The best way to spend holiday is to go for a bike tour. It’s never boring and gives you loads of memories. If you manage to get into funny/stupid situations - that’s even better !
This year I had a choice of 2 bikes - my good old road bike (which survived UK - LT 2014 and UK - LT 2016) and “a new” hybrid bike which longest distance have been about 100 km so far. Took a risk and decided to show to the hybrid how Europe’s good and awful roads look like. Taking hybrid also let me to have rear panniers.
Ta daaam !
Late evening of 30th June 2019. Everything is packed and it’s time to catch a 10 pm train to Dover.
Oops No.1 - trains go to Folkestone only. That’s a minor problem as I can cycle to Dover. Set up my new Garmin 1030 and here we go.
Oops No.2 - Garmin decided to show me something that is classified as NCR. Pitch black (it was almost midnight). Fields. Bushes. Trees. More trees. Cows moo-ing somewhere in the distance. Cow pies right on my path. Too creepy even to take a picture. Very good start of the tour! Not really.
Oops No.3 - finally I’m in Dover and a nice man told me that my 2am ferry to Dunkerque in France … has been canceled! Obviously this hasn’t been announced anywhere. “Technical issues” they said. Well ok, let it be. I’ve had 2 options: 3am ferry to Calais or 4am ferry to Dunkerque. Nope to Calais so let’s wait till 4am …
7.30 am and my legs and bike touched the land of France.
Dunkerque to Antwerpen. 185 km to go. I could hear Antwerpen laughing in a distance - “no way you’ll arrive today”. But I did it! Arrived to Antwerpen just after 8pm. No adventures at all on that day. Just pedal pedal pedal …
Day 2. Antwerpen to Duisburg (Germany). Almost 200km to go. Left hotel at 6am. No rain, no strong winds and the sun is shinning. But I can’t just go without any silly adventures!
Oops No.4 was my own stupid fault. I bought that Garmin only few weeks ago and I didn’t know all it’s tricks. So while playing with various settings I managed to set it up for MTB cycling. It still stick more or less to preloaded route but I was going off road. 5 hours of cycling and only 70 km covered. And where I am? Somewhere in a place called Lommelse Sahara! It seemed to be a nature reserve but it looked like forest in Sahara. Sand and trees. Nobody to see. No roads. It was the point where I really got scared that I’ll end up here and thousands of years later archaeologists will dig up my bones and rusty remains of bike thinking that I am a very good example of stupidity.
Few deep breaths and I checked the maps. Few miles of crap “roads” and then I should reach civilization.
Because you are reading this it means I escaped unknown alien planet and reached native planet Earth and it’s humans.
The rest of the remaining distance was not so exciting. Same deja vu like the previous day - pedal pedal pedal. Arrived to Duisburg after 9pm.
Eeeeh, what a relief …
This year I had a choice of 2 bikes - my good old road bike (which survived UK - LT 2014 and UK - LT 2016) and “a new” hybrid bike which longest distance have been about 100 km so far. Took a risk and decided to show to the hybrid how Europe’s good and awful roads look like. Taking hybrid also let me to have rear panniers.
Ta daaam !
Late evening of 30th June 2019. Everything is packed and it’s time to catch a 10 pm train to Dover.
Oops No.1 - trains go to Folkestone only. That’s a minor problem as I can cycle to Dover. Set up my new Garmin 1030 and here we go.
Oops No.2 - Garmin decided to show me something that is classified as NCR. Pitch black (it was almost midnight). Fields. Bushes. Trees. More trees. Cows moo-ing somewhere in the distance. Cow pies right on my path. Too creepy even to take a picture. Very good start of the tour! Not really.
Oops No.3 - finally I’m in Dover and a nice man told me that my 2am ferry to Dunkerque in France … has been canceled! Obviously this hasn’t been announced anywhere. “Technical issues” they said. Well ok, let it be. I’ve had 2 options: 3am ferry to Calais or 4am ferry to Dunkerque. Nope to Calais so let’s wait till 4am …
7.30 am and my legs and bike touched the land of France.
Dunkerque to Antwerpen. 185 km to go. I could hear Antwerpen laughing in a distance - “no way you’ll arrive today”. But I did it! Arrived to Antwerpen just after 8pm. No adventures at all on that day. Just pedal pedal pedal …
Day 2. Antwerpen to Duisburg (Germany). Almost 200km to go. Left hotel at 6am. No rain, no strong winds and the sun is shinning. But I can’t just go without any silly adventures!
Oops No.4 was my own stupid fault. I bought that Garmin only few weeks ago and I didn’t know all it’s tricks. So while playing with various settings I managed to set it up for MTB cycling. It still stick more or less to preloaded route but I was going off road. 5 hours of cycling and only 70 km covered. And where I am? Somewhere in a place called Lommelse Sahara! It seemed to be a nature reserve but it looked like forest in Sahara. Sand and trees. Nobody to see. No roads. It was the point where I really got scared that I’ll end up here and thousands of years later archaeologists will dig up my bones and rusty remains of bike thinking that I am a very good example of stupidity.
Few deep breaths and I checked the maps. Few miles of crap “roads” and then I should reach civilization.
Because you are reading this it means I escaped unknown alien planet and reached native planet Earth and it’s humans.
The rest of the remaining distance was not so exciting. Same deja vu like the previous day - pedal pedal pedal. Arrived to Duisburg after 9pm.
Eeeeh, what a relief …