Living

It’s not always obvious where ideas come from, but in the case of the Wood brothers and their 10-week cycle across southern Europe tracing the route of Hannibal, it seems that it was just a matter of time before it happened. First, childhood holidays to places like Pompeii means, as Danny said, that they’ve “always been obsessed with ancient history and Romans and Greeks.” Furthermore, two of the three brothers are keen cyclists. “Ben and I have done a lot of cycling trips together for many years,” explained Sam, including routes in Ireland and Australia. Unsurprising, then, that “we’d been thinking about doing a trip like this,” according to Sam, “...and we wanted to combine cycling and history.”

It took two years to bring the original idea to fruition. First it was necessary to get the BBC on board for the filming. Danny’s contacts proved useful here, but it still took time: “They approve it and you think ‘oh great’ and open the champagne, and then there’s always someone else who has to approve it and then there’s someone else.” After this, there was six months spent writing a “50, 60 page” treatment, as well as a lot of research.

Finally, in September this year, the three set off on their adventure from Cartagena in southern Spain to Zama in Tunisia, a journey of over 3,400 kilometres. They planned to complete the route in 10 weeks (including rest days), cycling 90 kilometres daily, but from the start things took longer than expected, partly as a result of schedule clashes. “The good times to film are mornings and late afternoons and that’s when you want to cycle,” said Danny. Other downsides have included GPS malfunctions, lack of sleep and falling off the custom-made steel touring bikes (Danny had fallen off several times, often when stationary, due to the bike’s clipped pedals that prevent the rider just pulling his feet out).