I totally understand the nervousness. It was just this year I finally seem to be past it. A woman was telling me her tour guide’s advice when the going gets rough. The first thing was to remember speed is your friend. When I get nervous on gravel I was slowing down so much little old ladies and babies on strider bikes passed me (seriously, they did) and I have finally come to realize that that was not helping. The next advice was to trust the bike. Last was to always be looking about 10 m ahead, not down at your front wheel. I took all that advice to heart next time we hit gravel and it really helped!

I thought I would share my email address. I am really enjoying our conversation and it would be fun to continue. I was trying to figure out if there was a way to do it privately over the last few days, but I haven’t figured that out 🤷‍♀️. I think posting it here is pretty low risk though. Here it is: classenkj@gmail.com.

Lovely to get your reply Kathleen! I almost feel like I get to know people reading all their journals. I love your positivity and joy. I can relate also to the gratefulness for everything after coming back from an accident like that. It sure felt wonderful to be back on tour when that seemed like a remote goal at the time. Wasn't it the worst pain ever, couldn't wait for the rescue crew (a helicopter in my case) and their pain relief.
I stumbled upon the Andersons in CycleBlaze when planning our first tour in Adalucia and Puglia. I've been a groupie ever since. Such an inspiration. I'm not sure we would have ventured off this year if not for them.
New Zealand is beautiful but it was a revelation going to France and experiencing the amazing cycling infrastructure and consideration shown by cars. Unfortunately there are far too many drivers here who seem intent on killing you! All the main roads have little to no shoulder so cycling anywhere on main road feels dangerous. But things are getting better and in Auckland where we live a lot of cycling paths have been put in place thankfully.
However if you base yourself around Queenstown then you will have access to lots of great cycle trails (mostly not sealed but ok surfaces to cycle). I had my accident down there on a round the mountains trail (3 day bike ride). We were only an hour into it and the scenery was stunning. I have been persuaded to have another attempt this January. Feeling slightly nervous about that! The first part of it is a gravel road, not terrible though. It was just unfortunate the person in front of me slammed on their brakes going down a hill.
I'm not sure if Bromptons would be the right thing. But there are plenty of bike hire places (normally about $NZ50 per day, so not cheap).
If you need any information at all I'd be very happy to help!

Oh my goodness. It sounds like exactly the same experience. It sure isn’t fun, is it? I am so glad you got in touch. I had exactly the same experience with my shoulder on our first tour post fall. I was oh so proud of me for doing the physio and working so hard to regain a full range of motion. Off we went on tour, and it wasn’t until we were on the aircraft going home and I was trying to put my pannier in the overhead bin that I realized I had lost some of that hard earned range of motion 😱. So back to the exercises and fortunately it didn’t take long to come back, but I was shocked at how quickly it went downhill when I didn’t stretch it. I think that is improved now. I try and do daily yoga at home but certainly didn’t keep that up while we were away. I meant to, but you what they say about good intentions! The shoulder held up just fine though and I popped that pannier in the overhead bin no problem.

New Zealand is such a beautiful country. We have only been once, and only the north island but we absolutely loved it. We are talking about coming over again this year, perhaps with Bromptons, or perhaps renting bikes and doing day rides from a base. Very casual talk at this point but we would love to do it.

Hi Kathleen, I'm not even sure you'll get to read this message as I'm commenting way back here. I enjoyed your Portugal/Spain journal so much I started reading your older journals. And then I came to your accident and my heart stopped. I had to write you a message. I had an almost identical experience earlier this year, a bike accident on gravel going downhill (in New Zealand where I live) and dislocated/broke my shoulder in 2 places (no surgery and no broken pelvis thankfully). My husband became the same rock as Keith and quickly had to acquire the same hairdressing skills. Luckily we were at least in the same country but still had to make the journey home in a car which took quite a number of days and we made the most of it.
I was determined to get back on my bike again like you so I did my physio religiously for 9 months. Bike touring is something new for us and we've only had one overseas experience of it, loving it so much and desperate to go again (then covid came along). I had the same anxious feelings getting back on my bike 4 months later and like you went from nervous to cautious but regaining my confidence. I was determined to go ahead with a plan to do a tour in France in September, which we did, and had the most amazing time. I had the same feelings as you when I first hit a bit of gravel. I still really dislike it and avoid as much as I can, but I'm a little more confident on it now.
I stopped doing my stretching exercises for the month we were away thinking I was done with it, but it stiffened up again, so I'm making it part of my daily return and also accepted it will never be quite the same. I would be interested to know if you still need to do stretches this far out and if your shoulder has completely settled.
I'm so sorry you caught covid after that wonderful trip but glad you're on the mend. It sounds awful. My husband started with a sore throat on our way back too but thankfully only a cold.
I'm restlessly trawling through journals at the moment desperate to start planning the next trip. Loved the sound of Portugal and Spain.
Hope to read another of your journals next year!

You are going to love it!

We seem to be signing ourselves up for the Brenner Pass on our coming trip. Thanks for your write up - makes it less scary!