces falling away on both sides. No theatrics, just momentum and breath. From there, the route cut into the olive groves, a twisting line of dust, stone, and root systems older than most of the modern maps. Nothing here is ornamental — every tree earns its water, every terrace its labour. We reached Προφήτης Ηλίας (Prophet Elijah) by the narrow climb that demands controlled effort rather than heroics. At the small church, the light widened and the view pulled both sea and foothill into the same frame — a reminder that Apokoronas is neither coastal nor mountain, but a negotiation of both. From Tsivaras, the ride opened into a rhythm — loop above Kalyves, then loop above the Kiliaris line, where the valley acted as a corridor of movement long before bicycles existed. The 5 km track that followed was rough, loose in sections, and perfect for settling the pace: the kind of segment that does not impress the casual rider but rewards those who value repetition, balance, and mental quiet. At 10:15 we entered Armeni and stopped at Kiosky for coffee — the kind that resets the ride rather than ends it. Cake was discussed, ordered, and eaten without guilt. Armeni has that effect: nothing rushed, nothing pretended, everything lived-in. From there, we pressed toward the old Turkish Fort, built in earlier centuries when control was attempted through line-of-sight rather than public agreement. Its stones recall the transition from Venetian to Ottoman authority, when Crete moved from European maritime rule to imperial land-based command following the fall of Candia in 1669². The mountain and foothill communities outlasted both because they valued obligation more than obedience. Clan, oath, honour, and revenge settled matters that no decree could resolve. Freedom here was not seasonal or rhetorical — it survived in families, weapons, and decisions, rather than in documents. We then picked up the track above the National Road, where elevation once again served the timeless role of awareness and advantage. The land did not flatten. It folded, widened, then closed again as we passed Agii Pantes and moved into the Kaina tracks, where the scent of earth shifted from olive to pine. The line into Vamos held steady before turning onto the Health Centre Track, then Xirosterni, Paleloni, and the long, confident run through Drapanos. From there, the final stretch toward Kokkino Chorio required nothing more than patience — the bike did not have to be told what to do; it already understood. We finished without ceremony, as usual — legs worked, mind clear, route understood. The spirit of freedom on Crete is not modern and not invented by diplomacy. Vitsentzos Kornaros wrote that liberty is never delivered as a courtesy and must be watered with cost³. “Freedom, as you see it, must be watered with blood, and those who waited for her were never handed her as a gift.” He wrote that before European nationalism, before the Greek flag existed, before the Ottoman Empire weakened, and before the pages of strategy replaced the memory of consequence. His sentence remains true where the ground is sharp and hope costs something. Historical Character Profiles (Freedom, Honour, and Defiance Crete) 1. Georgios Emmanuelis “Kelaïdis” (1784–1824) Born in the settlement of Mouri, Sfakia, Kelaïdis was one of the most respected local captains (καπετάνιοι) of the early Greek War of Independence (1821–1829). He commanded a small but disciplined volunteer band drawn from Mouri and the wider Sarakina region, known for their ability to fight in steep, broken ground. On 20 March 1824, while attempting to protect and escort women, children, and the elderly from Turkish forces, he and 35 volunteer fighters were killed in the mountains near Aradena. He is remembered not for victory but for attempted duty under impossible arithmetic — a mark of Cretan leadership across centuries. 2. Daskalogiannis (Ioannis Vlachos, c. 1722–1771) A wealthy Sfakian shipowner, Vlachos used personal funds to arm and equip a local force that launched the 1770 uprising against Ottoman rule, inspired by misleading Russian promises of military support during the Orlov Revolt. When the Sfakians were left isolated, Daskalogiannis surrendered to save the wider population from total reprisals. He was executed by being flayed alive in Heraklion in 1771 — forced to watch the torture begin on his brother first. His death remains one of the most powerful symbols of Cretan sacrifice without reward, and shows that leadership sometimes ends in ruin rather than applause. 