Cycling trip recap

Phew, home. Approx three weeks, and 1481.82km of cycling later, back in my comfy home, in sunny Helsinki <3 My first longer bikepacking trip is over.

During the trip I visited 7 countries (Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, The Netherlands), with 3 of them being ones I'd never been to. I saw a lot of cool things every day. Especially a lot of fields and canals. I absolutely loved the mountains and my mind was overjoyed when I reached the ocean up north at the edge of The Netherlands. I did climbs I had never done before, both in absolute distance upwards during one single climb (614m in Switzerland and 793m going over the Vosges, in France) but also in daily total climb (1633m going over the Vosges, 1222m from Luxembourg to Belgium).

I spent most of my nights in a tent, which I had not done a lot of time before in my life. Afaicr, I've never been on a camping site before this trip. In total I spent 12 nights in a tent, 6 nights in a hotel, 1 day at a friends place and 3 nihts on a boat. I took on a godless amount of rain on myself, riding for hours in constant rain on many days and trying to figure out how to handle camping in wet conditions. I also met many cool people on the way and had some nice discussions especially related to bikepacking.

I spent more nights in hotels than I would have liked, but there was also a lot more rain than I had thought there would be. In fact, I think there were only 3-4 days without rain the whole time. I had to skip some sections I wanted to ride through in Switzerland to get away from the rain, using trains. I also changed my plans somewhat when in the Netherlands. My original plan was to ride along the EV 19, but tbh it was so poorly marked and I had ridden along so many canals and rivers already, I chose to cut directly towards Rotterdam and have an extra day there.

That is actually the one thing I would change if anything. I had put my focus perhaps too much on riding to the next place every day. I think for the next time I would budget in more days exploring some of the larger cities, staying multiple days in one place. Constantly packing up your tent or arranging a hotel does get a bit tiring. I also skipped a lot of things I would have liked to maybe see because I wanted to get onwards (or away from the rain).

I would also probably try to take less stuff with me next time. Due to having the two large panniers, I packed too much stuff with me. Too many t-shirts, especially. Too many things "just in case".

The biggest thing I found problematic (apart from the rain) was that camping site receptions close quite early, some as early as 5pm. At times I chose a hotel not because of the rain but because there were no camping sites available for my arrival time in the place I was riding to. I quickly learned you need to call through them during the afternoon. Some of them accepted arriving after reception closing time, some not.

As for gear, I'm quite happy on the setup I went with. The Ortlieb Vario pannier is awesome, the conversion to a backpack is just super useful when wanting to dismount for a bit but take your most important things with you. I had everything important in the main pannier, like medicine, documents, laptop, chargers, etc. My second pannier had tent poles, clothes, rain gear - and increasingly coming towards the end of the trip chocolate and other things to bring back, with more clothes being strapped onto the rack. Some extra waterproof bags for this kind of stuff were really good.

The front packs were also really good, one of them dedicated to camping stuff, one of them dedicated increasingly for things to bring back home. Initially it had like 20 protein bars that I bought for the trip. I can say they all got used, but I could have probably bought them along the way instead of bringing them from Finland.

Sanna (my bike!) performed really well. No major issues during the way. I think the bottom bracket may be gone based on the noise during the last week, also the rear break has been somewhat powerless for a while (since coming down from the Vosges?). The front tire also got a piece of glass go through it, but the tubeless sealant took care of it once I pushed the piece of glass through into the tire. I had my dry downhill sections in Belgium, being able to fully enjoy the speed, getting up to 50km/h. I averaged my days between about 30 to 120 kilometers in distance per day. I realized during the longer rides that the biggest restriction to the lenght of the ride is actually time, in getting to somewhere where you can spend the night. But at the same time, 80km seemed quite a nice distance per day, in terms of comfort.

All in all, a great experience, and a great three weeks with very little actual serious problems. Time to start planning the next trip :)

More photos available at https://photos.app.goo.gl/5ndNzMHr14hwin6u5 or https://cloud.jasonrobinson.me/s/CjD89No8ccYgtCC

Daily posts of the trip on my Facebook profile or at https://jasonrobinson.me/streams/tag/jasontravels/

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Cycling trip days 21 and 22

Day 21 was train travel to Lübeck, using three different regional trains. I could have done the journey quicker with an IC/ICE, but that would have been twice as expensive. I wasn't in a hurry and quite enjoy the German regional trains for moving around on a bicycle. Lots of space at least outside rush hour.

Got into very pretty Lübeck early enough to go into town after setting up camp in the local camping site. The first fully vegan restaurant I picked was actually fully booked for the whole night! Amazing, even though it meant I needed to go elsewhere. One vegetarian/vegan restaurant called "Erdapfel" on HappyCow served "potato dishes" and had the "british" label on it. Intriguing! Turns out they served jacket potatoes! Fantastic, haven't had one for ages. Also did some shopping, more local chocolate to take back, given everything would be closed tomorrow on Sunday. The highlight of the evening was finding an amazing brewpub called "Sudden Death Brewering". Really recommend visiting this place, great selection of beers, especially the hazy IPA's and super friendly staff. Pizza looked good, though annoyingly I had eaten already so didn't try it.

Distance cycled: 27.35km (today), 1420.24km (total)

Day 22, woken up early by tent campers on both side of my tent packing up into their cars, with dogs barking at each other. Probably the first camping site on this trip I've seen cars driven into the tent area, which is a bit annoying. Visited a really fantastic vegan cafe called "Marae". Interestingly, the place didn't brand itself vegan anywhere I could see externally, just happened to find it on HappyCow. I wonder how many places do this by choice and how it affects their revenue? I would expect not branding as vegan, especially for a cafe, to get more random customers come in. But strongly branding obviously will draw in the vegan community passers by for sure. Anyway, this place was full to every table, had to queue to get one. Had a really nice tofu "scrambled eggs".

It was on/off raining so didn't feel like cycling too much, instead I took refuge in the Hansa Museum for a few hours. Interesting exhibition, a lot of details regarding the time of the Hansa league, focusing not only on the Hansa cities themselves but also on the area of influence and society at the time. A lot of detailed infographics, interactive panels, combined with real and replica constructions, plus audio thrown into the mix, very nicely built all in all. However, I do feel this is one place where the exhibition has been made worse via the usage of technology. When you buy a ticket, you get a plastic card with an RFID chip. This you need to customize on entrance, choosing a language, a city and a theme. I chose English (obviously), London (had to pick something) and a theme of social injustice (or something like that). When you came onto a panel, instead of being to pick a language or content, you swiped you card and the relevant content appeared. What this meant in practice was that I couldn't for example check multiple cities or theme content at a terminal, even if I wanted. Throughout the exhibition I was stuck on "London" and "social injustice". Basically, with this system the exhibition makes it impossible to fully immerse into all the content available, when the attempt has probably been to make following through the exhibition with little effort.

Quickly visited a few pubs in Travemünde before checking in to the boat. It hit me during the ride to the boat that this really is the end of the trip. It's been a fun three weeks, with ups and downs, but every day bringing something new. Next, 30 hours on a boat.

