Tell us your biggest touring error...

[bennytheegg]

I recently cycled from Brighton to Munich, stopping off in Paris and Freiburg before arriving in Munich for Oktoberfest to meet my mates who flew out there. It was my first "tour" and I learnt some valuable lessons:

My biggest error was undoubtably the return leg - I had a flight booked back with my mates from Freidrichshafen to Stanstead. We got caught up in traffic (in our hire cars) which meant for a mad dash to the gates for my mates... but I hadn't sorted out a box for my bike so I missed the flight. Hmmm.

Hungover and knackered I got the train into town and booked into a hotel - 70 euros - as there's only 1 flight to the UK per day. Booked flight. 230 euros. The next day I managed to get a box for free for the bike and made my way to the airport...

Hurray! After all the money I just wasted I accidentally on purpose bought the wrong train ticket and here comes the inspector! He tried to fine me 40 euros but I pretended I couldn't understand his (very good) english, said I only had 5 euros on me and he accepted (probably just pocketed it)

Arrived at airport very early and went to the bar. 2 hours later desk opens and I was informed that it would have only cost me 100 euros to fly back if I'd have informed the desk I'd missed my flight and wanted to re-book. Checked in the bike, and one of my 2 identical pannier bags, kept hold of the other one as it was small enough to be hand luggage. Returned to bar...

Flight gets called and I make my way through to the waiting area. Bag goes through x-ray machine.

I get asked to go to the side with 2 security guards and an armed police officer. "This seems a bit odd" I thought to myself as everybody else went past. Get thoroughly searched. Metal detector goes mental at my cycling shoes: Try to explain in very broken German. Accidentally make sudden movement and guard grabs my arm.

Tense couple of seconds pass:

Then I realise that I didn't consider that there's a slight chance some of the things in my "hand luggage" are a tad naughty, but I can't remember what went in what bag:

Oh dear.

I see an armed policeman removing my first aid kit. scissors. whoops! oh well, easy mistake-a to make-a!

That's a funny look he just gave me. Oh... now he's found the just about legal camping knife. This might take a bit of explaining. At least I'm not pissed.

Oh god, I am pissed.

What's he doing now? Is that... I didn't... brilliant! Now he's discovered my canister of methylated spirits.

Next time I tour I will definately learn some technical vocabulary of whatever language I am visiting. It would have probably make things a lot easier. On reflection, when I was asked "can you drink it?" - saying "nein!" and then pretending to light an imaginary lighter, followed by the international hand action for explosion - followed by saying "BOOM!!" - was probably not the brightest thing to do whilst trying to board an aeroplane. Saying the German for "flammable" would probably have been a bit less "terroristy!"

 

[snorri]

I can see your touring problems were not cycle related, the problems arose when you resorted to other modes of transport. The answer is clear, cycle more, rely on other modes less.

Tip, ferries are much more user friendly than aeroplanes.

 

[John the Monkey]

Not buying a map that included the ferry port at Dunkirk - it was a tense hour or so while we tried to find our way onto the map we did have, with Mrs Monkey unimpressed by my sense of direction!

Not leaving quite enough time for delays in ferries etc was a bit of a problem too, although we made all our trains (just).

 

[jay clock]

my very first tour I quickly realised that my gears were not suited to me, hills and a heavy load. I had a 30-40-50 triple which I changed to 24-34-46 when I got back and it certainly made future ones a lot easier. But my first tour was special.

 

[Crackle]

I originally posted this here but it's worth repeating, however Chuffy does top it later in the thread.


At the tender age of 16ish (just after O levels), a good friend, my cousin and myself decided to go on a summer working holiday. My friends brother, assured us that fruit picking jobs abounded in Devon and Cornwall and all we had to do was get there. This was 1979 by the way.

We had little money and so decided to cycle there. We'd already done a number of day trips so knew we liked cycling but we had no money and no gear. For some reason best known to ourselves we bought every 1:50000 map we needed to get from Runcorn to Cornwall, it took up one pannier and most of our money. As for the panniers, we made them out of denim we bought in the market and used coat hangars as internal frames. They were hung off the cheapest racks, which is all we could afford. We filled them with what we could raid from our respective homes, so in the history of touring we were the only people to carry pounds of spuds and tins of beans and peas.

The night before we set off I hardly slept. We were riding, me a Carlton Stadium, friend a Raleigh Arena and my cousin a bike of indeterminate make which we had all built together out of skip parts. Things didn't bode well when 1/2 a mile down the road one of the panniers split and we had to empty it and stitch it up.

Putting the 1:50000 maps to good use we cut across a private estate as a short cut and half way through my cousin was lunged at by a dog outside a lodge. He panicked, fell off and bust his front brake and the dog retreated. We spent half an hour putting his bike back together and then continued. The day dragged though, we were beset by technical problems and weighed down by our panniers but the final straw was my cousins back wheel collapsing and spewing bearings everywhere. We managed to round up enough bearings off the road to continue and decided to get over Esclusham Mtn near Worlds End (Llangollen way) before finding a campsite to regroup.

Going down the mtn I frightened a sheep which my cousin, unable to stop (minus one brake after the dog incident) chased for a mile down the road, screaming in panic and cursing me roundly.

Eventually we reached a campsite, very late on and totally exhausted. Only my friend had the energy to go back down the hill to the shops for some chocolate for all of us.

We never left Llangollen. My cousins back wheel needed replacing and so I set off in the rain on my bike to Ruabon to get a new one. With the map upside down I cycled 10 miles the wrong way before realising my mistake and turning round. By the time I got to the bike shop, it was shut.