3. The Sfakians and Anopoliots (Collective Character) The inhabitants of the south-western White Mountains never accepted administrative control as a moral obligation. They treated law as negotiable, identity as inherited, and freedom as non-transferable. Across Venetian, Ottoman, German, and even Greek state periods, the highland clans defended autonomy, honour justice, and armed responsibility, operating under philotimo, xenia, and timi rather than civil code. Their real legacy is not rebellion, but the refusal to be psychologically conquered. 4. Katechaki Family (Chania–Sfakia Link Line) A long-standing Cretan military family involved in 19th-century uprisings, the Theriso Revolt (1905), and later national service. Their record illustrates how revolt was not episodic, but passed between generations, like language or land. 5. Pavlos Gyparis (1888–1966) Born in Asigonia, Apokoronas, Gyparis served as a guerilla captain in the late Ottoman period, later fighting in Macedonia and Asia Minor, and commanding volunteer “Cretan Corps” elements. Although later his political alignment became controversial, his field record reflects the long tradition of Cretan expeditionary fighters, not only mountain-based defence. 6. Father / Monk Gabriel (Tsiskoudakis) A monk of the Monastery of Agios Ioannis, Sfakia, he fought in the 1866 uprising while wearing his robes under his cartridge belts. He represents the Cretan crossing of spiritual and militant duty, where faith did not cancel arms, and arms did not cancel mercy. 7. Patrick Leigh Fermor, Tom Dunbabin, Xan Fielding, and the Cretan Civilians (WWII) Although outsiders, the SOE officers became part of the continuity of resistance, because Cretan hospitality and guerrilla expectation did not treat allies as guests but as co-responsible men. However, success was only possible because of local families, shepherds, and runners, who paid the highest price, including mass reprisals, burned villages, executions, and deportations. Core Traits Shared Across All Profiles 1. Freedom viewed as a duty, not a right 2. Courage measured by willingness, not odds 3. Loyalty stronger than law 4. Memory stronger than victory 5. No separation between civilian and fighter in crisis Mandináda: English: Upon these hills we ride at will, no master and no chain, for Crete keeps faith with those who stand, through silence, stone, and pain. Greek: Σ’ αυτά τ’ αψηλά γιαλεύγουμε, δίχως ζυγό και δέση, γιατί η Κρήτη όρθιους κρατεί, στου πόνου την ανέμη. Back Translation: On these high places we roam, without yoke or binding, for Crete keeps men standing, on the spindle of suffering. FOOTNOTES: 1. Derived from classical Socratic ethical teaching recorded through Platonic dialogues, expressing that true freedom is the mastery of self, not exemption from rule or circumstance. 2. The last Venetian stronghold on Crete (Candia/Heraklion) surrendered to the Ottomans in 1669 after a 21-year siege, ending Venetian rule and beginning Ottoman administration. 3. Kornaros, Vitsentzos, Erotokritos, 17th century Cretan Renaissance poem; themes include honour, endurance, moral duty, and the cost of loyalty and freedom.
02:19
41.9km
18.1km/h
920m
900m
Alan McWilliams went cycling.
November 16, 2025
The ride covered 35.4 km, with 1,200 m of ascent and 1,211 m of descent, mapped across a single long climb and a mirrored descent line. Gradients reached +15.6% / –15.0%, along exposed, high-altitude limestone tracks that demanded precise balance, calm hands, and disciplined control. 85% off-road. Time riding totalled 2 hours 45 minutes, with an overall duration of 3 hours 59 minutes, averaging 12.7 km/h, with a maximum recorded speed of 45 km/h. Ascent time reached 2 hours 1 minute — a clear measure of the height, the slope, and the truth of the ground — while descent took 44 minutes, confirming that gravity here is not release but responsibility. We set off from Anopoli, a village that feels less like a settlement and more like a frontier staging post — a place that has never fully belonged to the coast nor surrendered to the mountains. The November morning was warm and clear, the kind of light that neither promises nor deceives; it simply reveals. The climb began steadily, turning from worn asphalt into hard, fractured limestone, the kind of surface shaped not by human intention but by winter storms, meltwater, mule traffic and centuries of unsentimental use. Trees thinned quickly, replaced by stone ribs, rock shelves, and the first angled sightlines toward the summit region of Pachnes, second