George, Not a key story, but a handwritten map. Cycling the Carratera Austral in 1999, just as we were to start cycling South, a cyclist had just arrived at the hostel cycling up North. He gave us a hand written map that was "this town, this house on the second street fourth house down will sell you bread" and further on in the next town "the second house on the right will sell you eggs"...and so on.

We were at the end of the Carratera and met cyclists heading north. We gave them the map. We've often wondered how many times that map made it North to South to North.

A paragraph from our Sinop-Trabzon Tour in 2002, that's what happened in Görele, when we got up in the morning and wanted to continue our tour:

"The shop where the bikes were locked was closed. We rang the house bell of the hotel owner for a long time.

Finally, his wife stuck her head out the window and said that 'her husband had gone to the village and she didn't have the key!' I thought such a situation would only happen in comedy movies or in nightmares.

Just as I was about to lose my temper, on the suggestion of the grocer next door, we forced open the door that connected the shop to the stairs, which we had tried but couldn't open before.

And so we were free."

I'm really surprised at how many stories there are like this, of folks who can't get to their bicycles when it's time to leave.  It's so stressful.

It's a segue off the theme, but this reminds me of when we were lost biking through Hungary in 1994.  We were rescued when we came upon a man walking in our direction.  We told him the name of the town we were trying to get to (and I think I knew the Hungarian words for 'where is' as a prompt).  With no common language, he crafted a map for us - in sticks, on the road.

"how many stories there are like this, of folks who can't get to their bicycles when it's time to leave."

In 2017 I arrived in Dove Creek, CO with my 2 companions and we checked into the only motel in town. The clerk told us we couldn't take our bikes into our rooms but we could store them overnight in a storage room. I told her we would be leaving very early (4:30 am) the next morning and asked if anyone would be available to unlock the storage room for us. She said no one would be available before 6:30, so I asked if we could have a key to the storage room. She couldn't/wouldn't do that. This was especially frustrating because I had made a reservation a couple of months earlier and had specifically mentioned that we were traveling cross-country by bicycle - I had asked for first floor rooms so we could easily roll the bikes inside (as it turned out, the motel was just a single level anyway, so all the rooms were "first floor rooms"). We solved this dilemma by telling her we'd just lock our bikes outside of our rooms. Once it became dark we all rolled our bikes inside for the night - I take pride in being an honest and ethical person, but in this particular case I felt no moral pain for the subterfuge.  I understand that the motel has since changed policies and now allows cyclists to bring their bikes in the rooms.

“I'm really surprised at how many stories there are like this, of folks who can't get to their bicycles when it's time to leave.  It's so stressful.“

It sure is stressful but it can also be sort of entertaining and educational.

Quite a few years ago my wife and I did a train n’bike tour of Japan using our Bike Fridays. 

We only used the bikes to explore cities so mostly we stayed in hotels. Budget Japanese hotels can have exceedingly small rooms, too small even for folded bikes. Hence we usually asked hotel reception if we could keep the bikes in the luggage storeroom. 

Mostly good except, in the Kyoto hotel we stayed in. 

The woman in charge of the storeroom was exceedingly regimented and ran ‘her’ storeroom more like a maximum security prison than a side room off the foyer with a few suitcases and our bikes in it. 

Approaching her to get our bikes out in the mornings was a less pleasant, more intimidating experience than we’d ever had a border crossings or the most draconian airport security. 

Japanese efficiency is a wondrous phenomenon, but that hotel staffer was an example of efficiency morphing into unnecessary officiousness. 

Even on the third day of staying there (she clearly knew us but feigned non-recognition), she insisted on ID checks, ticket number checks, standing a set distance from the store entry etc.  There was no way she’d permit us into the store to help wheel the bikes out, even though she always had difficulty handling the bikes.

If the TV comedy  ‘Fawlty Towers’ were to ever have a Japanese version, this storeroom lady would be a natural to play Basil Fawlty.