Europe 2013 London, UK to Budapest, Hungary

I did it.

Packed up the bike and flew with it to London.

Rode across London to Ilford

Lots of fun with cousins and family

Rode out to Dover in two days

Ferry to Calais

Started the ride on the Continent

A complete report of the ride is available on the Crazy Guy on a Bike website here: https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/?o=1&doc_id=12792&v=nW

Packed and Ready (?)

With the bike reassembled and my gear reduced to essentials, I am getting ready to leave fo Europe next week (May 28,2012).

I will fly over to London Heathrow Airport on British Airways, as they seem to have the best international bicycle policy. The bike will travel, partially disassembled, in a cloth bag, along with the empty panniers, and a lot of foam pipe insulation wrapped about the frame to protect it. It is a big, heavy package, and I will worry until I see it arrive safely. All my remaining gear will have to go into another huge piece of checked luggage,  and this will then fold up with the bike bag into small packages to travel with me.

Once at Heathrow, I will put it back together and ride it through central London and on to Ilford, near to where my UK family live.

I plan to stay in London a few days to meet with my cousins and their families. I'll use some of the time to get the final gear selection done, and take a short shakedown ride.

When the time is right I will ride out of London, and head for France, crossing the Channel to start the ride proper.

Tuning up the Bike

I bought my bike from a dealer in Florida, off the floor.  It is a large frame, size 58cm. It has always been just a little too large for me, but I have tried to make it work by customizing it with a shorter stem on the handlebars and smaller crank arms. Unfortunately, none of this fixes the problem of the stand over height, which means if I stop and put my feet on the ground the top bar presses me in the crotch. Since I have grown rather fond of my attachments, I wanted to remedy this situation.

I like the rest of the bike, a Surly Long Haul Trucker, but I don't want to buy another one in my size (56cm), so I chose to replace the frame with the correct size.

I ordered the frame online for $430 delivered, and started the process of stripping everything off the "old" bike". Meanwhile, I took the new frame to a bike shop here in NY to have a new headset installed, since this is beyond my capabilities and requires some specialized and expensive tools and preparation. Everything else on the bike will carry over from the original bike, including the bottom bracket, which was the hardest item to remove. I only had to buy one special tool.

The Donor Frame - Too Big!

The headset will be upgraded slightly, but the bike shop will need to keep the bike over the weekend until the part arrives. In the meantime, I have bags of parts all over the bedroom. I am a little worried about how everything goes back together, especially the derailleurs and getting the brakes adjusted, but the rest looks easy.

Once the old frame was stripped, I photographed it and put it up for sale online, using the CGOAB (Crazy Guy On A Bike) website and it sold in 12 hours for $380, so sizing down will not be too expensive. The frame is off via UPS to a new owner in New Hampshire. The net cost of the frame was $50, shipping the old one out was $40 and headset parts and labor will be about $100, so a total cost to me of under $200. 

New Frame - Pretty Blue

One observation is just how light the steel frame is alone, maybe 5 lbs - which is heavy in this world of carbon fiber race frames, but this is a touring bike, designed to carry a heavy load of gear for long distances without collapsing.

Preparations and Logistics

The Bike

I have a bike, with all the stuff for long distance, unsupported touring. it is a 2010 Surly Long Haul Trucker, black with Tubus racks and Ortlieb bags. I have a dynamo on the front wheel to generate electricity to power lights and to charge my phone.
 
The Gear

I have camping gear: a tent, sleeping bag, air mattress, pillow and cookware

I have a ton of electronics:

• Cameras - still and video - nice and heavy
• Smartphones for talking and email. Also good for everything in the world of who, what , where and how.
• iPad for reading books, web surfing, email, navigation
• GPS - more navigation

The bike weighs a lot, 39+ pounds without the bags and gear. With the gear I am afraid to weigh it. It is too heavy. This will not be fun to climb hills. I customized the bike a lower front gear, and added shorter crank arms to take some of the strain off my 64 year old knees.

Logistics and Route

I will fly over to Europe, probably to London, UK with the bike in a box as baggage on the airline, unpack and ride to London to visit with my relatives for a few days.

The plan then is to head south, cross the channel (how?) and ride to Paris, after a bit of time in Belgium and Luxemburg.

After Paris, it South and then East across France, Switzerland and then into Italy, crossing the Alps at Saint Gottard Pass.

Next, Italy and then Slovenia, and into Croatia.

Depending on how things are going I will then decide on my next destination. Possible routes include heading farther south to Greece, or East into Hungary and Romania and to the Black Sea. Another possibility is to head north to Slovakia, Czech Republic and Poland, before heading back east to the UK for a flight home. 

Route Planning for Europe

Europe: A lot of political countries, but all in all not so large an area when compared with North America or Asia....Traveling from country to country in Europe is akin to state to state travel in the U.S. - one big difference being the changes in language and customs.

In planning a ride in Europe I want to prepare a list of places, people and special sights and events to see.

Some planning points for me:

• I have relatives in the UK, and have made some friends in Eastern Europe. 
• I want to see Paris, France
• I really enjoyed my motorcycle visit to Provence
• I loved the friendly people of Italy
• Switzerland was beautiful but expensive
• I like the Alps, but I am afraid of my mountain climbing skills on a bike
• There are EuroVelo Routes that traverse the continent N-S and E-W, with maps, trails and points of interest
• I would like to say I bicycled across Europe
• I have a lot of time and enough resources to take an extended trip
• I have camping gear (tent, sleeping bag), but I would rather stay in pensions if available
• I have cooking gear, but forget that, I want to eat great food every day and not cook much
• I like Formula 1 car racing and MotoGP motorcycle racing - wouldn't mind seeing a race 
• I want to go to Positano, Italy - because I like to say Positano.

That's enough background - on to actual planning next....

Planning a Bicycle Tour Across Europe 2013

Europe: For much of my life I dreamed of going to Europe. In 2012 I shipped my motorcycle over to Germany and then flew over to ride in Western Europe for four weeks. Later that same year, I returned to ride East as far as the Republic of Georgia and back to Germany.

I had a blast, covered a lot of ground, spent a fortune or two - and while this was a great adventure, I was left with the nagging feeling that I was missing something. Better than driving a car, a motorcycle does put you out in the elements - but there is still a tendency to blast along without stopping - and this leaves me thinking that the most rewarding component - meeting people - would be easier on a slower tour.

The very nature of bicycle touring - using your body to power yourself across a country - requires one to take notice of what is around you, and to interact with your surroundings. The need to frequently find food and a place to rest ensures human interaction, forcing you to spend time on language and communication skills. I also think people are less threatened by a person on a bicycle - motorcycle stereotypes have resulted in many people being afraid of motorcycle riders.

And so the idea of a bicycle tour of Europe grew in my imagination - and in 2013 I plan to take my touring bicycle to Europe and ride.