Happy non Father's Day Niel.

It is almost Father’s Day. Niel and my Fathers’ have both unfortunately died.  Niel may not be a Father, although he is a surrogate father to our cats, but he is the most important male in my life. And with him being on the other side of the world at the moment, I have noticed a few things related to his absence.

First of all is that the house is so quiet. I have never realised how much noise he made, and the house seems so big without him. How can the lack of one person’s presence make such a difference to the feel of the house?

Secondly – the bathroom stays remarkably clean, especially the mirror. What do men do in the bathroom to make it so dirty? Especially as I'm sure women spend more time in there than men do.

Thirdly – I keep forgetting to do things that he normally does, like cleaning out the ash from the fire, shifting the furniture when vacuuming the floor, and sweeping the decks. Hmm – come to think of it – he was remarkably useful around the house.

Fourth – one bonus of Niel being away is that I don’t have to cook a meal every night. That is such a treat, I don’t know if men who don’t cook, realise how much we get sick of cooking for them.

Fifth – I can save more money than when he is at home, even though I go to the doctor more than him. Actually everyone goes to the doctor more than him, as he hates them and refuses to ever go to one. He is pretty good at not spending needlessly, but there are those little things that keep coming home from the bike shop – like pressure gauges, and colour coordinated tidbits for his beloved bike (drink bottles, valve caps and cable outers that match his transfers on his bike etc.) – No they are not free to the staff. Then there is his favourite bike shop of E-Bay, where he gets all those ‘essentials’ like caps, how many caps does a man need?

Just some of Niel's Caps.

Sixth – even though I am the gardening enthusiast, I do miss his muscles when trying to prune trees, or do things that the ‘Carpel Tunnel syndrome’ in my wrists find hard to do.

I have had to limit my cycling in the last few weeks due to injury and sickness – the first and hopefully last winter ill I will get. I am jealous of the amount of cycling Niel is doing right now, but it is finally Spring time, and I am over the tummy bug that laid me low last week, I’m still hindered by my injury, but it should come right too.

I’m not exactly lonely, but with my birthday coming up, I have decided that I’m not going to sit it out and do nothing, so I’ve decided to do something special and buy my flights to Hong Kong. Tickets to Hong Kong are on special at the moment, and why not make the most of that as a birthday treat.

In the meantime – Happy Father’s Day from the cats Niel.

Is it Spring yet?

Well Niel has left on his big cycling adventure of Scandinavia. As per usual the airlines have left his bike behind. He must be absolutely sick of this happening. Every single international flight he has taken in the last 3 years - the airlines have lost his bike. Don’t the airlines realize that a cyclist deprived of his bike is like a bird unable to fly? Anyway while Niel is gone I am starting to organize my first section of my ‘round the world adventure’.

I have sorted out an estimate of where I would like to get to each day. I need to know this to apply for visas for China, Vietnam and Laos. I don’t need visas for Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore or Australia.

I have a friend in Darwin Australia, where I can send my camping stuff that I won’t need in SE Asia, and where I can send my tropical clothes home from. They have also invited me to stay, which will be awesome.

My brother has expressed interest in cycling some of SE Asia with me, but hasn’t committed yet. My friends near Seattle in Washington State of the US will join me for some of the Pacific Coastline in the US. Niel and I will do a bit of the last stage from Russia to Hong Kong together. I am still hoping some of my friends will be interested in accompanying me in Australia even if it is by car and not bike. The invite is still out there if anyone wants to join me.

Obviously I am saving every cent, although I have expenses such as renewing my passport and paying for visas, when I have finally bought my ticket to Hong Kong and have dates. I have even started to sell some of my possessions to try and raise funds. It doesn’t help matters when My Vespa scooter got a parking ticket for exceeding the time limit in a car park, when I wasn’t parked in a car park (as if I would do such a thing); I was parked in with the bicycles. $65 fine for depriving another car of my spot in the car park – how ludicrous is that! I refuse to pay it – that is one over- zealous parking warden.

Does it look like my Vespa is in a car park? No? why did a get a ticket then?

While I have time to myself with Niel away, I have got a Spanish CD and booklet out of the library in attempt to learn some Spanish. I am a typical New Zealander in my lack of knowledge of another language. I know phones have a translate app, but the more you actually understand – the better. I will be in Spanish speaking Mexico and South America, so I thought it would be worth at least getting a basic grasp of the language.

I am almost desperate for this seemingly unending winter to finish. It was winter before I left for the Trans Am and winter when I returned, and it is STILL winter.it is officially Spring in 3 weeks’ time; I wish it would hurry up.

I have made the commitment - I am going around the world.

As you all may have guessed from the title of my blog – I have always wanted to go around the world. I have wanted to do it as a whimsical dream since I began cycle touring when I met Niel in 1983. My desire to achieve this goal became serious in 2007 when meeting someone in Ireland who was about to embark on this challenge. But up until now the time hasn’t been right, or I was constrained by lack of money or operations on my troublesome feet and knees. I am now 55 year old and I have almost run out of time for this dream to become a reality. I cannot wait for the perfect time anymore, and I cannot wait for Niel to agree to do it with me. So I have finally bitten the bullet and decided I am going to do it, on my own if need be.

I know I said after the Trans Am that I wasn’t interested in long tours anymore, but Niel is about to leave on his trip to Scandinavia and I am jealous – yes I still have the touring bug. I can finally answer those questions of When, Where, and How? Of course I have to work around Niel’s commitment to 2016’s Trans Am race and the seasons around the world. Bearing this in mind I have decided to break the trip around the world into 3 sections, and if anyone wants to join me for some or all of it, then I would love some company.