Distance cycled: 44.42km (today), 1464,66km (total)

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Cycling trip day 20

Amsterdam <3 My second visit to this city, unfortunately much less in terms of time than last time. So youthful, full of life and bustling with activity. Before my train to Osnabrück at 6pm, I got in some cycling in the center, a nice spicy vegan noodle "meatballs" dish at a nice restaurant called "Soil" and visited a few vegan themed shops. One which I also visited before, which has awesome looking vegan shoes, is called "Vega Life", well worth a visit.

IC-train to Osnabrück was smooth and with lots of room, only one other bike in the roomy bike compartment. Almost fell off my bike riding through Osnabrück when Germany scored in the, apparently ongoing, Euro football matches. Some vegetarian canneloni later, checked into a small edge of town hotel with the most unfriendly receptionist I've ever come upon. Half expected them to throw the keycard into my face.

Distance cycled: 15.94km (today), 1392.89km (total)

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Cycling trip day 19

Time to move on from Rotterdam, towards the sea! But first, lunch. Vegan sushi place "Nori" seemed highly rated, so that way. One thing I've noticed in a few places outside Finland is that menus sometimes talk of "beef", "salmon", etc. I had to ask in this place whether it was vegan actually and the answer was yes, but that menu items needed common names people can identify with. I'm used to in Finland at least that animal like ingredients usually have a vegan name, like "vuusto" (instead of "juusto") for vegan cheese or using the brand name of whatever the animal substitute is.

Nori's specialty was their meat substitute sushi, so I took a "Meat lovers box" collection as otherwise choosing would have been way too hard. "Meat sushi" felt a bit weird and especially eating something called "meat lover" 😅 But it was very nice, beautifully made and with beautiful tastes.

With a tummy fill of sushi I proceeded north towards the sea. I have been missing the sea, not seeing it for weeks and not hearing the sound of seagulls has been weird. Does the sea have some kind of scent? I swear some kilometers before reaching the beach I could feel the air changing, which gave me energy to push onward.

The best part of this day was the ride along the sea, on a good quality bicycle road within the massive sand dunes covering hundreds of meters of land from the beach. Lots of road bikes going in both direction that I couldn't keep up with even though with the now tail wind I was putting some good amount of speed in myself.

I've always had a thing for the charm of seaside towns, with their rows of hotels, some looking like palaces, some actually called "Palace Hotel", rows of cafes and small shops selling beach stuff. I grew up spending a lot of my summer holidays in places like this on the southern UK coast, which is probably why.

Finally said bye to the sea and headed through Haarlem to Amsterdam, reaching the central camping site "Camping Zeerburg" just in time for a pizza and some beers.

To celebrate the last actual ride day pushed my daily ride record a bit further \o/

Distance cycled: 121.30km (today), 1376.95km (total)

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Cycling trip day 18

Today is my tourist rest day. Looking back, if I could change a thing, I would have probably scheduled in a few of these in various bigger cities. But then one can't have everything :) At least cycling around is cheaper than spending a day in a big city. And the scenery is often prettier.

Saying that, Rotterdam had some really nice architecture. I didn't visit a large part of it, but the central parts had some really nice modern buildings. Especially loved the mirror dome, which apparently is some kind of museum storage depot? Also loved the market hall (Markthal), it was very difficult to walk around there and not buy lots of delicious things to eat. Today was also the day for buying some things to take back. Found some cool local crafts producer shops to fill that need.

To complete the day, good vegan food. For lunch I had an excellent avocado sandwich and "Snickers" smoothie at the really nice "Happy Food and Health" restaurant. To finish of the day, I got myself to "Vegan Junk Food Bar", whose Amsterdam branch I had already visited a few years back. Great burger with a pink bun and some blue mayo for the chips - love their use of colours in food, there should be more of that.

One thing about the Netherlands I only realized while riding from Eindhoven to Rotterdam - no one (except the few fast riding road cyclists) wears a helmet! Funny how long it took me to realize this. Having a helmet on probably really does put a "foreigner" pin on your head. Even saw small kids riding in heavy cycling traffic without helmets, small toddlers on bike seats without helmets and even a dude carrying their toddler on one arm while operating a scooter with the other. From someone grown up in Finland this is all a bit mind blowing, though I guess city bikes have brought back the "no helmet" culture a bit in Finland too. Stubbornly I kept mine on, even with the great big foreigner pin. Besides, it has great stickers on it!

Distance cycled: 34.85km (today), 1255.65km (total)

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Cycling trip days 16 and 17

Day 16, pouring down in the morning. Somewhat lazy start and backing up in the rain. Today's target would be Eindhoven, and a hotel to dry out everything. The forecast is giving occasional rain for the next two days. Originally, I was going to follow the Meuse river to Rotterdam, but the weather is a bit depressing, plus I've seen so many rivers already, might as well take a more direct route and save a day.

The ride to Eindhoven was pretty uneventful. Strong head wind all the way (up to 10m/s, with 20m/s gusts), which made progress a bit slower.

Dropped into a small hotel, spread out everything to dry and headed to the city for some food. HappyCow told me there is an Irish pub with vegan Shephers Pie nearby - there then! Pie was ok, though unfortunately I can't remember what the original Shepherds Pie tastes like, so can't compare :P

Bike into storage and then zzz. Considering trains to Rotterdam if the weather looks horrible in the morning.

Distance cycled: 54.05km (today), 1104.87km (total)

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Day 17, the weather looks better than the forecasts yesterday. Some rain possibly, but mostly cloudy or even a little sun, so I decided to keep on the plan and cycle to Rotterdam. As soon as I committed to this, there were hails for a bit 😅

Eindhoven has a really nice security monitored bicycle storage in the center btw! Security on site during the day and completely locked up during the night. Nice place to store your bike if your hotel doesn't provide storage, like mine didn't.

Leaving Eindhoven I noticed a big patch of broken glass too late and drove over it. "Shit" I thought and then "maybe tubeless will just take care of things". Got ten kilometers out and suddenly the front tire started spraying white liquid. Felt stupid, should have checked the tires for any stuck pieces of glass. This was my first time on tubeless so I wasn't sure what kind of hole would be plugged. The piece of glass was wedged onto the tire in a way that the sealant was escaping from around it. Not being able to pull it out I pushed it in. After a few minutes, the liquid and air stopped escaping. With a little lower pressure I rode 3km to the nearest bicycle shop (gotta love this country) and got the tire topped up. Completely in love with tubeless, even though a glass piece of maybe 5mm in width went through the tire (and is now inside), the pressure seems to be holding perfectly <3 Will need to top up on sealant once back though.

Closer to Dordrecht, where my camping site was, I ran into a new problem never faced before. Sheep completely blocking the path! Prisoners of some local farm. They let me push through them with some protesting baaaa's. I quickly gave this 5km or so stretch of bicycle path the name "Sheep Shit Highway", due to it apparently being the sheep toilet. Poor Sanna, already covered in who knows what.

Arrived at the campsite somewhat past 10pm in heavy rain, which paused just nicely to set up the tent and then started again. Sometimes the rain gods have pity on you. Nice flexible site called "Oude Maas" which allowed me to arrive late and pay in the morning. Going to stay here for two nights and spend a day in Rotterdam.

