Well actually, there’s good news to report on that front that I’ve been holding off on. There’s been substantial improvement over the last five days - I’m walking more comfortably and with less pain, not gritting my teeth trying to get through the next half block. And my balance is better - between my knees and vision issues I’ve been pretty unsteady when walking, holding Rachael’s hand (admittedly a plus in all this) or a railing.

All along I’ve been holding out hope that some of this was related to the steroids, and am reminded that only a few months ago I was excited to be able to compete a ten mile walk. I think the swelling in my knees has gone down over the last week, so maybe those hopes are being realized.

Painful knees are more likely to be a game ender than having surgery on one or both. You may remember that Dodie used cycling for her rehab and was back touring within the year after the first knee got done. The longer you wait the older you will be. You might need to just bite the bullet here. What about getting the surgeries in Tucson? That way you could ride your rehab not in rainy Portland

Thanks, Eva. We will check this out. It’s funny hearing from you because Rachael and I were just talking about the fact that we stayed in the same places in Portsmouth and Tiverton, and the big surprise when Maya walked up and introduced herself to Rachael in Pately Bridge last summer. Pretty remarkable.

Not sure if this would fit in with your plans, and it was ten years ago, but regarding hotels in London, we've stayed at several medium-priced ones on Gower Street near the British Museum--the Ridgemount and the Arran House. They were reasonably comfortable, included breakfast, and are in a great area for walking. Ironically our cycling tour to England in 2014 was the only time we didn't pack our Bike Fridays in suitcases since Air Transat supplied free plastic bags, but we had no problems leaving large bags containing excess clothing etc. at the Ridgemount hotel while traveling around England.

To reduce your free risk of them being lost in shipment, or being refused and returned to sender by the hotel we had an agreement with, and to avoid the difficulty of finding someone willing to store them for the better part of a year. Also, it lets us use the suitcase as a staging platform for holding restock items - medications and the like - that we’ve mailed ahead in the past. We’ll execute loops for spring and summer, but we’ll have to ship the bikes ahead from Leon to Barcelona at the end. We had no difficulty finding a willing Airbnb in Bari, and I’m working on London now.

Milan --->Bari to pick up the bike boxes in order to eliminate the possibility of them being lost by a shipper?

Just starting to plan. Going through guide books to narrow down things we want to see, then comparing that to list of places we can reach by train. Will let you know when we have a schedule planned, as would be fun to meet up and compare notes!

And say - where are you going to be in September anyway? Let us know if you’ll be in the same corner of the world and you’d like to meet up.

No, most places were still available almost everywhere we looked, except on weekends in a few smaller places with few choices in the first place. My knees are bad enough though that in the UK especially most of the places we’d consider otherwise are either in upper floors with problematic stairs and no bike storage or far enough away from the historic center that walking to it is an issue also. By starting early though we’ve been able to find a number of well placed ground floor apartments.

I don’t think I’d be concerned for yourself unless you have similar issues, but you might check in from time to time to see if things are getting booked up.

Scott, did you find the same issue with most places being booked in September already? We are wondering about our plan to find places last minute while training around UK in September.

Definitely. Malaga is our planned ending point for our fall segment - we plan to fly from London to Leon and head south from there, through Segovia, Seville, Toledo and La Mancha (we’re dreaming the impossible dream here).

I’ll be publishing the itinerary for the Spanish chunk sometime in the next week, but I’m reworking it first. After following you along it convinced me that we have to stitch Cordoba and Granada in again.

Oh, and thanks for the £20 that arrived in the mail today! We’ll have a toast to the Grampies over an NA Guinness sometime this summer.

We will watch your segment in Italy carefully for the possibility of following you, next year or in future.

Would you still consider cycling Malaga to Majorca? Tomorrow we will go up out of Agua Amarga, in our underpowered Peugeot Hybrid, but still so much more horsepower than our little legs!

Looks very exciting, and very doable. Every trip we discuss making bookings as we go so we can have greatest flexibility and spontaneity, and each time we "chicken out" and return to planned steps with known distances and elevation gains, free cancellations and bike storage available, among other things. It seems that at our older ages there are more constraints re abilities and health, and "planned spontaneity " becomes a much more attractive option.

I hear what you’re saying, and if I were 15 years younger I might look at it the same way. At 78 though, there’s not much later to hope for as a bike tourist. Taking a year out of it is a lot to ask, and possibly a career-ender.

That’s true. It’s a great ride long the Isere all the way from Grenoble to Valence. And it’s not too difficult a climb over the saddle from Annecy to the Isere, so that might work for them. They’ll be able to see most of this when we bike with the other CycleBlazers from Grenoble to Valence, with a stop-off in the Vercors. We’ll be taking the high road out of Annecy though, over the southern ridge to Chambery.