Good to Be Home

It is hard to believe that just last week I was riding into Nice. Almost two months of cycling sure went by fast. In fairness that is sort of a retrospective on the trip. During those first few days of the Les Dex Alpes tour climbing out of Lake Como and into Visp and the Col Du Grand St Bernard seemed like the tour was never going to end. It may have been the rain and gloom which pervaded those days which leant that perspective to the trip.

It is good to be back home. There are so many things we take for granted that a trip like this makes you miss. Simple stuff like taking a clean dry shirt off the hanger instead of a damp wrinkled thing from the bottom of your clothing stuff sack. Getting a clean glass from the cupboard and filling it with ice cold water from the water dispenser on the fridge is so nice compared to having a big swig of warm water from your bikes water bottle, even though you cleaned your bottle just ten days ago. Sliding between two crisp sheets just beats crawling into a sleeping bag that you have slept in for the last six weeks.

So let me jump into the big question that is on every ones mind. Would you recommend this trip. There is absolutely no doubt that I would totally recommend Bike Dreams. They delivered a very solid product at a very good price. It is totally true we did not stay in 5 star hotels. However we did not pay 5 star prices. We did have 5 star food. Yaap the cook fed us the best meals you could want. I would tell him every day that he made my favourite dishes and he would say that can’t be true as you say that every day. Well when the food is great it isn’t hard to say that it is your favourite. The other thing was there was lots of wine on the table. Where do you see that? Richard the mechanic and lunch maker and everything else that needed doing staffer was the other main highlight of the trip. Got a problem? Richard would pull the solution out of his bag of magic tricks. It didn’t matter if it was your bike which needed repair or if you were just feeling blue Richard fixed everything.

With the big ride of 2011 out of the way I am clear to work on my running for the rest of the year. I still have a half marathon and two full marathons to run this year.

So what about next year? Where to next year? Another cross America? How about a cross Canada with Cycle Canada? They offer a catered tour now which looks pretty appealing. Or maybe the Tour d’Afrique’s Amber route from St Petersburg in Russia to Venice. So many chooses. What are you doing?

Terry

Don't ask about the photos they are just a couple of random shots