Longest ride every today!

Distance cycled: 115.93km (today), 1220.8km (total)

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Cycling trip day 15

"De Oosterdriessen" camp site near Maastricht was really wonderful. Flexible arrival, friendly staff, good sanitary facilities and a great bar atmosphere. Can recommend!

Highlight of this day however was food. After packing up I cycled to Maastricht and launched the HappyCow app. Finally a big enough city with surely some vegan options. A fully vegan restaurant, yay! "Bar Verde" is about 1.5km outside the central area just south along the river, a really nice little ride. The place is beautiful, but of course food is what is the most important thing. "Plant based comfort food" is the theme. I had a "sate", which was pieces of tempeh joined with a really awesome peanut butter sauce. The nearby table claimed their vegan "cheese cake" was the best they had ever had, so obviously I had to stay for dessert as well. The tiramisu was to die for. So happy I visited this place, pretty much the best food I've had this journey.

Unfortunately it can be difficult for a fully vegan restaurant, especially a bit out of the center. Whether vegan or not, if you live in or visit the area, consider visiting the place and support their journey as a restaurant. "Lage Kanaaldijk 54", well worth the visit.

In terms of food, this day was actually my first fully vegan day on this trip since leaving Helsinki, having found vegan options also later in the day. It's been a challenge. I think the best thing was being offered salmon in a small French town when asking for "something vegetarian" from a boulangerie, where they spoke a little bit of English.

But, back to cycling. EuroVelo 19, going along the Meuse river, was my target. Unfortunately, I couldn't really manage to keep on it. Occasionally I found it, then the signs were confusing and I ended up just navigating north approximately in the right direction. The EuroVelo site allows downloading GPX files, but they're not only split into stages but also the stages are split into several parts. I just haven't figured out how to load even one larger part of the route into any app in a meaninful way, given the route has gaps.

Anyhow, doesn't really matter, as the cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands is just so awesome. Whichever route you take, you're guaranteed to be ok, so didn't really miss the EV19 that much. My only two complaints about today are: 1) too much head wind, the whole day was pushing against some pretty persistent wind from the north, and 2) hey it's unfrair that pensioners with electric bikes seem to just be strolling along while I'm having to grind for every singe kilometer. But also it's awesome to see so many cyclists of all ages <3

My target for this journey was "a minimum of 1000km", so yay, that at least is done. There is a possibility I could even reach Rotterdam.

Found a nice campsite between Roermond and Venlo. A few beers and the zzz. Tomorrow it will rain again.

Distance cycled: 86.72km (today), 1050.82km (total)

Ps. If you can only see a few photos, your platform is limiting the amount of photos on a post - if interested in all the photos, check out https://jasonrobinson.me/streams/tag/jasontravels/

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Cycling trip days 12 to 14

Have had trouble with laptop time to write these reports. Anyhow! Day 12 took me from Luxembourg to Bastogne in Belgium. I didn't intend to go the whole way, there were some camping sites on the Belgian side which seemed like good candidates, but unfortunately I messed up and didn't get there in time. The ride was through beautiful forests and fields, but also with a lot and lot of climbs. Legs didn't seem to have power at all. In the end I got to Bastogne at around 9pm, quickly finding a pizza and then onto the camping site.

Regarding the camping site "De Renval" there was no worry about arrival, it had a 24 hour self-check in, the first one I've seen. It also had the lowest Campy rating I've been at so far, a 2.7/5. So, expectations were not very high. Check-in went pretty well and generally seemed pretty ok in terms of sanitary facilities. Found the tent field with it already being a bit dark. One other tent, lots of space. Lots of birds making a lot of noise. Some geese maybe as well? The tent field was next to a pond. Oh.. Confirmed by looking at the bottom of my shoes, this field was full of shit - quite literally.

A problem for the morning.. Fell asleep with earplus stuffed halfway into my brain and slept really well.

Distance cycled: 97.77km (today), 812.46km (total)

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Morning, day 13, stepped outside to confirm indeed, everywhere was geese shit. Just to prove the point, a family of geese were wondering towards my tent, honking away. "Fine, fine, I'll leave", I told them and started ninja-packing, a game of tip-toeing around the field and managing to pack everything without anything touching the ground. What the tent footprint looks like I didn't want to think about. Tried to wipe it a bit on clean bits of grass further away and fold it smartly, so the next night it would be the same side to the ground.

I wanted to join the EV 19, so while having lunch I was trying to figure out what next. Liège was the clear target, but it was 108km away. I felt physically very tired after yesterday. Sanna was also being increasingly noisy with a click sound happening when spinning the crank, also when spinning backwards while the bike was stationary. Bottom bracket? Difficult to say, seems worse when riding on a small gear.

Anyway, towards Liège was the only real option at this point. From two options, one going more through more forests and the other going more villages and on roads, I chose the latter option. Komoot claimed it would be a few climbs and then mostly downhill, but course over 100km the altitude graph isn't the most clear. It ended up being lots of climbs over hills and then lots of downhill sections, gradually going down some 300 or so meters during the ride.

The ride was super exhausting, every single climb feeling a pain, with legs really not wanting to do this ride today. However I did get the long windy downhill road sections today. Lots of them, some lasting several kilometers of simply letting go and hoping Sanna doesn't give up from underneath. Furiously gropping the handlebars and trying to avoid all the bumps and holes in the roads. At 50km/h one doesn't really want to hit large holes. Actually, I don't think I've ever gone this fast on a bike. Especially with two panniers and two fork packs, making bike handling in the wind somewhat special. At least I got my downhill sections, the ones I was hoping to do in Switzerland but missed them due to the rainy weather.

I would have stopped for the night before Liége, but there didn't seem to be great camping or hotel choices. Plus I told myself if I get to Liége, I can take an easier day tomorrow. With what seemed like endless amounts of pedal pushing I finally arrived around 10pm. Saw some bats on the way which cheered me up. Checked in at an Ibis hotel, convinced the receptionist to let me put my bike in the private parking garage, ate possibly the worst falafel of my life around the corner from the hotel and crashed into bed.

Distance cycled: 107.30km (today), 919.76km (total)

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Day 14, a good nights sleep in a proper bed, I tried to remember last nights promise. Take it easy. Well I had to do laundry anyway, so off to circle the city center and find a laundromat. A few attempts and some hill climbing later ("hey, you promised us easy!" -legs), found a laundromat and got washing done. Have to say Liége while being a beautiful and really interesting city, wasn't the easiest to navigate around. Or maybe it was OSMAnd, trying to take me across all kind of weird road setups and even steps.

At 6pm I started heading off towards Maastricht and a camping site just before it. More broken promises to the legs, it was pretty hard head wind all the way and I was in a rush the make it to the camp site before reception closed. Regarding camping in general, I feel like the biggest issue for me is camping site reception times. Quite often you need to be there before 8pm or even before 6pm sometimes. For someone like me who wakes up late, has a lazy lunch and generally takes his time throughout the day, it's a bit of a challenge to also fit in a long ride and a camping site - feels like it's a "choose two" situation here. I do wonder what happens if you just go in and set up your tent anyway, and pay in the morning. Only one of the sites I've been to has had a proper gate, the others seem to only have a barrier, which of course as a cyclist is hardly a problem. Would they be ok or be mad? The few I called and asked if I could do this said it wasn't possible to arrive after reception hours for "security reasons".

