Two week countdown

Mary and Rhys: even weddings are made better with bikes! (Photographer: Charlotte Jopling)

At the end of May we'll be starting a four month career break. Part I is a two month cycle tour across Europe, from Derby, to potentially, Dubrovnik (*quite possibly not as far, or elsewhere - it just sounds good!). 

With less than two weeks to go until we set off, we're getting pretty excited! Over the last couple of weeks, we've been buying a slightly endless list of supplies - new front pannier racks, a travel washing line, shiny bottle cages. Not to mention some new touring bikes (a Sonder Santiago for Mary and a Genesis Croix de Fer for Rhys) to actually put all of our stuff onto! It's all starting to feel very real.

Practising cooking on a stove on a kit shake out ride

This year has been a bit busy with wedding planning, but we enjoyed the loveliest day getting married, and are now appreciating having more time to plan our tour. We've had a few very small kit shake outs including a very pleasant trip, with Michelle, to Middleton Top. It was helpful to see how challenging cycling a loaded bike up hills can be, testing our stove, and our increased stopping distances going downhill. I think we've learned that nights are still a bit cold (though less of a problem as we get further south), and that we need to slow the pace right down to allow us to go further.

Our plan is to cycle from Derby to the Hook of Holland, then along the flat coast of the Netherlands to Amsterdam, before joining the Eurovelo 15 route and following that down the Rhine. We have vague ambitions to get to Dubrovnik via following parts of Eurovelo 5 and 8, but want to avoid setting an actual end goal/daily distance. We mainly want to have a great time on bicycles seeing some cities, but also enjoying a slower pace to see the smaller towns and landscapes that connect the tourist destinations. We also hope to fit in the occasional parkrun, if logistics allows!

 

Our shiny new bikes

Packing is a little bit of a challenge. Our panniers are pretty roomy, so it's a little tempting to take the kitchen sink. But we're trying to be relative strict with ourselves! We'll be camping for some of the nights, as well as using Warm Showers (nothing dodgy, I promise! It's a website for cycle tourers that's like couchsurfing), with some hostels and B and Bs thrown in. We'll have a few days off the bike, but we've not planned these yet, but it will be nice to see Lake Constance, walk in the Alps, and chill in some pleasant cities like Strasbourg.

We just need to wrap up work, enjoy seeing friends over the next couple of weeks, and start loading up the bikes!