November 13, 2021
What has been, and what will be
What has been
History is written by the victors. - Winston Churchill
History is just one damned thing after another. - Arnold Toynbee
From one perspective, this tour looked something like that this:
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Possibly an interesting summary and point of view, if you’re inclined to numbers. Other interesting metrics could have included sick days (zero!), accidents or serious injuries (zero!), lost eyeglasses (1), CycleBlaze meetups (5), countries (7), states (9), photographs, days biking in the rain, days or miles hiked, revised plans, cancelled bookings, desserts, and on and on and on. But we’ll stop here. Metrics, schmetrics.
From another perspective this has just been a whole lot of work! 5+ months, 5,000+ miles, 200+ CycleBlaze posts. History is just one damned pedal stroke, key stroke, foot fall or shutter click after another. And it all stops here, for this tour at least. This is the final post of the tour, by necessity since I’ve already declared the total number of posts.
From the most important perspective though, this has all been such an extraordinary experience, such a rich cornucopia of fantastic, wonderful and not so delightful moments that we’ll look back on it with astonishment not many years from now in the same way that today we view our tour of the French Alps back in 2015. 1,250 miles, 129,000 feet of climbing, and about thirty mountain passes in 3o days? Really? Galibier? Ventoux? Madeleine? Col de la Bonnette? With panniers? And we drove down to Salem for work the morning after we got back? Wow, were we tough then! And crazy!
5,000 miles in 5 months? I was 74 and you were 62? And without eBikes? Wow! Let’s go back and reread those journals, watch some old videos, and remind ourselves of just how we did that.
Thank you all again for being a part of our adventure. We couldn’t have done it without you. And, of course, thanks to Jeff for creating and maintaining this outstanding, welcoming platform where we can share our experiences. Make a contribution, support CycleBlaze!
What will be
Que sera, sera / whatever will be, will be / the future’s not ours to see / que sera, sera. - Josephine Conway, from The Man Who Knew Too Much
Who knows? We never really do, do we? We could step around the corner and get run over by that Old Age Truck tomorrow. But we do have ideas!
They start with taking it pretty easy over the next four months. After this month here in Portland we’ll drive down to Tucson, stay there for six weeks, and then drive back to Portland to spend February here again. No panniers, but there should be plenty of biking - at least once we get out from under this seemingly endless atmospheric river that we’re all sick of already and move south. I’m sure we’ll throw up a blog and toss out a post here and there, if for no other reason than that Roddy and the Straggler can see themselves in print again after being cooped up together in the dark for nearly a half year, and I can show off my latest attempt to bike my age in miles again. Drum roll, the suspense mounts: will this be the year that it’s just one mile or one year too many? I don’t think so, but who knows?
On March 1st though, we’re flying back to Europe - to Nice, this time. Buying our ticket back was one of the first things we did after arriving back in Portland this week. By our records, this will be the 52nd tour of a week or longer that the two of us have taken together (The Ace of Spades Tour!), 35 of which have been of roughly a month or longer. And then I’ve got my own 11 more to add to it.
As envisioned now anyway, this one will be different than any we’ve undertaken before: much longer and much less structured. For starters, we’re just buying a one way ticket because we don’t know how long we’ll stay, where we’ll return from, or even anything more than a rough idea about where specifically we’ll go. And we expect it to be more relaxed and ad hoc with many longer stays where we can settle in for a spell and enjoy biking without panniers, take walks and hikes, or just sit in a cafe or by the shore and watch the world roll by.
The Grand Vision though as I briefly mentioned sometime last summer is still a nine month tour: three months in France, three months in the UK to take us out of the Schengen Zone until we can return, and then back in it again for another three months, primary in France once more. Nice to Barcelona, by a much longer route than when we first did it in 1996. Maybe something like this:
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https://www.cycleblaze.com/edit-journal/11/
Your England route includes a piece I'll ride in 2022. One of my planned trips includes the town of Worksop in Nottinghamshire, which looks like a place you may ride through. It's just east of Sheffield.