We stayed a week until our money ran out. We had lots of adventures, ended up with a French girlfriend each for the week and generally revelled in the innocence of our age. When we finally returned we had a lot of explaining to do but stories to tell for the rest of our lives and all for about 200 miles of riding.

I think I learnt more from that tour than any other. It taught me every mistake there was to make and I never repeated them. Unfortunately I never repeated the pure adventure and exhilaration that that tour gave me either.

 

[Dayvo]

The answer is clear . . .

DRINK LESS!

Apart from the last leg, glad you had a good time, though!

 

[MarkF]

Realising that I had forgotten my inflatable mat maybe 10 miles after setting out. Decided not to go back and collect it, was then too cheap to buy another at a stockist within a mile, then bought a £9.99 one from Miletts in Skipton

No sleep

 

[snorri]

Not buying a map that included the ferry port at Dunkirk - it was a tense hour or so while we tried to find our way onto the map we did have, with Mrs Monkey unimpressed by my sense of direction!

It's not just you.
After going round in circles in that area I was fortunate to meet a local leisure cyclist with good English who was pleased to guide me to the ferry terminal.

 

[rich p]

It's not just you.
After going round in circles in that area I was fortunate to meet a local leisure cyclist with good English who was pleased to guide me to the ferry terminal.

It's not just you two, I did the same and ended up doing 31 miles instead of a planned 15, late in the day.

My worst mistake touring was to take the advice of a fat Slovenian campsite owner who clearly had never ridden a bike anywhere, let alone on the roads (and I use the term loosely) that he advised us to go on. We had planned on a route which was 65 miles due east but after taking his advice and climbing several dirt tracks over mountains we were still no further east of our starting point by 3pm having started off at 8.30am.
I have had good advice but I'd rather make my own mistakes in future!

 

[Davidc]

Great place Dunkirk ferry port

You can get lost on foot, on a bike, or in a car, take your choice! Even with a map.

 

[Ticktockmy]

[FONT=&quot]One of the worse mistakes I made was to not take note of a political situation, in late 1996; I was going to cycle from Singapore to Hong Kong, via Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam then through China.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Had all my visa’s, which had cost me lots of time and money, and much chasing around.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]The trip went well, nice slow dawdle through Malaysia, Thailand (though I had been warned about bandits in places by the Thai Embassy in London) Cambodia not so bad, apart from being shot at on one occasion, luckily they missed, later I found out that a couple of Australians, had not been so lucky.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] From Phnun Penh I took the ferry to the border at Chau Doc. At Chau Doc is where things went wrong, at Immigration, there was much scratching of heads and other parts of the body that Asian’s like to scratch when they have a problem, and phone calls being made, when I inquired as to what the problem with my visa was, I was told I could only go as far as Saigon (Ho Chi Ming City), then fly to Hong Kong, they would not allow me to cycle alone through Vietnam.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] Reason given was that we the British where forcible repatriating the boat people from Hong Kong, prior to handing it back to China; and they feared for my safety, should I run into any of them during my travels.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Total pissed off by it, I stayed the night there and returned to Phnun Penh next day, to revise my plans, finally stayed a week there, then returned by air to Singapore, and then spent 2 months mooching, around Malaysia. I was pretty pissed off by it is as my planning normally is very good. But it the problems which make touring enjoyable, well once you are back home.. But the East Coast beaches of Malaysia are nice, so not so bad[/FONT]

 

[Bodhbh]

Another victim of Dunkirk. First time I went over I didn't have a good map or notice before hand which side of the place the port was. Arrived just short of 10pm so spent about 3hrs wondering around the industrial units just S of Dunkirk in the dark, 30-40mile later finally got to Bray Dunes (sp?) around 1am and managed to pitch up opposite what looked like a cement factory.

After going subsequently it's not actually to bad, straight to Loon-Plage and take the road S the first roundabout in the centre and you're clear to go where you like.

Did used to miss planes by second guessing how serious the 'now boarding' call was from the bar although getting a bit long in the tooth for that sort of hi-jinx. Was daft enough to take a lock-knife on a keyring though security once. At the time - about 2 months after 9/11 - I was working in Belgium where they are legal and it was used for work where, working in a research lab, it got a fair amoutn of use opening boxes, cutting stuff up for experiments, etc. Chap who stopped me and asked me to one side seemed friendly enough, but he'd pressed some button for the cops, and soon enough I had 3 officers behind me. Got a caution for that and the knife got confiscated.

 

[Amanda P]

Two things spring to mind (neither particularly serious).

Ferries from Hull to Rotterdam dock at Europoort, NOT Hook of Holland. The two are only a couple of kilometres apart, but there's a big waterway in between and it's quite a long way around. Especially if you don't know the Dutch for "Diversion".

When you buy a pair of "touring" wheels on Ebay, count the spokes. On a tour of Ireland a couple of years ago, I was breaking two spokes a day. I got the wheel re-built when I got home, and the bike shop guy pointed out it only had 32 spokes, and was a funny wheel to go touring on. I'd never thought to check how many it had, and 32 looks much the same as 36.

 

[Cathryn]

My biggest error has generally been hiring bikes instead of taking my own...we've had a couple of weekend tours ruined by crap tyres and endless punctures.

 

[john59]

Many years ago two friends and I were doing a tour of Europe. While riding in Germany we mistakenly ended up on an autobahn. It’s the fastest we ever cycled on that tour.


John