The Netherlands! A restaurant with the waiter speaking good English! A menu with a vegan burger option! The vegan burger actually being really good! I'm sorry France and Belgium, but you made it really difficult for me in terms of food. Not being to understand any menu, not being able to ask about any menu and generally very poor vegan or even vegetarian options, at least in the regions I went through. Eaten way too much dairy, hoping for that to change while heading towards the northern parts of the Netherlands.

Poor Sanna is clicking away, but at least it hasn't gotten worse I think. Can't see anything externally broken. Could be just dirt somewhere, but possibly the massive amount of rain in the early parts of the journey did their damage. Might pop into some bicycle shops for consultation on the way but don't really want to stop for extensive repair time, if it can be avoided.

Distance cycled: 44.34km (today), 964.1km (total)

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Cycling trip day 11

Around half way, OMG. Time does fly.

Originally, my plan was to just gently dip into Luxembourg and then head on towards the EuroVelo 19 route, but I decided to go into Luxembourg city instead. I can join the EV 19 later at some point.

With renewed faith in navigation, ie actually being able to see the route, climbs and surfaces clearly on Komoot, I head out from Metz along the canal. Smooth as butter, with a nice cool temperature as well.

Stopped at Thionville for some food before the climbs into Luxembourg. Seemed a really nice place on the banks of the river Moselle. Especially liked the rather extensive car free city center. Unfortunately the car drivers outside the center didn't seem that welcoming to bikes. Some rather aggressive car drivers passing by while I was navigating out of the city, even receiving the first honk. Reminded me of drivers in my home town Helsinki. "Get off the road cyclist, I have to be somewhere else than I am now really quick, and if I lose seconds something awful will happen" -mentality. Maybe have some bike lanes if you don't want cyclists on the road?

I don't know why but it feels like generally also while getting closer and into Luxembourg the cars seemed to be driving faster and the roads seemed to be less welcoming. I didn't even realize until looking at the map where the border had been, but what I do remember is it being a somewhat busy part of road with climbs and without a curb. On the Luxembourg side this didn't change. For this trip, today has been a day with a lot of cars and a lot of busy roads with a lot of drivers seemingly in a rush to be somewhere else. Apart from the honk meant for me in Thionville, I hadn't seen aggressive driving during this trip. While navigating to the center of Luxembourg I heard a lot of honking along the at times very stationary queues of cars. On a motorway, from a bridge crossing it, taking a photo of a queue on one direction, a lorry driver was having a rage at a car driver on the other lane. I can't help than think that Luxembourg is in love with cars and especially sitting in cars, queuing to get somewhere. The queuing surely can't be for the lack of roads or lanes, based on the small part I saw. Of course, could just be the "it's a big city" -thing too.

For cycling, arriving from the south it was partly dedicated (or shared for farm access) cycling paths criss-crossing roads or then cycling on roads. Nearer to Luxembourg central things turned very city like in terms of cycling traffic. Partly on the road, partly on various types of dedicated or pedestrian shared cycling paths. Crossed a scary and cool very high bridge which had the cycling route built underneath the bridge. Awesome and "please don't let me die" at the same time. I don't do heights very well. Lots of commuter cyclists were going around, which was nice to see.

Had some food and beers, then backtracked down south some 6km to the camping site Kockelscheuer. I really can't recommend this site enough. Reception open until 10pm (which is the latest I've seen), actual warm shower building, restaurant open until 10pm and awesome friendly staff. Plus obviously near the city center too. Additionally, this is the cheapest camping site I've been to on this trip, only 14€ for a tent pitch.

My only concern at this moment is Sanna has started to get a bit noisy in the recent days, with the noise getting worse. Not the same as before the trip, so not the seat post I think. Possibly just dirt somewhere? I think I took half a field with me on the way from Nancy to Metz.

Btw, for followers on platforms that restrict the number of photos on a post (Mastodon?), you can see all the photos at https://jasonrobinson.me/streams/tag/jasontravels/

Distance cycled: 83.01km (today), 714.69km (total)

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Cycling trip day 10

Caught up with some lost sleep by not putting an alarm at all, woke up around 11am at my friends place. Shower and a few coffees later some breakfast and then onwards to Metz, today's target. Easy, casual ride, I was thinking, along the canals just like yesterday.

Garmin had other plans. Soon diverged from the canals into a beautiful forest. Nice, I thought, I don't mind the change from yesterday. Cycle way changed into small country roads, which also felt like a nice change from yesterday. After a few kilometers on a busy road with large trucks I decided to look where it was routing me. Somewhat annoyed to realize it had routed me on a longer route around the countryside, possibly due to being in "road" routing mode. Gutted it took me over 25km to realize what was happening.

I really didn't want to get squashed under some truck wheels so I decided to change plans and start heading west towards Metz using smaller roads. Unfortunately, switching the Garmin to "mixed surfaces" and pointing it to a small village with a shop nearer to the direct route, meant I now got routed through literal fields. Like, actually going through overgrown tractor paths for a few kilometers, knee deep in vegetation. I'd be surprised if I didn't pick up any ticks during this part. Sanna still has wheat or something stuck to her.

Shortly after the fields episode I managed to find a small village shop, had some snack and decided I've had enough of the Garmin built-in routing. It's not that the navigation itself sucks, but there is literally no way to control the route by placing things like waypoints, and it's a lot of extra effort to view what kind of route it is suggesting, from the small screen. Like in this case, it was completely different from what OSMAnd would have taken me through. So I decided to swallow my pride and finally buy the Komoot package costing 30€, which allows building routes on Komoot and using them on the Garmin. Well, in theory. Apparently you can't do this in the middle of an activity, which is just insane. Except you can, if you transfer the route through the Garmin Connect app, if you have linked Komoot to it. UX fail, yay. Anyway, hopefully better control over routes from now on.

Rolling hills, small villages, lots of wheat fields. This was supposed to be a chill ride but ended up being over 90km of lots of hills, totaling almost 1000m of climbs today. At least I got to see lots of pretty French fields during the day :)

Finally made it to Metz around 9pm, found a restaurant for food and beer, and proceeded to book a hotel. Getting into a camping site would have been too much hassle this late.

Distance cycled: 93.09km (today), 631.68km (total)

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Cycling trip day 9

Finally, a day completely without rain! Even got some sun after getting closer to Nancy.

One thing I've learnt during this trip is to not try and wash too much laundry at hotels if you only have 12 hours or so for them to dry. It's just not going to happen. This time I only washed the stuff I was going to wear today and even they didn't get completey dry. With the help of the hair drier got them good enough to wear, since the weather was dry they soon fully dried up on the road.

I was met with a pleasant unplanned surprise leaving Épinal. The route to Nancy was pure cycle path, running in between the La Moselle river and Canal des Vosges. These two crossed a few times, with the canal going over the river on a bridge. Wild! Rivers on top of rivers, because why not. The ride was stunningly beautiful the whole way, with the beautiful canal on one side and La Moselle often visible on the othe, lush trees, bushes and flowers all around.