only to Psiloritis in height, yet arguably superior in silence. These were not romantic mountains — they were geological fortresses. Outcrops stood like natural sentry posts, gullies dropped clean into canyon-depth shadow, and any lapse in judgement carried real-world consequence. This is not landscape for decoration; it is landscape for decision. Where Terrain Creates History Here, geography is not environment — it is doctrine. This same ground shaped the final phase of the Battle of Crete, May 1941. After the fall of Maleme and the splitting of the Allied front, the only viable withdrawal line ran south across these mountains toward Hora Sfakion, where the Royal Navy fought day after day to evacuate troops under constant Luftwaffe attack. Approximately 16,000 Allied personnel were taken off those beaches — the men who reached the coast in time. Those who did not reach in time — New Zealanders, Australians, British infantry, Royal Marines, RAF ground crews, signallers, engineers, medics, and isolated detachments — hid in these same mountains, often for months and years, supported by the people of Sfakia, Anopoli, Aradena, Agia Roumeli, Livaniana, Skaloti, and the high pastoral families. This was not charity. It was risk at the highest level. Helping Allied soldiers meant execution, the burning of homes and crops, livestock seizure, hostage-taking, torture, and village annihilation — punishments issued without trial. Yet the Cretan code of honour — timi, philotimo, and xenia — overruled fear. SOE — Not in the Footnotes but in the Landscape From 1942 onward, this region became a primary sanctuary and operational zone for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) — not as a background detail, but as the spine of Allied clandestine effort on Crete. These mountains housed wireless teams, escaped POWs, raiding parties, scouts, saboteurs, and guides, including Force 133, whose operations linked Rodakino, Kallikratis, Aradena, the Pachnes plateau, Katsiveli, and the southern exit lines. Caves, shepherd stone huts (mitáta), and cistern sites served as safe houses, briefing points, field hospitals, and code-transmission positions — all under the protection of people who used no uniforms, held no rank, but carried absolute resolve. Without the Cretans of the high country, SOE operations would have failed within weeks, not endured for years. A People Formed by Resistance — Before SOE, Before 1941 What happened in 1941-45 did not create the character of Sfakia — it revealed it. This region has been a stronghold, a redoubt, and a furnace of resistance for centuries. It resisted Venetian domination, Ottoman taxation and disarmament, and later German occupation, not through slogans but through action, loss, and sacrifice. The memorial at Aradena honours General Georgios Emmanuel (1784–1824) of Mouri Sfakion, who fell here with 35 volunteers, part of a larger force of 300 Sfakian fighters, covering the escape of thousands of women, children, and elders from Ottoman encirclement. Their stand was not defeat — it was purpose: delay the enemy, save the innocent, pay the price. As historian V. Psilakis wrote in 1909: “A warrior soul and a rare patriot — through his hunger, his struggle and his sacrifices the flame of revolution ignited in 1821.” This land produces leadership through hardship, not through inheritance. These mountains do not breed followers. The Highest Ground — Modern Ride, Ancient Terms Near the upper sections, wind sharpened, light shifted, and silence took command. No birdsong, no stray dogs, no bells, no flight paths. Only the dry, high-altitude breath of Crete, carrying the memory of every pursuit, every escape, every oath sworn and never revoked. The descent demanded as much respect as the ascent: loose scree, cliff-edge corners, and irrevocable line decisions. A reminder that in mountains such as these, down is never easier; only faster. We returned to Anopoli tired, steady, and quiet, carrying the knowledge that every metre climbed was already climbed before us by men who had far more at stake. We did not conquer a mountain. We visited a chapter of history; on its terms, not ours. Mandínada – Written by Alan: English Stone keeps the oath that men have sworn though centuries drift by, for mountains guard the names of those who chose to never die. Greek Τον όρκο οι πέτρες κράζουνε κι ας πέρασαν καιροί, οι κορφές φυλάνε τ’ όνομα όποιου δεν είπε “θα χαθώ” αλλά “θα μείνω ζωντανός”.
02:50
35.4km
12.5km/h
1,200m
1,210m
Alan McWilliams went mountain biking.
