About

I've had travel fever as long as I can remember.  I can't remember how I heard about bike touring, but I went on my first short bike tour when I was 16, with my department store bike and gear.  It was a good thing my friend's mother said we weren't to camp and gave us money for accommodation, because I have no idea how we would have carried camping gear on our bikes.  Fellow Canadians may remember those panniers available at budget department stores, the ones that hung on either side of your "rat trap" rack and were decorated like the Canadian flag.  Luckily neither of us had a flat or other mechanical problem, because we didn't carry any tools, patches, or spare tubes.

Over the years I didn't do a lot of touring, being too nervous then to go solo, though I did the backpacker thing in Europe and then Asia on my own.  One of the things that interested me when I first met my husband was that he'd toured extensively in Europe by bike.  We did several short trips together and then four weeks in France in 1992 (before children).  I wanted to go back as soon as we got home!

Fast-forward to 2015 when we finally returned to Europe for 3 weeks in Germany.  No, we didn't take the kids on that trip, but they are both cyclists.  In 2016 I toured the length of the Pyrenees solo and in 2017 Al and I spent 3 weeks riding the western Alps.

No trips for me in 2018 but I had my eye on the goal, retirement at the end of the year!

As it turned out, I injured my knee skiing within the first week of freedom.  No real diagnosis despite multiple tests, but cycling is the recommended therapy for such injuries.  My ski season was over after only 3 days, but my cycling season hadn't begun.

Al joined me for the first 3 weeks of my French Fling tour and then I continued solo for the next 6 weeks.  I returned home the day after his last day of work.  We are now both retired and free to tour!