Km 1369- 62 km today (todays?)
This was a very long day!
We were all packed up with time to spare before heading to the Frankfurt airport, the hunt was on for our last chocolate filled pastry. The town was so small, there didn’t appear to be a bakery! The hunt was still on. Exploring town we found the town grocery store, and just inside the front doors was all pastry anyone could want. I went in and bought us our regular, then Rob went in to get us coffee plus more pastry. I guess we did ride a 60 km the day before. Little did I know today our day’s ride was also going to be 62 km. The pastry was worked off.
At the airport we put our bikes in big plastic bags. We were told to let out all of the air in our tires and not leave any in at all. I was a little defiant and left a little in because we were told that the rims could be ruined. Rob was not happy about this, and made sure he got the name of the attendant who ordered this no air in tires rule, that way we could come back on someone if there was in any damage. All went quite well, my seat got a ding in it, but that was it.
The flight back was good. Our legs were the only thing that gave us grief, It was hard to sit so long with out peddling. They fed us well on the plane, we even got a free wine with dinner, that was a bonus.
We arrived back at 5pm BC time, but we were still on Germany time. Buy the time we got our bikes put together at the airport it was close to 7 pm. The weather was good to us for our ride home, we thought it would rain on us some of the way. It took us about 2.5 hours to get home on pretty much all bike route.
Chris
This has been one of the most worthwhile things we’ve done in a very long time, I recommend it to anyone who can ride a bike. There are so many types of tours that can match how adventurous you are, or your physical ability. Less than 5% of the people were fully loaded like us, most had a light two pannier load and were staying in hotels, or you can even have your luggage forwarded. There’s also fully guided tours where everything is done for you except peddle the bike, but I think this would insulate you from the thing we value most about the trip: the local people we met along the way.
So many people were curios about what we were doing, or were willing to help us without any hesitation. Many people even road with us to show us the way when we were lost, or even just wanted to show us a better route, like our unofficial tour guide going into Besancon. Truly amazing was the owner of Cycles Angot getting on his bike and taking us back to a shop we have already been to, and convincing the staff that they had the tire we needed. A truly laid back and cool individual, and we can’t thank him enough!
Some things we’ve learned:
After about 3 weeks we both realised we didn’t like drop handlebars. A bar needs to have at least one really comfortable position. Drops have many hand positions, but none were comfortable for very long. I’ve ordered the parts to convert to flat handlebars with Ergon grips.
Trangia stoves are slow and sooty! I missed my Whisperlite, but for ease of finding fuel we’ll likely get a canister stove for our next European tour.
Bring a chair. So many campsites didn’t supply a picnic table, and we got tired of sitting on the ground. We are now proud owners of Helinox Chair Ones. They will be worth their weight in gold! Our greatest ass-set 🙂
Just go! Whatever you want to do just take a deep breath and jump in.
Rob
Rob
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