Victoria

September 3, 2022

Ready to Roll

Our last bike tour was in the spring of 2019. In the fall of that year we took a repositioning cruise from Vancouver to Sydney for the wedding of our youngest son and his beautiful wife. We felt very fortunate to get away with that wedding. It took place in the Blue Mountains outside of Sydney and we were surrounded by fires.

Such a happy day and so many wonderful memories.

Little did we know what was coming! We had an amazing party for the newlyweds here in Canada on February 29, 2020. Then of course, Covid. So here we are, the night before we leave for Lisbon, Portugal, looking forward to our first bike tour in three years and we are feeling a little out of practice at getting ready.

We did manage to get the bikes into the bike spa (also known as North Park Bikes) and they were returned to us purring like kittens. I have also switched out my clipless pedals for pedals that are dual purpose. I had been thinking about that for a while. I prefer riding clipped in, but I do a lot of errands on my bike and sometimes changing shoes is just a pain. The jury is still out on the pedals but I am getting used to them. I always feel like the wrong side is up no matter which shoes I wear. Keith, who has had them for years, says I will adapt.

The bike spa. North Park is so welcoming and the bikes are well looked after.

We had our friends and fellow CycleBlazers Dave and Anne Mathers over for coffee this week and they were a wonderful source of great information and good ideas. It was a delightful morning.

Our planning for this trip has been in our usual casual style. We have the first three nights booked in Lisbon. We wanted extra time there so we can see the city, but we also want to be very, very flexible in case our bikes don’t arrive with us. Then we’ll see. Our original plan was to head south from Lisbon mainly following the Eurovelo 1 route, then head east across southern Spain to Valencia and then possibly over to Mallorca. But depending on the weather primarily, we are considering taking the train north to Porto and starting there.

The boxes are packed, loosely sealed, as they have to be opened at the airport. Good friends will follow us out there tomorrow and bring our car back. We have a delightful friend of our daughter in law staying in the house and hopefully eating the tomatoes, raspberries, zucchini and grapes in the garden that we are leaving behind. She will be embarking on her own adventure in a few months so this has worked out well for all of us.

Tomorrow should be an interesting day. We hope everything goes smoothly but are packing a peck of patience just in case. We have downloaded esims on our phones, and that is a new technology for us. We have heard good things about it. We are also three years older than the last tour, and have chosen a lumpy country, so that should be interesting. We are excited though. There is nothing quite like bike touring, being outdoors all day, and seeing and learning new things.

Still, as I write this, I feel that we live in one of the most beautiful places in the world. It is pretty hard to leave. But it will be waiting when we get home…and when we get home winter will be setting in and we will be planning how to escape that!

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Steve Miller/GrampiesHurrah-you are trail blazing for us. We hope to go to Portugal and Spain next year so we will be following along with great interest. We leave in 3 days for England and the excitement is mounting here.
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2 years ago

Suzanne GibsonWelcome back to Europe! Have a great trip!
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2 years ago

Rachael AndersonI’m so happy to hear you are going on tour again! You’ve picked a great area for it and being flexible is definitely the right thing. I look forward to following your journal!
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2 years ago

Patrick O'HaraYay! Another excellent journal to follow this winter! Susanna and I are looking forward to following along!
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2 years ago

Jacquie GaudetHave a great time! We loved our ride through Los Alcornocales Natural Park last fall. It's a big park so do try to pass through it as you cross from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. It was truly beautiful riding through the cork forest.
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2 years ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesSteve here. Just seeing your photo on the Index page, and knowing that there is coming a Classens 7.0 gave me a thrill.
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2 years ago

Keith ClassenTo Jacquie GaudetThanks Jacquie - thanks for the tip. Will certainly consider this area based on your recommendation.
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2 years ago

Tricia GrahamGreat to hear you are off again. Feel envious but we are grounded at the moment by one of my orthopedic problems. Hope that by next European spring we will be off again. Porto to Lisbon is a wonderful ride
Tricia and Ken
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2 years ago

David MathersBon voyage! Can't wait to see where your adventure takes us.
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2 years ago

Keith ClassenTo Tricia GrahamHi Trish - nice to hear from you. Hope you and Ken are well. Just wondering if you have a blog of your Porto to Lisbon tour…if so we would like to check it out. Will be hitting the road in one direction or another after a few days here in Lisbon.
Keith and Kathleen
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2 years ago

Tricia GrahamIf you look at our blog The Tractors between London and Lisbon you will find how we rode between Porto and Lisbon. It was great but in retrospect I think from Obidos instead of going stray to Lisbon we should have continued to Sintra adding on 2 of 3 days. We went to Sintra by train from Lisbon and it was well worth it
Have fun and keep safe
Tricia
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2 years ago

Keith ClassenThanks Tricia - I don’t think there is an easy way to do search on Cycleblaze by author but was successful by googling your name and cycleblaze. That was quite the trip from London to Lisbon. Will definitely check out the Portugal portion. Thanks very much.
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2 years ago

Keith AdamsTo Keith Classen"... I don’t think there is an easy way to do search on Cycleblaze by author ..."

I search the author's name then pick the link to their profile. All their journals are listed there.
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2 years ago

Keith ClassenTo Keith AdamsThanks Keith - that’s exactly what I did. The blogs came up but the screen was blank. The issue was they were hidden a couple pages below so I had to scroll down a couple times before they revealed themselves. Thanks!
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2 years ago

Keith AdamsTo Keith ClassenI'd forgotten about that but I've seen the same thing from time to time. Search result looks blank until you scroll, and scroll, and scroll.

@Jeff Arnim any idea what causes that?
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2 years ago