Second Ride: "The Meeting on Telegraph Road"

September 6, 2022

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We have sort of limited options for riding in our local area. This is why, we tell ourselves, we spend the big bucks to go somewhere else. This was sort of on our minds as we headed out for the second of what will have been four more trials of the bikes, with increasing distances or hills. I expressed it as "There has to be some reason for going to England, other than the beans, dry toast, and tomatoes (breakfast)", and Dodie responded with a list of all the wonderful sights we were about to experience.

Still, when you take careful shots of our own roads, things look quite nice right here:

The road shown above is Cherry Point Road, which we chose because it is quite hilly. The result of that was that we observed our bikes/ourselves struggling, and we concluded again that a heavy and low powered ebike is definitely no motorcycle.

We came back from the cafe along Telegraph road. This is like Cherry Point, but with a bit more traffic. But one feature of Telegraph is that for a stretch of about a kilometer, the road builders broke their hearts and put in a paved shoulder. Even here, though, it is only on one side. When riding back from the cafe, it does give a welcome sanctuary from any traffic.

The bloggable story today is that as we were coming back from the cafe, along the paved shoulder, we encountered two cyclists coming along our side in the opposite direction. This caused some rapid thoughts to pass through my alert brain. Firstly, it was clear that the riders were wanting to take advantage of the only paved shoulder in the road. Fair enough. Now if we looked on the shoulder like a two way bike path, then we would keep right and so would the oncoming riders. The shoulder was quite narrow, but we have seen plenty of two way bike paths that are no wider. But in this case the riders were not keeping right, but rather left.

Dodie and I of course both saw the same situation, but there were two different reactions. I swung out into the road, so as to avoid the whole thing. This was a fine answer, unless of course there had been a car out there. Dodie responded by just coming to a stop, more or less in the centre of the shoulder.

Now from the point of view of the oncoming riders, Jan, who was behind, also I think just stopped. Meanwhile Len tried to keep left, and go around Dodie. But, he didn't make it . He went into the ditch, with his bike on top of him!

Both Len and Jan had really nice Giant ebikes, but of course they are not light. It took a bit to lift the bike off Len, and then to try to help him out of the awkward ditch position. Only later I learned that Len is five years older than us, and is also prone to bruising. This kind of thing is trivial when you are 10, or 20, but not so when you are 70, or 80!

Len turned out to be bruised but ok, and we were then able to enjoy 30 minutes of trading stories and looking at each others bikes. What a crazy way to try and meet people!

We rounded off our training by having a look at some materials we had brought from previous trips. Usually we pick up childs' guides to stuff, and usually find them more than detailed enough.

Here we have the guide to Canterbury Cathedral, which will be among our early stops.

There is lots of info in here. Could we pass the quiz?

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Kelly IniguezIt sounds as if you bag your bikes, rather than box them, for air travel? I'd like to hear more/see the result. We are planning on our first European tour next summer. One friend, a frequent European bicycle tourist, swears by wrapping her bike. She lives in Napa, flies from San Francisco. Big city. We shall see. It is all intimidating.
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2 years ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Kelly IniguezWe gave up on the suitcases for the BikeFridays because it is fiddly to fit them in (for us anyway) and boxes can be hard to come by, we think. We have used the large plastic bags supplied by WestJet and Transat in the past and they seemed to work reasonably well. Last year, coming home from Mexico, we used the bags but also used cling film to wrap the more sensitive bits inside the bags. Will do the same this time round so stay tuned for stories, photos and the story of how it really went in the next few days.
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2 years ago

Jacquie GaudetTo Kelly IniguezIt also may depend on the airline you are flying with. The ones we use most require that each bicycle be in a bike case or box and further that it be only the bike in the case. We push it a bit by including bike-related items (tools, helmet, cycling shoes, bike lock, etc.) and have never been required to remove them. And they know they are there. We've been required to open our cases and (temporarily) remove objects other than the bike for a thorough inspection when checking in at Vancouver, Victoria, or Calgary airports. Better that we do it than an inspector, though.
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2 years ago

Ben ParkeI have had good success acquiring boxes from the local bike store. They are throwing them out with the recycling anyway and are usually happy to let me have my pick of one.
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2 years ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Ben ParkeSince most of our travels are in Europe we are a bit more concerned that we might not be able to acquire a bike box at the end of a trip. We tend to fly in to one place and out of another so we cannot even try to store boxes at a hotel. So far, anyway, the clear plastic bags seem to have worked well for us.
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2 years ago

Ben ParkeTo Steve Miller/GrampiesI can confirm this is an issue. I had a little issue with my bike not arriving on a condor flight that I was on. The bike got forwarded to Nürnberg where I was, but no way to get the box back to Frankfurt. I spent quite a lot of time going to different places in the Frankfurt airport to obtain a box. In the end I found one, but the bike didn’t fit it very well. Condor was supposed to refund me the $30 for the box, but they filed for bankruptcy and, last I knew, it was still tied up in German courts. I think that was 2019? I now have a different bike that fits in a suitcase. Boxes might be more protective than a bag, but they are a hassle to use for sure and are real pain to try and move around.
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2 years ago