November 13, 2025
The ride covered 36.4 km with 760 m of ascent and 740 m of descent. The highest point reached 110 m, the lowest –50 m. Gradients touched +15.8% / –16.8%, with four climbs and six descents across stony tracks, loose gravel, and narrow lanes carved between olive groves. 45% off-road. Time riding was 2 hours 13 minutes, total duration 3 hours 15 minutes, with an average riding speed of 16.4 km/h and a maximum of 49 km/h. Ascent time totalled 1 hour 05 minutes, descent 57 minutes — a steady, disciplined line, built on rhythm and effort rather than spectacle. We departed Kokkino Chorio at 08:30 under a pale, washed morning light. The air was cool but already softening, the early sun pushing slowly over Drapanos. By the time we reached Gavalochori at 09:00 the day had settled into its rhythm — clear light, long shadows, and the promise of fast tracks ahead. The route began on familiar ground, legs warming early, the pace set for a day of flow rather than brute effort. From Kokkino Chorio we rolled quickly down to Kambia, where the familiar drop of the Four Hills Climb shook the sleep out of the arms. The stone edges, the fast bends, the smell of damp earth in the hollows — all of it familiar and still capable of surprising the unwary. At the bottom we picked up the Aspro Tracks, the narrow lanes and rough spines of old field routes pulling us naturally toward Gavalochori. The village was quiet at that hour, shutters half-opened, a single dog barking somewhere up behind the school. No pause — the legs were warm, and the line ahead was clear. We left the village and entered the Roller Coaster, the terrain changing instantly. The earth rucked and folded, the track rising and falling in short punches — steep, loose, playful, and testing in equal measure. The early light cut between the olives, and each descent carried us a little deeper into that rolling rhythm. From here the ride pushed on toward Tsivaras. At Armeni we stopped at the Kiosky for coffee, cake, and conversation — the small rituals that anchor a ride. A few locals nodded our way, the usual mixture of curiosity and easy welcome. Armeni always feels lived-in rather than staged; water, stone, and human pace all in balance. It is one of those villages that doesn’t pretend to be anything other than itself. From Armeni we dropped toward the Kiliaris River. The loop around the river never disappoints. The track tightened and twisted between plane trees and reeds, the air cooling abruptly as we neared the water. We crossed the ford — shallow, clear, stones shifting under the tyres — and climbed out onto the opposite bank, where the sunlight opened the valley again. The river here is not just scenery; it is a corridor of movement. People, animals, trade, rumour, armies — all have moved along this line. You feel that history in the track under your wheels. From Kalyves we powered through the Olive Groves, the track fast and serpentine, the tyres humming on packed earth. The descent back into the Roller Coaster brought us again into that rhythm of dips and rises, each climb short and sharp, each descent a burst of freedom across the rougher ground. The line took us back to the Aspro Tracks, climbing steadily toward the return routes. Venetian history lives in these valleys even if you don’t immediately see it. The carved lintels over doorways in Gavalochori, the wells with their stone vaulting, the old oil-press foundations half-swallowed by earth — all speak of the island’s four centuries under the Lion of Saint Mark. The Venetians did not simply govern Crete; they reshaped it. They imposed land tenures, taxed heavily, and fortified the coasts, yet they also left an architectural signature that is unmistakable. Narrow arches, thick-set walls, stone-cut doorframes — the kind that refuse to fall even under time’s long pressure. In these villages the Venetian imprint is not a ruin; it is a living layer, absorbed and adapted by the people who stayed when the Republic fell. And the Cretan dialect — still spoken in cafés and courtyards — carries those centuries in its syllables. Venetian loanwords, Doric roots, mountain cadence, and that unmistakable softness of vowels that rise and fall like the very landscape we ride through. To hear old men in Gavalochori or Litsarda talking in that dialect is to hear history breathe. The homeward line carried us back over the Four Hills Climb, each section familiar yet still with enough sting to make the legs honest. From there, Kambia came quickly, and then Kokkino Chorio rose ahead, white stone bright in the midday sun. It was a ride of movement and memory — a line through villages where history does not sit behind glass, but underfoot. Mandináda (English first, then Greek) English Through Venetian stones and olive shade the riders find their line, each climb a thread that binds the past to every turn of mine. Greek Μέσ’ στα βενετσιάνικα στενά κι στου ελιάς τη δροσεριά, ο δρόμος δένει του παλιού τον σφυγμό με τη καρδιά.
02:13
36.4km
16.4km/h
760m
740m
Alan McWilliams went mountain biking.
