Our European Cycling Adventure 2019

By Deborah and Johan - We have been everywhere man.... everyday we cross a border at least 3x - somedays it’s hard to know where you are, when. It’s difficult to know who you’re talking to - what their native language is (mostly it’s German, which secretly I have quite an understanding for 🤣🤣) so tonight it happens to be France. The night before Germany and before that we slept in Switzerland because that was convenient! The countryside is always different but very the same. I’ve learnt a lot biking around! Questions arise and haunt you so you track that shit down... I must say Austria was my most challenging ride yet - stiff uphills, sharp downs and not much in between. We did travel one trail made by a Roman guy Claudia Augustus, he contracted to the Roman emperor of the time. Clearly he cut corners because that trail went straight up quite a few times. I have a few words of wisdom for Claudia, starting with ‘switchbacks’... anyway not many cool photos because I was just sweating

We are having a rest day in the Alsace region in France, around 80 kms south of Strasbourg after cycling for 6 days through the Rhein river valley from Landeck in Austria.  A good opportunity to briefly talk about the stuff we took on this trip. Not quite as exciting as a travel story and Deborahs travel pics but for those of you that may consider doing something similar it may be of some interest.  We are pretty happy with what we took. As always there is some stuff we could have left behind but generally we used most of it. I guess we went middle of the road; not too heavy but not ultra light. We felt that for a trip this long a bit of extra comfort would be nice.  The Bikes - nothing too fancy, two standard Merida Crossway 500 bikes. We bought these for commuting to work but they are fine for this type of touring too, especially in Europe where most parts for these bikes can be found ok.  At the time we paid approx $1000 NZD per bike  including the back carriers (but not the bags).

By Deborah and Johan - So we’re about halfway right now - that means about 2,350kms along the road (or up the road, I should say). This is northern Italy as the mid-point and to celebrate we’ll take a day off! This place has a pool and a very cool vibe - called Merano in southern Tirol. Johan has found a 10+ km walk to do tomorrow so that could mean rest (to some). I thought I’d look back on some of the stats from the trip so far... where to start?  Things wrong with the bikes - here’s the score -  *new brake pads 1 each - Johan and Deborah *new spokes for the wheel x 2 - Deborah *broken handlebar extension - Deborah (may have gripped that baby too tight on some downhills) *flat tyre x 1 - Deborah Sickness - Johan x 1, diarrhoea and vomiting 🤮 Total kilometres travelled 2399km (approx because we deserted Croatia in Dubrovnik and headed for the hills to Bosnia. The drivers were definitely freaking crazy in those parts) Total metres in elevation climbed- 19,269m (my legs have definitely

By Deborah - I’d like to say it took forever to get to Venice but it was more like a week since we first saw road signs pointing to Venice. Coming around the corner up the Coast from Trieste, the first one said ‘Venice 99km’. I was quietly excited 🤣 it’s got to be on everybody’s bucket list I reckon. We biked about 80kms that day - a bit off track because we were heading for the beach around 1pm each afternoon (remember that heatwave). Beach resorts galore with large sandy (but shallow) beaches. First camping we tried charged 64 euro for a small tent and 2 people. Understandably we moved on and found some more reasonably priced ones.  Next day we biked out from the beach place - the Venice sign came out ‘Venice 99km’.... WHAT? Yeah that coastline is a crock, it’s jagged with huge inlets and wet lands that have no bridges so in most cases you need to bike around to get to the next beach. Next day ‘99km’ and bitch hot 🥵. You could say it added to the magic of the city, it being so illu