Slightly Freaking Out, On the Farm: 58 Short Days to Go

May 8, 2013

We have our gear organized, plane tickets and travel insurance in hand, farm looks pretty orderly, so what's the problem? Maps. Although as explained in the page called "Maps" we love those Bikeline books, there really is no way to carry them with us. For one thing, over half their content is commentary in German. It's great stuff, but does us little good. Sandra, based on the books, is writing up notes for us. So our project is to scan the maps we need, leaving the rest behind. It's slow going. The sleek books deceptively contain hundreds of maps. We also have a few other "chores" to do - like cycling across Idaho - so suddenly 58 days to departure does not seem quite so distant.

Even if time seems short, we had a day very well spent with the appearance of old friends Erica and Marvin Paxman. Although we have a satisfying large number of contacts in the cycle touring community, none live in our area. Until now. Erica and Marvin have acquired a pair of e-bikes, themselves rare in this area, and are planning to tour, first in Oregon and then in Europe. They showed up having cycled the 35 km over to our place, up not only with the bikes for us to look at, but with our equivalent of gold in their hands. What was that - yes, yet another Bikeline book!

Just what we need, more cycle books. (Yes, you can never have too many - and these are only borrowed).

The book was the one for the Moselle route, from Metz (in France) to Koblenz, on the Rhine. Naturally, we wanna do it! Sadly, though, it will have to wait for another year, and Marvin and Erica also can not go this year.

Still, we had a whale of a time talking about routes, about bikes, about cycle clothes, about saddles. In short, a CGOAB session right in our own kitchen.

So it goes, as we wait for the clock to run down to July 19.

Marvin and Erica found these e-bikes locally. They have great features: Hydraulic disc brakes, triple cranks with eight speed cassette in the rear, step through frame for Erica, etc. They are quite pedalable without using the batteries, and five selectable levels of assist with them. In my test ride, with the assist I kept forgetting to use my gears, and ultimately found the whole ride to be boring. On the other hand, Erica had serious injuries from an earlier bike accident, and probably would not be on the road without this bike. With that in mind, we think they are super. and the technology is fun to play with!

The e-bike batteries fully charged in about 3 hours.

Erica and Dodie check out the Terry and TeamEstrogen ladies gear sites.

We are thrilled to learn of the Paxmans' plans to enter the distance touring game. Here they and Dodie look over the cycle path map of Netherlands.

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	0
Comment on this entry	Comment	0