November 11, 2025
The route totalled 32.3 km, with 761 m of ascent and 769 m of descent. The highest point stood at 321 m, the lowest at 20 m. Gradients reached +16 % / –15 %, with three climbs and three descents. Ascent time: 1 hour 2 minutes. Moving time: 1 hour 37 minutes. Average speed: 18.4 km/h. Maximum: 50.8 km/h. It was a compact route 60% off-road — hard enough to earn its silence, quiet enough to remember why we rode. We departed Kokkino Chorio at 09:00, the light still low and the air cool and clean. The ridge road out of the village runs with the White Mountains ahead and the Heights above Souda Bay falling away to the right — an alignment that always feels like a statement: height, sea, and memory in one frame. The morning held that November clarity Crete does so well: the kind that makes edges sharp and colours muted, where the air is thin but still warm enough to promise a day’s ride. The route traced a familiar circuit, yet on this day it carried weight. We rolled from Kokkino Chorio down through Kambia, then took the descent of the Four Hills Climb, gravity doing the early work while the mind prepared itself for the day. The air cooled in the hollows, then opened wide again as we hit the Aspro Tracks, the tyres crunching over stone and dust, olive leaves flickering in the light. From Aspro we reached Gavalochori, the village of Venetian arches and stonework, where the wells and lintels still carry carved initials of those who built them five centuries ago. The rhythm of the ride settled — the breathing, the legs, the slow unfurling of thought. We took the Roller Coaster, the track that rises and falls like a pulse, then climbed steadily toward Tsivaras, through fields lined with dry-stone walls. At Water Tank Hill the gradient tightened, the climb sharp but short. Then came the descent of Nick’s Climb — loose, fast, and exacting — before we ducked under the National Road and turned for Armeni. Armeni came as it always does — shaded, quiet, and shaped by its fountain. The square lay in soft light, and we stopped at Kiosky Café for coffee. The owner greeted us with the usual smile and a tray of thick cups and small cakes. We sat in the morning sun as it reached into the square, the smell of roasting beans mixing with damp earth and laurel from the riverbed below. The talk was easy, stories shared about service, families, and past postings — the kind of conversation that drifts naturally among veterans and friends. It was a pause of warmth before the solemnity that lay ahead. From Armeni we followed the rough stony track that runs parallel to the National Road, rising gradually through scrub and olive terraces toward Kaina. The surface shifted under the tyres — rock, dust, grit, and the occasional glint of quartz. Kaina lay quiet, its narrow lanes twisting between whitewashed walls and citrus gardens. Beyond its edge, a small Ξωκκλήσι (wayside chapel) came into view, alone on the slope, facing the south-west light of the mountains. It was there, after Kaina, that we stopped for the Two Minutes’ Silence. The chapel stood above the valley line, its bell rope still, the sea invisible beyond the ridges but its presence felt. We leaned our bikes against the wall and stood facing west. At 11:00, the moment came. For two minutes there was nothing — no engines, no voices, only the whisper of air through cypress and the faint creak of a bell chain. Those two minutes carried a century of memory. They were not for victory but for remembrance — for those who fought and fell, in all wars, under all skies. The stillness held weight; it had substance. Even the birds seemed to wait. When it passed, we did not speak. The silence itself was complete enough. From that spot the view opened south-west across the plain toward Alikianos and the mountain passes leading to Hora Sfakion — the very route used by Allied troops during the Battle of Crete in 1941. Standing there, we could trace with our eyes the same line of withdrawal — through Stilos, Vrises, and over the high ground toward the south coast. Thousands took that road under air attack, many captured, some making the desperate night embarkations to Egypt. In that moment we remembered them too — and those now resting at the CWGC Suda Bay War Cemetery, whose headstones face the same morning light that guided us from Kokkino Chorio. The tradition we observed began not in London or Paris, but in Cape Town, in 1919. Sir Percy FitzPatrick, whose son had been killed on the Western Front, proposed that each day at noon the city should stop for two minutes — one for the living, one for the dead. The idea spread through the Empire; by November that year King George V decreed that the same silence would be held across Britain and its dominions at 11 a.m. on the anniversary of the Armistice. Trains halted, ships sounded their horns, factories stopped — the first global act of remembrance through shared stillness. During the Second World War, when the 11 November fell on working days and wartime production could not pause, Britain introduced Remembrance Sunday, allowing national services and parades to take place without interrupting essential work. After the war, that pattern remained: the Sunday nearest the 11th for the public ceremonies, the 11th itself for private reflection — the exact minute when the guns fell silent in 1918. Two musical calls frame those ceremonies: the Last Post and the Reveille (or in naval service, the Rouse). The