Well.... He did it again. For the second time in six years, my husband has convinced me that we should drag our nine-foot-long recumbent tandem bicycle over to Europe for a bicycle tour. We will be putting ourselves and our Rans Screamer (yes that's what it is called) on a plane for a 14-hour plane ride, having to make a connection within two hours, and hopefully arriving in Prague with our bike and luggage, intact. From there we will be starting a three-week, self-guided tour through The Czech Republic, Austria, Germany, Slovakia, and Hungary. Our luggage will be transported from hotel to hotel for us, and all we have to do is ride from hotel to hotel. It sounds pretty straight forward, but we are going to places we've never been and places where my high school French does me no good (except maybe in a French Bistro). I'm trying to be excited, but right now, I'm on the "what if this happens?" train and I can't get off it.
Initially, we had four other people interested in doing this amazing adventure with us. Everyone else has backed out. One is a dear friend of mine just won't fly, which makes me sad because she has flown before to go on a bike tour with us so her and her husband are out. A friend of theirs who was going decided they didn't want to do it and the fourth person, a college friend of my husband's said he had been ill and would not be able to get in shape quick enough to do it. We tried to convince some cousins to go but they want to try a domestic bicycle tour with us first, before they take the plunge on something this extensive. I think I would be less anxious if other people were coming with us, but we noticed on our last bike tour that we would run into the same people over and over again along the way, who were other cyclists doing the same self-guided tour as us. The last time we met two lovely couples, one from Australia and the other from The Netherlands. We rode and ate meals together and had a great time. I'm hoping to meet some other fun people this time as well.
Our last bicycle tour in Europe was actually two back-to-back separate tours, one in The Netherlands and the other mainly in Belgium with a few stops in France and Germany and a brief crossover into Luxembourg. We took a non-stop flight from the US to get there, so I didn't worry too much back then about losing one or both of the bags that contain the two halves of our bike. Everyone spoke English clearly and everyone we met was extremely nice and helpful. We had several mechanical issues during that tour that we were able to solve and one experience with street crime that arose from naivete. If there was a problem, we found a solution (one time it was duct tape and zip ties... I kid you not). It's not our second bicycle tour, though. We have done four bicycle tours in the US and one in Canada, so bicycle touring isn't something new. It's just that each one has its own set of challenges and unforeseen issues.
I'm currently focused on logistics. Until we claim all our bags in Prague, and I know that customs didn't forget to put something back in the bike bag that they may have taken out to inspect, I'm going to be nervous.
Today we registered our bicycle bag packed with 1/2 of our tandem bike, with the airline and received the message back that we will be contacted in 48 hours as to whether our bag is acceptable. Huh???? So, what are we supposed to do if it is not accepted? I have no clue... Luckily, we did not wait until the last minute to do register it, so I'm hoping that early registration will help us. I also downloaded the four different language dictionaries we will need into Google Translate, and set up our information on our travel insurance smart phone app and set up our airline app. The second bike bag is partially filled with bike tires and parts and is waiting for other biking gear and maybe some clothing.
I didn't mention that while our tour is supposedly booked, we are waiting on an invoice from the tour company and the trip is very soon, which makes me very nervous.
There are only a few more tasks I can do ahead of time before it's time to pack clothing. Clearing pictures off my phone so I have enough room to take more. Making sure our cycling app can load GPX files. Maybe do a little recon in the area around each hotel we will be staying at. Our route directions will actually give us points of interest along the way to consider. Maybe keep an eye on the long-term forecast for the area so I know if I'm going to need cold weather gear or not.
Going forward, I will be thinking about how I am going to do laundry on this trip so I can pack as little clothing as possible. I'm going to be anxious about what time we need to be at the airport, given we have an hour and a half drive to it, and have to drop off a car at a long-term parking lot, and dump our bags, dealing with any issues with that bike bag. I'm thinking about how we are all going to a huge local event the night before with family and how I'm going to feel the next day. I'm thinking that we have to put this bike in a car or on a train at some point on this tour (which one is to be determined) so not sure if we are going to have issues with that even though the tour operator says we won't. I'm just worried that something... anything.....could go wrong. At least we have GPS and technology now, and hopefully GPX files to download into a cycling app. I can't imagine trying to do this with a map, written directions, and no cell phone.
I wish I had the personality of someone who could just kick back, not worry, and just get excited, like my husband.
Yeah, I'm not that person. At least not yet. I'm working on it, though.
One worry was taken care of this week. We made sure that the end of the first tour and the beginning of the second tour start at the same hotel, so we don't have to worry about getting our luggage from one place to another in a city to get to the beginning of the second of our two tours.
I have never blogged a bicycle tour experience before, so I hope I have some really great experiences to share. I'm not bringing a computer with me so I'm limited to what I can do on my phone. I discovered that I could not shrink photos after I've inserted them in a blog post so I will probably set up an Instagram account and insert a link to them in the blog.
One day later. If you are interested in photos of this trip, I've set up tan instagram page for photos. Note this will be a private account so send a follow request to 7th_decade_redhead on Instagram. I've already posted a few pre-trip photos there.
I do have another blog here about my attempt last year to lose 60 pounds by 60 years, and my experiences and struggles with that. That blog is about losing weight without any special drugs, meals, gimmicks, or crazy diets. It covers everything from what I ate, to my thoughts about why I gained so much weight, remained overweight for 30 years, and about the things I learned in the process of losing 65 pounds. You can read that blog here:
Stay tuned for future posts.
