July 12, 2023
A Week Out...
With less than a week to go before our departure, the usual chores need to be done. So far, we've picked out our clothes, schlepped our panniers and gear out from under the bed, organized the various electronics and their respective cords, and a small selection of essential bike tools have been put off to one side. Once again, our annual ritual of packing for a tour begins as small piles of gear slowly emerge in our small 575 sq. foot condo.
And, it's nice to note that we're making good progress eating the remainder of the fresh food in the fridge.
Sue and I sat out on our patio last night, enjoying a lovely summer evening dinner. We thanked our lucky stars, and reminisced about how many times we've been fortunate enough to prepare for a bike tour.
We tried to come up with a chronological list, which proved to be challenging as our memories mashed tours together, much like kneading different colours of plasticine; all becoming one slightly beigey confusing and timeless mess. Most of these tours were completed without a journal write-up. It is only in the last several years, that we have shared our adventures on-line. Some of our trips can be found here in Cycleblaze. Others can be found https://cgoab.com/pohara. After brainstorming using paper and pencil, this is what we came up with. Could be correct, could be completely wrong.
- 1998-First European Tour
- 2001-Canadian Rockies
- 2004-Newfoundland (*trip aborted due to Sue receving 50 stitches in her foot from stepping on a beer bottle in a lake)
- 2006-Vancouver to Tijuana
- 2009-Vancouver Island/Gulf Islands
- 2008-San Juan Islands
- 2011-Germany (Romantistrasse route)
- 2012-France Burgundy/Alsace
- 2013-Italy Northern Lakes and Tuscany
- 2015-France (Normandy/Brittany)
- 2016-Prague to Venice
- 2017-French Alps
- 2018-French Pyrenees
- 2019-Spain (Toulouse to Porto)
- 2022-Italy (Dolomites)
My main job today, was to find bike boxes and pack the bikes. I try to avoid driving the car most of the time, and it generally sits idle in our underground garage for weeks at a time. Sue takes transit to work, and I commute by bike. Living in such a walkable and cyclable city such as Vancouver, there really is no need or will for us to drive anywhere. Except for using the car for hikes on the North Shore, or visiting my mother in White Rock, the car just sits. It is not uncommon for us to be caught off guard by a dead car battery. But, I digress.
So. Bike boxes. With a plethora of LBS's (Local Bike Shops) near us, finding bike boxes is usually straightforward. I was mildly successful on my first stop. I entered the store, asked the staff if they had bike boxes, and they responded that they did. Success! They disappeared for about 10 minutes, and I could see and hear them shuffling things around in the back room. I felt guilty about all of the effort, and thanked them profusely. When two bike boxes emerged, I was eagerly ready to drag them out to the car, when one of the staff stopped me and said apologetically, 'That will be $40 bucks.....I don't make the prices here." Needless to say, I wasn't going to pay forty bucks for a couple of cardboard boxes, so off I went. If they get $20 bucks per box, it kind of explained the effort they put into retrieving them in the first place.
The next LBS sold me two boxes for $10. Sold.
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All went according to plan and the bikes were all packed in less than 30 minutes. As a rule, we always loosely tape the boxes for transport to the airport. Airport security always likes to open the boxes and give them a once over for contraband and a swipe for substances at the airport. Once that's done, we tape them up good before they're put on the conveyor belt for loading.
One step closer to our departure on the 18th. Now, on to tackling the next piles of stuff....
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