Last Post, sounded before the silence, marks the end of the soldier’s day — a bugle call of closure, signalling that duty is done and rest permitted. The Reveille, played after the silence, brings the opposite message — the awakening, the call to rise and carry on. Together they embody the whole purpose of remembrance: not only to honour the fallen, but to continue the life they safeguarded. The echo of those notes lingers long after the bugler lowers the instrument. On Crete, remembrance runs through daily life. Every village square has its stone column of names: farmers, priests, and sons taken in the resistance. The island’s soil itself is a record — of occupation, courage, and reprisal. To stand in silence at a roadside chapel on this day was to join that same tradition, not as visitors but as inheritors of the same duty. We remounted in silence and continued toward Vamos, the old capital of Apokoronas, where narrow alleys twist past Venetian doorways and stone courtyards. From there the route led to the Health Centre Track, descending to Xerosterni, its lanes quiet and shaded by vines, then on through Paleloni and Drapanos, finally closing the loop into Kokkino Chorio. Alongside the silence came another symbol — the red poppy. Its story, too, began on the Western Front. In 1915, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, a Canadian doctor, wrote In Flanders Fields after seeing poppies bloom among the graves at Ypres. The image spread fast: red flowers springing from torn earth, their colour echoing both blood and renewal. In 1921, Moina Michael, an American teacher, began selling silk poppies to raise funds for veterans. That same year, Field Marshal Douglas Haig, founder of the Royal British Legion, adopted the poppy as its emblem. Since then, each November, millions wear it not as decoration but as declaration — of remembrance, gratitude, and duty. As we climbed away from Vamos, the fields opened wide, olive groves giving way to rockier slopes. The villages behind us were quiet again, smoke beginning to rise from kitchen fires. The air warmed, the mountains glowed pale against the noon light, and the sea beyond Souda Bay shimmered like metal. The ride was measured not in gradient or distance but in purpose. By the time we reached Kokkino Chorio once more, the light had lengthened, the horizon burnished. The same sea that bore the convoys of 1941 now lay calm and silent beneath us. That morning’s ride had been remembrance made physical — movement honouring stillness, breath acknowledging silence. We had carried memory across the same ground that once carried soldiers and farmers, and now riders. Mandináda About the Mandináda The mandináda is a Cretan tradition — a two-line, fifteen-syllable verse, usually improvised, expressing emotion, reflection, or philosophy. They are sung, spoken, or written at moments of love, humour, or remembrance. For me, each ride ends with one of these verses. It is my way of fixing the experience in language — part memory, part dedication — a small poetic salute to the land and its story. Every mandináda is written after the ride, distilled from the mood of the day, the terrain, and the thought it left behind. English Upon the road of memory, we ride and take our stand, for those who fell on foreign soil and never reached this land. Greek Στου δρόμου τη μνήμη περπατώ, κρατώ το προσκεφάλι, γι’ αυτούς που πέσαν μακριά κι’ εδώ δεν έχουν πάλι.
01:46
32.4km
18.4km/h
760m
770m
Alan McWilliams went mountain biking.
October 26, 2025
Ammoudari – Askifou Plateau Loop The ride covered 20 kilometres, with a total elevation gain of 600 metres. Riding time was 1 hour 37 minutes, with an ascent of 1 hour 2 minutes and a descent of 35 minutes. 85% was off-road. The route began in Ammoudari at 09:20, climbing steadily through the pines to 1,400 metres before looping west above the Askifou Plateau and dropping back toward the village. At that altitude the air was cool and dry, but the sun warmed us. It was a compact mountain ride — physical, precise, and balanced — demanding enough to hold focus yet short enough to leave time to stand still, take in the view, and notice the old world still present in the land: the terraces, the ruins, and the pithoi that remain where they were first placed. The morning light broke hard and clear over Ammoudari. The air still held the bite of altitude; wood smoke drifted between the stone houses. My E-MTB rolled quietly through the village, tyres rolling over cold tarmac. Ahead, the peaks of the White Mountains rose sharp against the sky — ancient guardians over the Askifou Plateau. At the edge of the last bend stood an old threshing floor. Beside it, half-buried and leaning, a great earthen jar caught the light. A pithos. The word comes from the Greek πίθος — meaning a large, heavy, hand-thrown storage jar used across the Aegean for millennia. Most stand between one and two metres tall, made from coarse local clay, and used to hold olive oil, wine, grain, or water. They were built not for beauty but for survival. Thick-walled, ribbed for strength, sealed with clay or stone lids — these were the industrial containers of the ancient and rural world. Every village had them. Every household needed them. This one had done its work long ago. Its surface was cracked and bleached from the sun; lichen filled the grooves where rope once cut into the wet clay. I stopped beside it, touched the rim — cool, rough, and solid. It