The Plan - Schnooks Takes A Turn in Puglia - Tandem Tour - May 2024 - CycleBlaze

January 23, 2024

The Plan

We have never claimed to be trailblazers.  This tour of Puglia follows in the steps of innumerable CycleBlazers that have come before us.  If I had not already used "Lack of Imagination" as a tour title, it would be appropriate here.

I have shamelessly purloined information from a wide variety of CycleBlaze sources to create our own, hopefully somewhat unique, tour plan.    At least it will be unique to us, because we've never been to Puglia before.   I won't name names, but we thank you all for blazing a trail for those of us who are less adventurous.

Our plan is to drive from home in Limoux to Barcelona, then take the ferry from to Civitavecchia near Rome.  We've taken the ferry before and learned a bunch from the experience.  It was not fun the first time.  But we're hoping that with our hard-won experience we can make it more fun this time.  At least we know how bad it can be.

Our cabin on the ferry. Surrounded by hundreds of hyper-active, unsupervised Spanish teenagers. It was a long night...
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Once liberated from the ferry, we'll then drive to Bari, where we'll leave the car.  From there, we’ll set off on our circuit, which should look something like this:

The Plan
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We're planning 11 days of riding.  We may throw a rest day into the middle of this somewhere.  As always, we'll stay in hotels or B&Bs.  No camping for your intrepid tandemists!  We don't plan huge mileage days.  We try to leave time to stick our noses into any old stones that we happen to pass.

Our equipment will be the same as last year.  Our new (well, it still feels new to us) tandem Schnooks, route planning via RideWithGPS, navigation by Wahoo, Ortleib bags and panniers, and Sena intercom helmets. 

Schnooks in full regalia, ready to go.
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Mark BinghamSchnooks really is a thing of beauty.
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6 months ago

We've booked the ferry for May 7th, and should start riding on May 10th.   It seems so far away, and it's hard to wait!  But we have other non-bike adventures planned between now and then, so wait we must.

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Rachael AndersonLooks like a great tour! I look forward to reading it.
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10 months ago
Susan CarpenterDitto what Rachael said!
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10 months ago
ann and steve maher-wearySounds like a great trip. We will be following with particular interest as we hope to do it someday ourselves. Cheers!
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10 months ago
Mark BinghamLooking forward to reading about your adventures!
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9 months ago
Keith ClassenLooking forward to following along. Schnooks looking good!
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9 months ago
Bob KoreisLooking forward to vicariously visiting one the heel again. Puglia is a magical place. Hope you have enough off bike time built in to slow down and enjoy la dolce vita.
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9 months ago