Almost drove over a snake! Coming around a corner it was possibly crossing the cycle way and just managed to miss it with my front tire. I hit the brakes after passing it and saw it slither into the safety of the bushes.

Lots of other bikepackers also going in both directions. I'm still not quite used to the fact that especially with other bikepackers, you're supposed to greet them when passing. Well, near Épinal everyone was bonjouring me as well. I was probably seen as a countryside idiot getting closer to Nancy and still bonjouring other cyclists.

At beautiful Nancy I spent a bit of time admiring the big central park (Parc'de la Pépinière), then settling on a terrace for some good local IPA. Today I was meeting my friend Victor here for a drinks, a meal and some rest at his place. Fancy to be able to sleep as long as one wants next morning! 💚

Distance cycled: 81.85 (today), 538.59km (total)

#Travel #Bikepacking #JasonTravels #Cycling

Cycling trip day 8

Didn't get much sleep. Heavy rain was rattling on the tent the whole night and the birds in the nearby trees had decided to have a big party it seemed. It was also raining heavily in the morning when I needed to start packing up. This meant I had to pack up the tent completely wet. Next night would need to be a hotel room to dry things.

Completely drenched I rode down to the nearby town Le Thillot for something to eat. Apparently the town had a festival today, lots of food stalls and music shows, including one straight from a US western. Had a nice brunch at a boulangerie and wandered throughout the stalls for a bit.

The rain that had paused for a while picked up as I set out towards Épinal. The first 25km or so was a really nice cycle way down through the valley. The rain was coming down quite heavily but my shoes and shorts were already completely wet from yesterday so I felt like not caring and didn't even bother to put on the rain gear.

Towards Épinal the cycle way turned into roadside cycling, but at least the weather started drying up. Most of the ride was downhill so very little effort and a lot of time to look at scenery.

Épinal is a really nice small town, sitting on the majestic Moselle river. Since I had lots of wet gear I took a cheap room at the central Ibis hotel and spread out everything around the room to dry. Found a snail that had hitchhiked within my tent footprint, and still alive. Gently moved the little one outside on the window sill. Hopefully it wasn't something that will totally demolish the Épinal area wildlife 😅.

Went for a few beers before crashing in bed. The river looked beautiful at night <3

Distance cycled: 57.84km (today), 456.74km (total)

#Travel #Bikepacking #JasonTravels #Cycling

Cycling trip days 6 and 7

Day 6, woke up refreshed at the hotel at Nesslau, but totally messed up with the laundry. Everything was still wet. And it was still raining hard outside. And based on the forecasts, the rain would continue the whole day all over until Basel.

I was kind of looking forward to the downhill riding into Zürich, and also my plan was to vote there in the EU elections, but spending a few hours riding downhill on wet roads with cars constantly splashing water didn't seem worth it. So, I switched my plan into doing a train day. From Nesslau I got a local train to Watwil, from there a regional to Luzern, where I stopped to do laundry at a self-service laundromat, then another regional train to Basel. The Swiss local and regional trains are really nice, plenty of space for bikes and with easy access too. A tad bit expensive, cost 80€ for these 3 trips with a bike.

Due to extremely wet pavement I slipped in Luzern while trying to make a hasty U-turn while navigating towards the train station. Hit my right knee on the ground, not hard enough to do any damage but hard enough to open a previous wound that had just healed. Camping with a wound on your knee is rather annoying due to needing to crawl around a lot, so went to buy some large patches before jumping on the train.

Tomorrows weather forecast said the rainy area would end just north of Basel, so I reserved a hotel with 24 hour check-in at a place called Wittersdorf, which was a 42km ride into France. The drizzle in Basel slowly turned into dry and it was quite enjoyable riding through the French countryside with at times nothing else visible than the edges of wheat fields. I used to be afraid of the dark still in my thirties, but these days I've learned to like the peacefulness of midnight rides. As long as you have a light with you and it's not pouring down. Saw a badger and some other animals.

I am going to have to stop listening to the Garmin navigation in rainy weather though. This time, a few kilometers before the hotel, it decided that I should take a shortcut through a wheat field. What looked initially as an ok "unpaved road", turned into an outgrown tractor path "unpaved road", with slippery, sticky, gray mud. Probably got Sanna more dirty during the under kilometer of this than the whole 40km before.

The Hotel Restaurant Kuetz was an interesting roadside place. Very old building, lots of statues and pictures of Napoleon. The claimed 24 hour reception apparently meant "call this number and we'll wake up". A somewhat half-asleep employee answered the phone and for a while I had difficulty explaining "I'm at the door". The word "reception" finally hit a bell and I was let in. Google Translate to the rescue, managed to also get my bike into safe storage and happily got into the room and crashed into bed.

Day 6, distance cycled: 44.58km (today), 289.17km (total)

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Day 7, had a heavy breakfast at the hotel and headed up towards the Vosges with a plan to cross them and get as far north-west as possible. A large rainfront was on its way and I didn't want to get stuck in it. Things were nice and dry until Belfort, where I stopped for a small lunch and coffee, then drizzle started.

While riding upwards towards the Vosges, I suddenly started realizing the increase in road bikes, and especially groups of them, going in both directions. Soon it became apparent I had ended up on the route of a bicycle race! Got some cheers from other cyclists and their crew on the side of the road. Talking to a few Dutch cyclists, apparently this was a yearly event mostly for fun, riding 80km, including a climb that has also been a part of Tour de France sometimes.

"Unfortunately", I couldn't do that climb, as it would have taken me into the wrong direction, so I parted ways to do my own climb. This was going to be 793m upwards to the peak of one part of Vosges, into 1150m of altitude. The climb lasted 8km or so, and there were more than one time I was just ready to give up and go back down. I demolished probably around 5 snack bars and almost 3 bottles of water just on the single climb. Reaching the top was a bit of an anti-climax. I was literally in a cloud and it started pouring down heavily as soon as I came to the peak.

Riding down was almost as hard as going up. Instead of being able to relax, the extremely wet road and bumpy asphalt required constant concentration, with the breaks being in constant use over the 7km of descent. With the slip in Luzern in mind, I didn't want to test how far the front tire can be pushed with the fork bags loaded on it on a wet road.

The camping site "L'Orée Du Bois" near Le Thillot, which I had called to ensure for availability was super flexible, and when I got there the somewhat tipsy receptionist lady and the rest of the campsite crew were happily enjoying some wine on their restaurant terrace. I was immediately offered a beer and made friends with the campsite dog Spunky. Given I hadn't eaten any large meal and had spent almost 4K kcal during the ride according to Strava, was heartwarming to also get a restaurant place arranged nearby, just before their closing. Quick change into dry clothes and then into a fancy restaurant, which of course had nothing that didn't contain meat. The fish I ordered came with the head and skin still attached - it's been a long long time since I've eaten fish in this way. Unfortunately it wasn't particularly great compared to the €23 price, but at least it was food and I also got to have a few glasses of wine before heading back to set up camp.

