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Saturday, January 9th
With the winter weather in full swing (see
picture below) we are continuing to train and plan our big tour.
I'm on the home trainer every day and also on a strict diet,
Monique on the other hand doesn't have a need for the home
trainer she's much more disciplined with her eating habits than
me. There is enough time for her to train when the weather warms
a bit which right now seems a long way away.
There has also been some decisions made for our Spanish section
of the tour, we are now seriously looking into the
Paul Benjaminse book cycling to Andalusia (in Dutch).
We (mostly) followed his book on our way to Barcelona in 2006
and it worked out great. The book points out places to stay,
(B&B's, Hotels and Camping's) every few kms, try's to avoid busy
roads and takes a lot of guess work out of finding routes while
visiting some of the most beautiful sights in the area. It also
has small caption's of the area's with accurate maps and
elevation profiles.
For camping, we have decided to take our Jack Wolfskin Worlds
End RT tent again for this tour, because we haven't found a
suitable warm weather tunnel tent. I looked into the Helsport,
Hilleberg and a couple other makers but the only thing they
offer is light weight and most seem to be winter tents with
minimal ventilation and jaw dropping price tags. There just
isn't anything out there that comes close to the space and
ventilation that the Jack Wolfskin Worlds End RT provides. It's
a shame they have discontinued this tent.
We just can't see paying 700/800 euros for a tent that really
doesn't fit our needs. There are a couple other makers that have
tents selling around the 400 euro mark, but again minimal
ventilation and space and they're only about a kilo lighter,
again that doesn't suit us. So I will repair a couple of leaks
and reinforce the tent floor were it's worn a bit, just in case
it springs a leak during our tour.
Maybe when this tent finally gives they will make something
similar but a bit lighter in weight.
I just need to loose 2kgs more than planned :-))
We now have 111 days left till our tour, thanks to the countdown
clock from yahoo widgets :-))
Our back yard this morning. Since writing this it has
continued to snow, it's expected to reach 15cm or more.
It's ironic that the first picture posted of our sunshine tour
is with snow :-))
Monday, February 1st
88 days to go for our longest tour yet. We
are beginning to get excited now and a bit nervous, there are a
lot of things to take care for such a long tour. We have to find
solutions for our house, cars, cats, repair the tent, just to
name a few. One just doesn't say I'm off to tour Europe, hop on
a bike and leave.
Training on our bikes is still a long way off, as its still
snowing outside. I think by mid March we should getting
out for some rides.
I will put off on working on our bikes until the beginning of
March, then I'll check all the bearings. I will be fitting new
tires, new rear sprockets for me (from 11/30 to 11/32) and
replace the middle sprockets on Monique's bike (one or two that
she uses most skip a bit with a new chain), about two weeks
before we leave, that will give us time for a few rides to make
sure everything works good.
That's it for now will post again in March.
Monday, March 1st
60 days left and we're slowly getting
the things together. The excitement is slowly building and at least for
me it's finally beginning to sink in the actual length of this tour. It
is by far the longest we
The weather has warmed a bit but not enough that we could go out
cycling. We've seen the diehards out there but we've always said if we
could not enjoy the ride it was no use going out, and that means the
temperature has to be in double digits.
Anyway I think month we'll get most things ready so we could spend April
on the road getting in some kms
Friday March 26th
Its now 5 weeks to go and the preparations
continue. It seems that the time is speeding up the closer we
get to the start. The weather has finally broken and we did
several rides, a couple little ones to get used to the bikes a
gain and a nice 100kms ride to top it off.
I didn't know the tent would take so long to repair, but I'm
happy to say that it will be all set to go in a few days.
I'll be doing a complete overhaul of the bikes this coming week
so that will be out of the way. All in all were ahead of
schedule.
Friday April 9th
Three weeks to go now and emotions are
running high, we're both experiencing anticipation, excitement
and fear just to name a few.
Preparations are continuing ok I guess, I ran into a couple of
problems with the bikes and tent, I wont go into details but it
took a few days to sort out. I am hoping now that everything
will be sorted out sometime this week which will leave two weeks
to play with.
We're planning an over night tour the following week to get the
handle on the loaded bikes and to test out the equipment before
we go. We like to leave at least a week to do this in case of
problems and need to replace something.
Looking at our schedules we should be having a bit more time in
the last two weeks to get some kms in and finish all the small
details before our tour, and they are many.
Be back in a week :-)
Friday April 16th
Two weeks now and we are slowly beginning to
close/stop everything. Preparations continue, we got a few
things that we needed (new battery charger, alarm clock, etc...)
and found solutions for others.
I will be posting on the tips page soon.
We decided to change our route a bit, we are now going to be
heading east to the Rhine, follow it south past Strasbourg to
Mulhouse than west following the canal to Besancon before
heading south again to Grenoble and finishing at Marseille for
the first part of our tour.
Our main reason for this change is that for the last several
tours we've cycled along the Maas or Orthe rivers and/or through
the Ardennes. We haven't cycled along the Rhine for a while now
and we also like to visit one of our favorite city's,
Strasbourg.
We're also checking out how many
warmshowers.org hosts
are along the route, we plan on using a few in case of bad
weather, visiting city's like Strasbourg, Grenoble, Marseille
and others.
This tour is on our minds 24/7 now, none stop, it will be a
relief to finally get on the road and relax.
Friday April 23rd
It was supposed to be one week left but
good news, we have only 4 days left. While checking the extended
weather forecast we found out that after two whole weeks of dry
sunny weather this front is coming in from the west and bringing
wet weather starting on Friday the 30th so we moved up our
starting date to Wednesday the 28th.
This way we could have at least one good day to begin this tour.
Needless to say we are now extremely nervous and in a bit of a
dash to get the rest of the things done before the big day. Most
things are ready just a few things to take care around the
house.
We will try maybe on Sunday to do a small ride of +/- 50kms just
to see how the bikes handle fully loaded.
Sunday April 25th
Today was a great day, the weather was
perfect and we loaded up the bikes for our first proper test
ride fully loaded. The ride was only 40kms but it went very
good, the bikes handled good but we didn't fair so well, we're
bit out of shape. We knew this already so no surprise there. I'm
sure after a few hundred kms we will get into it again :-)
It just felt good to be on the saddle again after so much time
off.
The anticipation is killing us now, just a few more loose ends
and we're off.
Taking 5 in some Belgian village about 15kms from Maastricht.
Tuesday April 27th
Finally the time has come, tomorrow morning
as early as possible we will be starting on our longest
adventure yet. The wait is finally over, this tour that has been
in the planning for over 2 years is about to start and you
couldn't see two happier people on earth.
Everything is packed and hopefully we haven't forgotten
anything. This last couple of days have been hectic to say the
least, but we have managed to finish all the things we needed to
do before leaving.
The plan for tomorrow is about 100kms heading east with a few
hills in between so most likely we will quite spent when we get
to the campground.
So wish us luck and do visit regularly as we will be updating
this site as often as we can.
Adios ;-)
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