was older than any of us. Once, it would have stood in a courtyard like the one I have at home in Kokkino Chorio, filled with the oil of a hard-earned harvest. Now it held only dust and weeds, but even empty it still spoke of purpose. Riding higher toward the Tavri Refuge, the view opened across the plateau. From above, the land looked like the inside of a colossal vessel — terraces like ribs, olive groves like stains left by use. The shape of the earth echoed the shape of the jar. It struck me that the Askifou Plateau itself is a pithos — a natural bowl that has held life for centuries: crops, herds, armies, and the constant movement of people who worked and endured here. The road steepened. Outside a shepherds hut I passed two smaller jars, each tilted at the same angle, as if they had leaned on one another for decades. Their potter’s marks — faint spirals and finger traces — were still visible. They told a story beyond kings or generals. These were the vessels of ordinary people: the shepherds, farmers, and women who filled them season after season. Where the elite owned fine amphorae for display, the villagers made do with the pithos — vast, heavy, and essential. Ceramic historians tend to favour the delicate — the painted kylix or decorated jug — but these coarse jars reveal the true infrastructure of life. Each one was a piece of local engineering: clay dug by hand, fired in hillside kilns, cooled, then rolled or dragged to a courtyard. A single pithos could store a family’s entire year of grain or olive oil. They were practical architecture — the first industrial containers. In Chios, similar vessels filled the courtyards of monasteries and merchant farms, studied now by Nikos Liaros and others. His work reminds us that these jars were part of a wider Aegean economy — the arteries of an island world that survived on what it could store and trade. Crete was the same. From Minoan palaces to Venetian farms, pithoi have outlasted their owners. Empires rose and fell, but the jars remained, too solid to destroy and too useful to discard. Throughout Crete’s long history, the pithos has been a constant companion to its people. The great palatial storerooms at Knossos and Phaistos still hold rows of Bronze Age jars that once contained olive oil, grain, and wine for redistribution across the island. Centuries later, during the Venetian and Ottoman periods, similar vessels lined the courtyards of monasteries at Arkadi, Toplou, and Gouverneto, storing the produce that sustained both monks and villages through siege and famine. Even in the nineteenth century, Cretan potters continued to throw pithoi by hand in local kilns, using the same techniques and clay sources as their Minoan ancestors. To see one today, cracked and lichen-covered beside a mountain track, is to look at an unbroken chain of craft stretching over three thousand years — a living archaeology of endurance. Socrates himself wrote nothing; what we know of him comes from the voices of others. Yet through those voices he taught that wisdom lies in the life of the ordinary man — in labour, in humility, in questioning what seems trivial. “Work with your hands if you would be truly free,” he is said to have told his followers, not to glorify toil but to remind them that thought without action is empty. The old pithoi of Crete embody that truth. They were shaped by ordinary men and women, unknown by name, yet their work endures when the names of rulers have long turned to dust. Halfway up the climb, I stopped where the track turned to stone. The plateau spread below, gold and green under the mid-morning sun. I imagined the centuries of hands that had lifted grain into these jars, the olive oil poured, the lids sealed tight with waxed cloth. Each pithos was a contract with the future — a promise that what was earned in labour would not be lost to weather or time. At the refuge, the wind rose from the Libyan side — cold, clean, unbroken. The mountains folded back into a brilliant white; the plateau below glowed like fired clay. Somewhere in that silence, a shepherd called out to his flock — a sound as old as the vessels themselves. I thought again of the jar in my garden. It stands on gravel against the white wall of the house, ribbed and pale as bone, its three handles still strong. The form is timeless — the same triple-handled shoulder design used since Minoan times. The ribs strengthen the walls and help the pot cool evenly in the kiln. The narrow base allows it to stand securely when half-buried, just as mine does now. Its clay is the colour of Cretan earth, likely from Thrapsano or Margarites, where potters still turn and coil jars by hand as their fathers did. That vessel in my garden is no ornament — it is a direct descendant of the same lineage I rode past today: practical, enduring, and honest. Its purpose has changed, but not its meaning. The pithos endures — a reminder that survival is not about glory, it’s about continuity. These vessels were never made for museums. They were made to hold life. And in that, they still succeed. Mandináda English What’s rooted deep in its own soil will not bow to the wind — the pithos, like the soul, outlasts time and blooms again. Greek Ὅ,τι κρατεῖ στὸν χῶμα του, στὸν ἄνεμο δὲν λυγίζει — ὁ πίθος ὅπως ἡ ψυχὴ, τὸν χρόνο νικᾷ καὶ ἀνθίζει. Literal Back-Translation Whatever holds firm in its own soil does not bend to the wind — the pithos, like the soul, conquers time and blossoms again.