I'm really happy about the MSR Hubba Hubba NX2 tent and the way it allows setting up in rain mode. Getting quite good at it due to this stupid weather, the only wetness that got inside was from the drenched bags carried it. This time had to do it in pitch black darkness, but due to my headlamp that wasn't an issue.

Finally, sleep, with heavy rain dropping outside, too tired to even brush my teeth. Today I did both my longest ride ever but also a new climb record \o/

Day 7, distance cycled: 109.73km (today), 398.9km (total)

#Travel #Bikepacking #JasonTravels #Cycling

Cycling trip - day 5

Today I did a thing I had not done before.

But first, the morning. It had rained all through the night, keeping me up at times. In the morning though there was a window of a few hours of sunshine, just as I needed to start wrapping up camp. Got most of the things dry in the sun and hastily exited towards a restaurant for lunch, as the drizzle started coming in.

My route would take me towards Basel and originally I was going to go through some valleys with "only" a few hundred meters of climbs. But Garmin wanted to suggest a marked cycling route further north, so I took that. Of course what it didn't tell me was that soon after moving from Liechtenstein to Switzerland, I would need to ascend over 700 meters, during a climb lasting a total of 10km. When the climb popped up on the Garmin it was too late to choose another route, but also I'm quite easy to sway into an adventure, so up it is!

Slowly, one rotation at a time, sometimes up to 11%, I fought up the windy road, cars zooming past. As this was a cycling route, clearly signposted as such, I was hoping the drivers were used to slow moving cyclists pushing up towards the top, so didn't feel too threatened. What did start feeling threatening was when I was a third up the heavy rain started, and soon also thunder. Does thunder sound different when you're close to a kilometer up from sea level? It sounded more ominous, possibly due to all the low clouds covering half of the distant mountains.

Wet, tired, a bottle of water and quite a few snack bars down, I did finally make it to the top. And it was possibly the most rewarding thing. The sky was also clearing and a restaurant serving pizza came up, so I decided to reward myself with a pizza and beer. This was by far the largest single climb I've ever done and I'm super happy that even though the weather was poor, I managed to do it.

The rest of the planned ride, ending up somewhere near Zürich, was going to mostly be downhill. But alas the sun didn't last. Before I had finished my pizza, the rain was back, at least as angry. Having spent so much time riding in the rain and everything being muddy and wet again, I decided to call it a day and reserved a room at a hotel 8km away at a place called Nesslau. I was looking forward to the downhill section but now it was just annoying. Completely drenched, rain pouring down and fast moving cars spraying water everywhere, some of them passing by rather too close for comfort on the larger two-lane road. For some reason using the other lane for taking over is sometimes impossible if a cyclist is being taken over by a car. Maybe car steering wheels are sometimes really stiff and getting onto the other lane is just difficult, what do I know.

Hotel is very nice at least. Got my laundry done and all the camping gear spread out to properly dry. Tomorrow hopefully Zürich and potentially beyond, if the weather doesn't ruin things. Scenery is so beautiful here and have passed many nice villages, but all the train is taking a bit of the enjoyment out of it.

Distance cycled: 44.76km (today), 244.59km (total)

#Travel #Bikepacking #JasonTravels #Cycling

Cycling trip - day 4

Lazy morning, slept well, caught up with some of the lost sleep of the last night. Weather forecast said rain at around 5pm, so after breakfast I headed off towards Vaduz in Liechtenstein, hoping to make it before rain.

The cycling infrastructure is awesome here! Lots of people cycling, of all ages, and not just tourists. And tbh, the whole valley into Vaduz was flat as a pancake. Good quality cycling paths following the canals and crossing the fields. With the mountains drawing nearer and eventually being all around, it was a nice ride in cloudy but warm weather.

The route to Vaduz took me inside Switzerland for a bit and also to a Swiss mobile network. I suddenly got a bit of a shock, I had not prepared for the fact that Switzerland of course is not in the EU and thus does not have the same 37GB per month of roaming data I can use all around the EU. I bought a 1GB package for €25 (Elisa moster prices) and switched off mobile data unless needed for something. I also didn't realize I may need Swiss Francs and a power adapter (Liechtenstein shares both with Switzerland).

Had a burger and a few beers in Vaduz, which was already full of tourists, and then headed 8km south to Camping Mittagsspitze, who over the phone told me not to hurry and just set up my tent even if the reception is closed, and pay in the morning. It was raining somewhat hard again on the way to the camping site so I had to set up the tent in "rain mode". Went pretty well this time, was a good idea to practice this in Finland before leaving.

Distance cycled: 66.32 (today), 199.83km (total)

#Travel #Bikepacking #JasonTravels #Cycling

Cycling trip - day 3

Today was mostly riding trains down to the Austrian border, to Linday. I slept maybe an hour on the EC from Hamburg to Mannheim train, then took a local connection to Heidelburg, then another EC to Ulm. Slept maybe 30 minutes on this one and almost managed to miss my stop 😅. Another regional train later I was in Lindau. Unfortunately an hour later than planned due to all the trains running late. Though that also meant I didn't lose my EC connection.

It became apparent quite quickly the train journeys the south were totally worth the hassle. The view from Lindau old town harbour is fantastic, over the Lake Constance (Bodensee) into mountains of Austria. Unfortunately I didn't have much time since the camping site I chose on the Austrian side had a reception closing time of 8pm. So a quick ride around the old town later I head out towards the camping site, unaware of when I even crossed the border.

Quick camp setup and then into town for some food, beforing crashing onto the sleeping mat to catch up on some sleep. Seecamping Bregenz is a decent place with clean sanitary facilities and lots of space. Paid 20 or so for a night with a tent.

Both Lindau and Bregenz seem to be very cyclist friendly town, and there are a lot of people riding around. A lot of them probably also tourists. Not a lot of riding for me today due to spending the day on the trains.

Distance cycled: 23.71km (today), 133.51km (total)

#Travel #Bikepacking #JasonTravels #Cycling

Cycling trip - day 2

Well, what an arrival. Due to the weather I spent the whole uneventful 30 hour boat journey wrecking my brain on how to get to Hamburg. I could have taken it safe and taken a local train, then sleep at a hostel for some hours. Since I would have 7 hours until my train, the idea of spending that time riding was just a bit too much. I knew the weather would turn nasty around midnight, meaning potentially half of my ride I would get wet.

Some 5 hours before arrival to Travemünde the captain announced we would be arriving one hour early. It's a sign, surely! I would have an extra hour of dry ride time before rain. Rain which could be short showers, drizzle or heavy rain - but hey how heavy can rain be? I've done rain before. It's summer, it's warm summer rain. I've done freezing snow storms, surely a little rain wont hurt. To be on the safe side, I plotted a route going through the 3 train stops between Lübeck and Hamburg. Then, if rain comes down, I can always jump on a local train, was the masterplan. This did add 10km, but it looked like a nice ride.

The ride was nice. Pretty suburbs, farms, fields and quiet roads to zoom through. But boy was I wrong about the rain. When it started, it came down like it was on a deadline by an angry rain god to fill this region with as much water as possible. How long can rain like this last? Surely this is just a shower, then it will just "rain a little". So I peddled on, not planning on stopping at the last station. Wasn't even sure if trains went anymore. Apparently this rain wanted to very much disagree on the commonly accepted "heavy rain lasts for a short while" fact. Apparently the amount of water that can be stored in German clouds is more than my common sense wants to believe possible.

