We thought we’d write a little note about our daily life on the roads and on the bikes – more for our own reference and so we can remember things we’ve learned for next time. Yes, at this point we are both still keen for a next time. I’ll revisit this after 6 more weeks camping and riding. This will be a very mundane entry, but perhaps of some interest for anyone planning a cycle trip. We’ve certainly made plenty of mistakes, and we are still learning.
A typical day on the bikes
We get up at about 9am (sort of) and someone hunts out coffees if this is possible. Breakfast is either cereal and UHT milk from our panier ‘pantry’ or we’ll get ‘something’ on the road (something on the road is always pastries). We pack up the camp – deflate the mattresses and pillows (Jamie), pack them into their bags (Jamie), take down tent (C or J) dress in our cycle clothes, sun cream ourselves, and then pack the trailers while checking we’ve not lost anything again (Cassy).
We then check the maps/rout, think about where we might stop for lunch and hit the road…
We generally ride around 20-30klms before we have lunch, but this depends on the path and whether we’re carrying lunch foods or hunting for lunch. Lunch is usually fresh bread, tuna/salmon, cheeses and salad. We may or may not sneak in more pastries. After sufficient time off to gorge and rest our sore rear ends and wrists, we get back on the bikes and start the afternoon cycling.
The afternoon is obviously the balance of klms left to our destination. Often we are not sure exactly where we’ll end up as it again depends on trails, bikes, tiredness and how good the campsites look when we roll past. We only booked accommodation ahead for Paris and Dijon, all other times we simply turn up and hunt out something. It seems to work, although occasionally we’ve had to ride further than expected due to campsites being closed/accom otherwise not available. Both of us refuse to back track, so if we decide not to stop initially, we go on until we find accommodation.
When we arrive at our campsite, we each have our little jobs – Jamie loves to put up the tent, so he does. Whoever is less desperate for a shower inflates the mattresses with the pillow-pumps . Usually we’re starving by this time, so I generally start cooking straight away. I have a little camp stove, one pot and one pan. Our camp dinners vary, and I try to keep us healthy (and full of carbs). We’ve had quite a few pasta dishes with various sauces, as well as salads, fish and other seafood and vegetable dishes. Often we’re more adventurous – and in Tonnere we had grilled prawns, tuna sashimi and an avocado/green salad with blinis. We go out for dinner a fair bit too.
After dinner we might explore our new home town a little if we’re not too tired, or we might just lock the camp up for the night. We lock the wheels of the trailers together, and then lock the zips closed. We lock the bikes and we sleep with them near us so we can intercept any further thieving attempts. We fight over who gets to read what, and then we sleep. And that’s how we roll.
The gory details, if you want them
The bikes and our outfits
We both ride mountain bikes with slicks on them, despite requesting semi slicks. The bikes are great, and the tyres are ok for most terrain but can be slippery on the gravelly paths, hence the frequent falls. Both bikes are 24 speed . My bike is a Trek (this is apparently a cool bike) and Jamie’s is a Giant (this is more a ‘Dad bought it at K-mart bike’ – but Jamie’s much longer and stronger legs need disabling for his sanity during our rides).
We wear normal t-shirts but proper bike shorts/pants which have a chamois padding over all delicate areas. This sort of helps. Neither of us wear anything under our bike pants (you may wonder why I feel I need to include this here – but it is cyclist talk, I know – I’ve been googling). In theory we Vaseline ourselves over the ‘sit bones’ everyday to protect against the shearing downward force of bone on soft tissue. Mostly we forget the vas. I have to endure a sore backside as well as Jamie’s constant cry “Sore ass or sore legs, you choose”. Without meaning to I choose both every day.
We’ve modified our helmets somewhat to offer more sun protection – the days are long and the sun is extremely hot now. Jamie mashed some cut-off cap rims underneath the front of the helmets. We look like bionic ducks. This helped a little, but I was still getting burnt in the face daily. So, we located a rip-off Ikea store and I bought a black mesh curtain (with a tassel). I cable tied it into my helmet, over the cap rim where it now hangs down over my face and neck. I know it looks utterly ridiculous and people stare sometimes, but I’ve decided that I choose to feel like an Arabian spy from the 1930s, and I’ll probably be able to ride faster and more mysteriously now.
Travel/distance/routes – 1500klms and counting
We’ve improved since our early days, and now average about 50klms a day. Our final distance depends a lot on the path conditions and whether we can find the path as well as how we are feeling and where we are headed. We did 74klms the other day and both felt fine at the end. Surprisingly this was on pretty average paths and over many hills. I guess our end distance also depends on other things (what time we start, aches, pains and hangovers among them). We hope to do an 80klm day with the trailers. I am certain we can easily do it if we get on the road early and heavily caffeinated. We are good with caffeinating ourselves, not so good at early starts.
Jamie is a map guru, and has taken it upon himself to struggle through the mess of maps to find our daily routes. To be honest, I don’t know how he manages and maintains sanity. The maps often lack detail/are incorrect, the cycle routes vanish (if they existed at all) and the cycle guides often happily place us on highways and main traffic thoroughfares. I did token map reading/trail finding for our recent Lake Konstance cycle, and even though it was relatively simple, after a few days I wanted to just throw the maps in the lake. I recovered though, and we made it back to Busingen.
I take my helmet off to Jamie for his map reading efforts.
Most days we resolve to leave early the following day – most days we get on the bikes around 11am.
Accommodation
We’ve finally realized hotels are no good for us and are now committed to camping, be it in a campsite or “au savage”. With our large, heavy trailers and bikes that need supervision/garaging, it’s much easier. Our camp bed is very comfortable too – unlike the hotels in our price range. The campsites cost between 7-20 euros a night, and are generally really lovely. We generally ride alongside water courses, so the campsites are set along water. The campsites often have free wi-fi internet access, are clean and they have a variety of amenities such as tennis, swimming pools, little shops and cafes etc. Shared bathrooms are not as bad as I’d feared, although I do find showering adjacent to loud, hairy European men a little weird still. And for some reason European bathrooms rarely have toilet paper…
Our trailers/luggage
We started out with a trailer each for our clothes/toiletries etc, and then shared the camp and general stuff. This soon proved an inefficient method – especially for hotels as it meant we had to lug both heavy awkward trailers upstairs and store them in the invariably tiny rooms. So, for some time now we’ve had a ‘daily’ trailer and a ‘camp’ trailer. The daily trailer has our frequently used clothes, our toiletries and also our backpack in it. This is where we keep our valuables. Jamie tows this trailer (because my toiletry bag weighs so much!). The camp trailer has our tent, mattresses, pillows, one remaining sleeping bag and all the clothes, shoes etc that we don’t use as often – it’s more storage. This configuration works best as we can take one trailer only to our room if we hotel, and if we camp we can set up quickly.
Feeding times/caffeine addictions
I was always a big eater, and the cycling has made us both very hungry very often. We always have breakfast, generally have a snack mid-morning before lunch, have a big lunch and then late dinner at the campsite. We always have stop at the first town we hit for a proper coffee and sometimes a visit to the boulangerie for breakfast. AND we sometimes have a mid-arvo coffee or diet coke hit too. It helps.
Tantrums
We’ve managed ok on this front – both of us have had our moments. I swear a lot and I find this helps. I always delude myself that children within earshot can’t understand English. Luckily our tantrums usually fall at different times, and so one can laugh at the other until the tantrum passes. Although we spent almost every waking moment together, we've not yet got too sick of each other...
When we need a day off the bikes, we have a rest day and explore our town and eat, drink and be merry.
There’s lots of merry.