01:37
20.0km
12.3km/h
600m
600m
Alan McWilliams went mountain biking.
October 23, 2025
“Of all men’s works, none endures like the road — for it carries both the living and the memory of the dead.” — Herodotus, The Histories (Book V, adapted) We departed Kokkino Chorio at 09:00, the morning clear and already warming under the first light spilling over the Drapanos ridge. The air still held a trace of night chill, but the sky was flawless blue — the kind of day that promised fast tracks and sharp shadows across the valleys of Apokóronas. The ride covered 37.5 kilometres, with 753 metres of elevation gain. We were riding for 2 hours 15 minutes. Gradients reached +19.8 % to -18.4 %, with an elevation range of 10–170 metres. 55 percent of the route was unpaved — rocky, stony, and fast — the rest along narrow lanes linking the olive groves and hamlets. The ascent time totalled 1 hour 21 minutes, descent 53 minutes, spread across four climbs and three descents. This was a ride of sustained climbing, broken ground, fast rolling sections, and constant concentration. The kind of route that rewards rhythm and patience — one that writes its own story through dust, gradient, and resolve. From Kokkino Chorio we rolled down through Kambia, picking up the pace towards Plaka and Almyrida, the early sun glinting off the sea. The village streets were still quiet, only the sound of shutters and morning greetings. We entered the Roller Coaster, the familiar rhythm of ups and downs returning at once. In Singletrack Gully, a fallen tree lay across the track leaving little room between the fence and the tree. I hit it hard, the handlebars catching the fence before I could steer away. No real harm done, just a reminder that the mountain always has the last word. Beyond that, the Olive Groves opened up, fast and undulating, tyres humming over the packed earth, shadows chasing between the trees. The loop above Kalyves was quick and fluid, and soon the track above the Kiliaris River appeared — rough, narrow, undulating and beautiful to ride. As we dropped down the air cooled near the water, the scent of plane trees thick. We picked up the loop track passing the small church of St John The Forerunner. We hit the water of Ford Crossing, which sparkled in the light. At Armeni, coffee and cake were waiting at the kiosk by the square, where we sat in the warm sun. My riding partners shared stories of life before Crete — careers, cities, families scattered across the world — all now drawn to this small island by the same search for quiet and space. The coffee was strong, the conversation easy. After coffee came Nick’s Climb, then Water Tower Hill, each section tightening the legs. At Tsivaras, the track turned steep, the gradient biting up to +18%, taking us to the small white chapel of Prophet Elijah (Προφήτης Ηλίας). We paused at the top to catch our breath and take in the view — the White Mountains distant, their peaks faintly veiled in haze. From there, we dropped back into the Roller Coaster, climbing Shrine Hill, and then let gravity take us down the long descent on a Venetian road into Gavalochori. Gavalochori – "The Village of Stone and Voice" Gavalochori bears the mark of Venetian influence, still visible in its stone arches, wells, and vaulted cellars. The old olive oil factory — now the Women’s Cooperative Museum — preserves the lace-making traditions of the village, a craft that links generations of women whose hands turned thread into livelihood. Venetian masons left their signatures in the carved lintels above doors, their style fused with Cretan form, producing that familiar architecture of stone walls, courtyards, and shaded terraces. But it is the Cretan dialect that truly gives the village its heartbeat. Still spoken in these parts, it carries echoes of Doric Greek and Venetian loanwords, a linguistic relic of centuries of occupation and endurance. Words such as “katoi” (lower house) and “metóhi” (farmstead) trace back to that long blend of East and West. The sound of it is softer, more rhythmic — an island music shaped by necessity and pride. Even today, elders in the kafeneía still use turns of phrase heard nowhere else in Greece, speech as rugged and beautiful as the land itself. From Gavalochori, we took the Aspro Tracks, then climbed the Four Hills before looping back through Kambia and finishing in Kokkino Chorio. The final ascent was steady, the dust rising behind the tyres, legs weary but content. Mandináda English Through Cretan stone and olive shade, the riders find their line, each climb a prayer to those who rode before this road was mine. Greek Μες στ’ ασπροκρητικά βουνά, στου ελιάς το φως περνά, κι’ ο κάθε ανήφορος μιλεί, για κείνους που προχωρά.
02:19
37.5km
16.2km/h
750m
750m
Happy Holidays! 🚵♂️🎅🥾🎄
Translated by Google •
Like