Unfortunately as well, just afte the heavy rain started, Garmin routed me onto a trail, and I was stupid to just jump on it. I thought it would be a short hop through something but it ended up being this massive park. Probably very beautiful if you weren't in it in pitch black darkness, with only your headlamp to make the now "oh I'll turn into mud" path visible. There is a thing I learnt about headlamps as well. I wanted a single lamp with me to be used for setting up a tent but also cycling in the dark. Works well strapped onto the helmet. Powerful enough to see and to be seen. But you know what happens in heavy rain? The rain drops in the light turn into bright sparkles. And this happens in front of your eyesight, which doesn't help visibility with already totally wet glasses. So slow it was.

And some point while struggling through the muddy trails I realized this will never end and politely went to curse myself to the deepest pit of hell as I realized my Garmin navigation was on "gravel" mode. I switched it to "road" mode and managed to get out of the hellscape that is a park somewhere south of Bad Oldesloe, towards Ahrensburg. Of course after that the rain cloud took a lunch break. Some 20km from Hamburg it dutifully returned to service and pounded away until I arrived at the trains station, when it decided it had dropped enough rain on poor Jason and Sanna, who dared to have the audicity to ride through this region.

I was a bit scared if the Garmin would hold up, but for now at least it seems fine. Beautiful device, can't imagine how I could have navigated through hours of downpour without it. Though they could add a quick action button called "it's raining heavily, please stop trying to route me into muddy paths, especially now that I'm on road mode", since apparently Hamburg has many nice gravel cycling paths which are probably great, but the few I tried last night were also completely horrible muddy death traps.

At the train station I realized saver train tickets are apparently not available just before the train journey starts. I only had a bicycle reservation and since the train was low demand, I thought I would buy it just before. This mistake cost me some 50€. Oh well, lessons learned. Quick snack after I camped at the platform to wait for my train in completely wet shorts and completely wet shoes and socks, otherwise feeling warm and happy with the rain gear doing its thing. Not sure what happened with the shoes. I had the rain covers I bought on them but apparently they either didn't work, there was too much rain or I didn't wrap them properly.

Although everything is muddy and I'll probably need to find a bike wash at some point soon, I did enjoy the ride, which apart from the rain was less effort than I had expected. Less hills than Helsinki probably explains a bit. Sanna rolls very nicely even in a heavy load <3 I can say I did it my way and didn't do the safe smart way, like one of the other cyclists who had been on the same ship, who apparently was going on the same train, who I had a nice chat with before trying to get some sleep. They had done the smart thing of going by train and sleeping in a hostel. They were not muddy.

Didn't get much sleep, which I kind of knew. Train is zooming towards Mannheim, from where I will jump on a local train to Heidelberg and ride another EC train to Ulm. From there a local train to Lindau, and I'll be at my destination for today. Hopefully it's not raining, I'd love to properly dry my shoes in some glorious sun before crossing the Austrian border. Wont probably ride that far today.

Distance cycled: 94.94km (today), 109.8km (total)

#Travel #Bikepacking #JasonTravels #Cycling #HaveIAngeredTheRainGods?

Cycling trip - day 1

On the boat towards Travemünde \o/ It's been a few hectic days getting everything ready, but finally on the way. Now it's 30 hours of looking at the sea, and possibly hacking on things a bit to pass the time.

Having spent an hour queuing into the boat in hot sunshine with no shelter, kind of looking forward to the what looks like a bit cooler temperatures in Germany - at least for now :P Once I arrive, my plan is to do a night ride from Lübeck to Hamburg, and catch the early morning train towards the south. Weather forecast says I'll be getting wet.

Also, I managed to get rid of the clicking noise on my bike, yay! It seems on the Marin DSX 1, the saddle post is too long for the frame. If you lower it to the lowest it will go (which I did when I installed my saddle, which has a slightly higher profile than the original one), the seatpost will actually hit the bottom of the tube 🤯. I really hope I've not damaged the frame by riding it like this for months. After raising the saddle by 1cm, the worst of the clicking noise disappeared instantly. There is still a little bit of noise when putting a lot of pressure on the pedals, so something to check up on later, but mostly it's now quiet to ride.

Distance cycled: 14.86km

#bikepacking #jasontravels #marin

Did a new test run last Sunday with my partner, this time with pretty much a full load of gear I'm planning to take with me on my bikepacking trip in approx one week. Even had medicine, toothbrush and all pretty much everything - had it not been for work I could have just wondered off and started the trip now :P

One week! This was probably the last test run I'll have time for. Based on the previous tests, I found an additional second hand bag for the rear rack - smaller than the main one but enough to share weight on both sides of the bike and provide enough extra space. Happy now I can leave my backpack at home. I'm still thinking whether I need a small frame bag, for tools and snacks. May just see how it goes, can always visit a bike shop on the way.

This time I wanted to practice setting up the tent in rain conditions, ie without getting the inside part of the tent wet. We didn't plan for rain, but a little bit appeared anyway. Following a video tutorial, I'm going to give myself a grade of 4/10 on graceful setup of the tent with the rainfly on. I think the next time will be smoother, so good valuable practice.

Right now I'm worried about a few things:

• Sanna (my bike) has been making some clicking noises while pedaling for a while. Service people found no cause, not the pedals, not anything loose. Going to take her into one more service on Wednesday to get the bottom bracket changed - the last thing that may be faulty, according to service people. The clicking noises have gotten worse in recent weeks and I'm going to be gutted if I have to make the trip with constant noises while pedaling. Should have dealt with this sooner maybe?
• I didn't weigh my two bags on my rear rack but I'm worried it's near or over the 20kg weight limit of the Ortlieb Quick Rack, which isn't meant for massive loads 😬.. If the attachments on that thing break during the trip it's going to require some serious MacGyver shit to keep going. Need to do some weighing and try to get some weight into the front bags if needed.

Apart from actual gear, I'm also worried about my route somewhat. Kind of last minute I switched the direction to be from Switzerland to the Netherlands, rather than the opposite. This way it will be gradual descent rather than a gradual climb towards the south. While doing this I added a few countries, because why not! Now my plan is to start from the border of Germany and Austria, ride to Lichtenstein and then through northern Switzerland through Zürich and on-wards to Basel. From there it would be northbound towards the Netherlands (via Belgium and Luxembourg).

Since my boat arrives and leaves from Travemünde, obviously I'm not going to ride to the southern border of Germany or back from the Netherlands, with only three weeks. I was planning on using trains. But guess who didn't bother to actually look at reserving bike places on trains in time? Somehow slipped my mind, focusing so much on gear and stuff. It was fun to find out that train places on long distance trains in Germany are booked sometimes months in advance. My choices ended up being: 1) use local trains which don't need bike reservations and zig zag towards the south or 2) use a train of some ungodly hour which still had free spaces.

