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It's
difficult to sum up 5 months on the road in one page but WOW what
can we say, it was absolutely fantastic and we would not change a
thing.
We still believe changing our plans midway and not cycling to Spain
and Portugal was the right move. Cycling along the length of the
Loire, the Nantes / Brest canal, Brittany, the WWII invasion beaches
of Normandy and cycling back home was great.
It seemed to complete the circle.
Would we do it again? Without a doubt.
Its going to be hard to get over this tour as winter is coming on
and we have a lot of time to reflect. Right now we're trying to keep
ourselves busy so as not think about it much, but its no good, we
can't just put away what we've experienced these past 5 months.
On the road life is so much simpler. I can go on and on about all
the good a cycling tour like this can do to someone but unless one
climbs on a bike and takes to the road on a self supported tour of a
month or longer one can never truly understand.
Admittingly we missed our home some in the last 10 days or so as the
weather got colder at night and it started to become uncomfortable
living in a tent, but now being back just one week we wish we were
back on the road ;-)
I enjoyed writing and updating our web page during the tour even
though it seemed like a chore at times. I just hope everyone
appreciated the trouble.
Needless to say the next tour is already being planned.
The
best places we toured (for natural beauty) were Corsica, the
Dolomites and the Alps.
The worst place was Sicily. For about 60kms west of Palermo it was
filthy with many dead animals on the road (every 100m or so) and
mountains of garbage. Also it was way too expansive, we paid 34
euros for one night camping in Catania in what turned out to be a
parking lot with very large gravel.
The best and cheapest camping’s were in France.
The best and cheapest food was in Greece.
Our
equipment worked almost perfect.
The bikes worked great, only replaced the brakes and chains once.
I got three flats, one each day, all in the front tire, on the same
spot inside of the inner tube, and all on steep downhill's in the
Alps so I just replaced the rim lining with a thicker and wider one
and problem solved.
And we had to replace the pedals, the bearing cover came off, dirt
got in and one side on Monique's bike froze up. I will be investing
in better quality ones for both bikes as mine are the same brand
(the cheapest).
Our old and trusty tent developed a couple of leaks but we managed
well with a bit of seam sealer. For the rest it worked great.
The rest of the equipment was flawless.
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