1830 The final 25km into Osijek begins to hurt - but there is a real sense of joint endeavour across a very wide range of people of all ages from across Europe and beyond.

This morning I was engaged in high-level dialogue with a 12 year old Czech boy on who had the wettest pants - an honourable tie in a thunderstorm we decided.

This afternoon one of my riding companions was a British/Irish lady, who wanted her younger son, disabled by meningitis and cerebral palsy, to be able to enjoy riding with her.

Later I was chatting to a Turkish man resplendent in a matching cycling outfit that shouted ‘Turkiye’ from every panel. I discovered he had only learned to ride a bike two months ago by riding up and down his 10m back yard in Istanbul. And he cycled more than 30km in one go for the first time last week.

I have spoken more French, Spanish, Dutch, Hungarian, Croatian, Czech, Polish Serbian and whatever other languages I can pretend to make a stab at today than in a year of classic diplomatic activity.

This is Europe - and it’s a lot of fun.