I chose the latter, which means when my boat arrives to Travemünde at 9pm, I'll be riding to Hamburg during the night to catch the 4am long distance train towards the south, and hopefully getting even a few hours of sleep. After a few more changes closer to the destination, I should be at the border of Austria around 3pm, hopefully not entirely sleep deprived. The next days will then be the most challenging parts of the route I've planned, with the worst climbs being around 200m upwards (based on Komoot). I have absolutely no idea if what I'm planning makes sense, but I know it will be challenging :) Slow and steady I guess for these days. Hopefully the views will be nice.

Nearing the end of the route the challenge will be getting back to the boat in time. Will probably need to leave a few days for that, if no good train options seem available, then it will have to be zig zagging on regional trains. I have no idea how far I'll make it along the route, so reserving spaces on any train may be challenging. May just reserve a few possibilities, one from the Netherlands (best case) and one somewhere lower south (the "didn't quite make the route" -case).

I'll be attempting to write something every day, feel free to follow my fedi account posts at https://jasonrobinson.me/streams/tag/jasontravels/ or my Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/jaywink, for updates :)

Ps. The bull is one gorgeous animal from the Haltiala farm in Helsinki <3 Such a majestic creature.

#cycling #bikepacking #jasontravels #travel

People who know me for a longer time may have heard me say "my dream is to do a bikepacking trip in central Europe" at once or more during the years. Well actually I always said "bike + train trip", ie taking the bike around Europe on trains and then riding around locally, instead of riding around Europe.

I started seriously thinking about this when I read Osmo Soininvaara's excellent "Fillarilla Nizzaan" book, where Osmo rides from Helsinki to Nizza in 30 days. Sometime around last summer when I realized I can do longer day rides, I set my first goal to get a bike (in addition to my mountain bike) that is nicer to ride for longer distances. I've since learned lots of people do bikepacking on mountain bikes, but hey I got a new bike, so yay. I bought my first gravel, a straight bar Marin DSX 1 ("Sanna"), lighter and better gearing for longer distances than my mountain bike ("Monty"). Next was to start thinking about buying some equipment, so I bought myself a 16L saddle bag and did a small two day trip around Tampere to get some feeling into riding with more weight. At this point the idea of actually skipping the trains part started to formulate and I started to plan for 3 weeks of riding in the spring.

Three weeks seemed like a good amount of time. Not too long that the kids and loved ones wont hopefully forget about me and enough time to warrant all the planning. Potentially possibly to arrange without going bankrupt. My initial plan was to do it the "credit card holiday" way, ie stick to hotels and hostels. While going through various plans during the end of 2023 and start of 2024, my savings account was giving me clear signals this will not happen. By this time I had joined all the possible bikepacking groups, read some books, incl "Fillarilla Nizzaan" a second time, Matti Rämö's "Polkupyörällä Ukrainan halki Istanbuliin" (recommend!) and a really poorly written "book" that I'll not mention as I don't like talking badly about people, let's say it deteriorated my Finnish language skills for a while. I also watched a ton of videos on the subject, both regarding gear and trip diaries.

It then hit me - if these people can do the camping thing, surely I can too? I've probably spent like 5 days of my life in a tent, so that's a good start, right? Buying all the camping gear is surely going to come up cheaper than hotels/hostels, even when staying at camping sites. In theory at least. I made the decision to start looking at gear and it soon became apparent there will be a large cost going into that, but hopefully it will still come out cheaper and I'll also be able to keep the gear!

Lots of gear reviews later I had some kind of idea what stuff I needed and wanted to buy. I spent some time trying to find the most expensive stuff second hand. Managed to land an MSR Hubba Hubba NX2 tent (1.5kg) second hand. Some of the other stuff I've needed to buy new, and I'm still looking for a light sleeping bag and sleeping mat. All in all quite a lot of stuff to lug around due to moving from hotels to camping, but then it does come up with some extra freedoms. And I'm still planning on a few nights at a hotel for a proper rest and fresh up.

Other gear I've decided to get is a bike computer. Initially I thought I would just navigate with my phone as I have done so far, and I'll probably do that when finding local places in a city for example. But for a full day of riding, I'd have to charge my phone multiple times during the day which feels a tad bit inconvenient. And to be honest, unsafe, needing to navigate longer distances during the day. So after spending some time looking at reviews, I got myself a Tamagotchi, I mean Garmin Edge Explore 2. It makes lots of beeping sounds, but most important handles tracking my rides and navigates me. I don't really care about all the sports metrics, thus the Explore seemed like a good model geared more for navigation. I did consider a Wahoo Elemnt (no, that's not a typo), but they don't have touchscreens. I also acquired two 5.8L fork-packs and in addition to those I'm planning on having my handlebar DSLR camera bag and my beloved Osprey Radial backpack with me. If this isn't enough, I'm considering a frame bag as that space will otherwise be used by only water bottles, which I can strap somewhere else.

So, if you've made it this far, you may be wondering where I'm actually heading? This was a nerve wrecking process of a few months of going through various options. The cheapest would be to drive through the Baltics into Germany, and then take the ferry from Travemünde back home. I wanted to explore the possibility of taking a train through Sweden and Denmark, but apparently Swedish rail wont take your bike on board without it being in a carry bag (shame on you!). A strong option constantly on my mind was the boat between Helsinki and Travemünde, and eventually it won. For the timeframe I chose a hopefully warm but not too hot end of May -> mid June.

From Travemünde my current plan (which changes every week) is to head towards Amsterdam (probably by using regional trains for a part of the way), Rotterdam, then down into Belgium, following the EuroVelo 19 "Meuse" route for a bit, peeking into to Luxembourg (haven't been) and then south through France to Basel in Switzerland, and if time up to Strasbourg, and eventually a train back into Travemünde for the ferry back home. It's a lot for 3 weeks, 1700km, but I'm hoping to either replace a part of it with trains or shorten the trip as it evolves. I'm aiming to keep the route more as a guideline, possibly when there I'll do something completely different or hang out for days at city. When traveling, there is nothing more I hate than strict timelines.

My main concerns for the trip are getting gear stolen while stopping for food and beer. How do people deal with bike bags and leaving the bike outside while stopping for a bit? My idea is some lightweight cable locks to at least make it harder to take the bags, but also obviously having everything valuable or critical in my backpack (like money, meds, etc). I'm also somewhat concerned of the length of the trip and the loneliness it will bring. However, it doesn't feel worth it going from Finland for any time less, the boat journey being the single biggest cost of the whole trip.

Another thing I'm concerned about is weight. While I'm trying to find some relatively good quality light weight camping gear I can afford, I'm not leaving home without my laptop and DSLR. Obviously this also means many power packs. But the way I see it, the trip is about creating experiences, and I can't formulate my experiences into blog posts without a laptop or take photos without a proper camera. I suppose some test runs with a fully packed Sanna some weeks before the trip will end up the deciding factors into what gear I'll end up going with.

Any thoughts and suggestions welcome! Holiday and boat rides are already booked so the trip is at least happening, unless something physically stops me. Kinda of excited about this whole thing, and hoping if it goes well it will become a new regular yearly hobby :)

Pics: Approx route as of now and Sanna at Tampere last October.

#jasontravels #bikepacking #cycling #lifegoals