I also intend to ride up the coast north of Newcastle. It looks like you ride will be around Scarborough, to the south, which is where I cycled a few years ago.
3 years ago
https://www.cycleblaze.com/edit-item/23224/
3 years ago
Another of my intended routes next year is a clock-wise loop from Swansea in South Wales that ends in Chepstow - which is just across from Bristol.
3 years ago
This whole outline is really a swag for now. I imagine France is roughly on target, because we’re familiar enough with most of the country to know where we want to go. Not at all the case with the UK though.
We’re really pretty new to the idea that we’re really going to do this and are just starting to throw ideas on the map. Other than time-boxing it we really haven’t thought it through at all, beyond knowing that I want to see the Lake District again, Yorkshire, and Devon. Guinnessland may not even make the final cut. There’s really enough to see in England, Wales, and the Borderlands to fill the summer, and maybe pair up Ireland with a tour of Spain on a different year. Your Casablanca journal has been a great resource for piquing my curiosity about regions I’ve never thought of before.
3 years ago
3 years ago
https://www.cycleblaze.com/journals/lincolnshire/hull-to-hornsea/
and here's Ireland...
https://www.cycleblaze.com/journals/ireland/
3 years ago
Sustrans outlines various cycle routes. ..
https://explore.osmaps.com/en?lat=53.500000&lon=-2.500000&zoom=7.0000
You could just use their routes as a guide and tailor your trip to suit your personal goals.
3 years ago
Or not. Who knows? Get up, stretch your legs, go for a drink, we’ll see you after the break.
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3 years ago
Have you been tracking the price of plane tickets? If so, did you notice a change now that international travel has opened up? The news says air travel is surging and prices are going up accordingly.
I have a story for you - I was chatting with a new teacher from Ohio (?) about what we had done over the weekend. I had ridden my bicycle, which impressed Thomas greatly. He went on and on about how wonderful it was that I was getting out and about 'at my age'. Why, I was the same age as his parents, and all they did was watch TV. We had a little discussion about Coloradans being active people. Thomas did admit to seeing gray haired people on the ski slope (his sport). Fast forward to the end of the year - Thomas' father passed away unexpectedly . . . . talk about incentive to keep moving!
I'm excited to see you in Tucson. We have to sit down and have a proper meal and a beer. Maybe at one of those outside cafes you enjoy so much?
I will be in Tucson three times this winter - Thanksgiving, Christmas, and a month over January/February. I should know by then if my infatuation is the real thing or not. I've had an offer of a garage to leave the bikes in, but so far haven't been convinced that my affair with Tucson is serious enough to commit my bicycle long term.
Enjoy all of your favorite spots in Portland!
3 years ago
Check out El Charro in Tucson. Unless something’s changed, they have both food and beer.
I think flight prices are moving up, though we’d only casually checked in on the Nice flight a few times over the last month or two and didn’t keep notes. I think we could have saved a few hundred if we’d bought a month ago, but we weren’t really ready to think about it yet.
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So that’s bad news. I can’t call the upcoming one the Ace of Spades tour after all. Maybe Jokers Wild?
3 years ago
Yes, come to France next year. You’re so close! Burgundy in the fall, maybe about the third week of September. We could go knock on Keith Kline’s door and see if anyone is home.
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Looks like you’ll be through here next fall, if all goes to plan. Don’t forget to stop by to say hello.
Of course, if it doesn’t go according to plan you can stop by anyway.
Cheers,
Keith
3 years ago
3 years ago
I predict that riding your age in miles is still totally doable (definitely not my definition of 'taking it easy, though).
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Yes, at Gevrey Chambertin to be precise. It’s about 15 k by bike from the railway station in Dijon, or 500 meters from the station in Gevrey. As you get more advanced in your plans, I can provide more information, like routes etc. Some time you should send me your email address so we can communicate easier.
Cheers,
Keith
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