When: I intend to start stage 1 in early February 2016 in Hong Kong, and riding down the coast of China into Northern Vietnam and across the border into Laos and then Thailand, ride down the Thai and Malay Peninsula to Singapore, fly to Darwin Australia and ride through the centre of the country to Adelaide and then Melbourne, and then be home by May in time for Niel to leave for the States to do the Trans Am.

I have all the maps already for section one.

Stage 2 starts in August when Niel is home from the Trans Am and I will start in Seattle and ride the length of the American Pacific coast including the Baja Peninsula to Mexico City. Then I will fly to Lima Peru in the Southern Hemisphere Spring and ride to Santiago Chile, across a not too high pass in the Andes and East to Buenos Aires where I will fly home and wait 6 months for the Northern Hemisphere Summer to heat up again in 2017.

Stage 3: Fly to London in approximately early June, and take a ferry across the English Channel to Brussels and ride to Denmark, across to Sweden and ferry to Finland. From Helsinki I will ride to Moscow and take the Siberian Express train to Beijing and ride down to Hong Kong to complete the loop.

That is the plan at the moment subject to any improvements.

Where? As explained above, I have cheated a bit catching the train across Russia, but it’s not a race, and my course is the safest I can come up with for a woman on her own.

How? I intend to do it like Niel and I did our trip across Canada. Touring NOT racing, with days off to stay mentally and physically refreshed. There will be long and short days depending on distances between places and to be honest – the faster I do it the less time I will be away, which means it will keep the cost down.

I’ll repeat myself and say if any of my friends or family thinks they will like to join me for any or all of this – then I would love having some company. If you are interested, then I am budgeting about $50 (NZ) a day, plus airfares, and will stay in cheap motels / hotels only if there is no camping available.

 Well now that I have openly declared my intentions, I will admit that I am a bit nervous, I would prefer for Niel to join me, but one thing I did really like about doing the Trans Am is - making my own decisions whether they are right or wrong – they were MY decisions, and I found that empowering.

OH - how cute.

Spring is almost here now. Baby Lambs are appearing in the paddocks, the daffodils are in flower, some cherry and magnolia trees are also in flower, and the grass is growing again and needing mowing. There is a feeling that the seasons have turned a corner – perhaps it is the hours of daylight increasing, whatever it is, I am ready for longer bike rides, and regaining the fitness I have lost during winter.

It was the shoes fault.

I fell off my bike this week – it’s alright – I’m fine, no need for you to fret about my well - being. Just matching lumps on both knees and whip lash in my neck – strange that – but it is all I can think of to explain why my neck is so sore and stiff this week. I thought it was sleeping on it in a funny position, but it hasn’t abated, so I know it was wrenched significantly enough to not be simply sleeping on it funny.

Actually I blame my shoes. What I hear you say? Yes you heard right, I was almost at a stop and went to twist my shoe out of the pedal and nothing happened except falling on the stony path of the cycle way. On getting back to my feet I noticed my shoe felt like a Flip Flop. The sole had all but parted company with the rest of the shoe, so when I went to untwist my cleat from my pedal the cleat stayed put and my shoe untwisted itself. Well that is a first; I have never had that happen before.

OK my shoes were pretty old. I had cycle toured, Vietnam and across Canada, and done about 20,000 kms of training on them every year for the past 3 years, but Niel reckons there is still plenty of life left in them – what? I was putting them in the bin when Niel gets them out and takes them down to his bike workshop and comes back with them glued and held together with clamps. Why am I telling you all this? Well this is a typical example of how we can afford to keep having trips away. We keep our worn out stuff going well beyond when most people throw them out. I have no hesitation in wearing cast offs from other people and mending and fixing things, all with the desire to save money that I would rather spend on a hotel when I need one in another country.

Food for thought, where shall I go next?

I have been giving a lot of thought to my trips in the next few years. I need to work around Niel’s trips as the dates of his are set in stone – being events that he wants to accomplish. So I think I would like to finish SE Asia early next year, and finish Europe at the end of the same year. Then I need to be at home for a year while Niel is away. So the following year – 2018 I want to finish going around the world by doing the main Asian continent. I am toying with ideas of how to make this happen without going anywhere near any war zones or scary places.

I think Niel and I are in for an exciting few years if everything goes to plan and nothing untoward happens. We have such a lot to achieve in a few short years.

Would I have done anything differently?

 Before I say anything else, I want to thank all those people who gave me words of encouragement and goodwill while I was attempting the Trans Am bike race. I couldn’t respond at the time as Microsoft had stopped me accessing my email account- thinking I was a security risk as I was trying to get into it from a different location than home. I tried to amend this but to no avail, so thank you for your lovely thoughts and wishes.

I have no regrets about pulling out and it was definitely the right decision at the time.

How come my bike weighed 1 and1/2 kilos more on coming home from the USA  than going there? Surely I had the same load? I had to pay $70(US) for being over my weight allowance. I unloaded everything and pulled out 8 lithium batteries that I  bought to keep my spot tracker going across The States. They were expensive and I wasn’t going to throw them out, so was my tube of sunscreen, UV protection face cream and container of Anti Chaff. Then there was the extra summer clothes I wore on the plane going there, but had to be packed away in favour of some winter trousers and jacket I bought to come home in, for the middle of winter temperatures. OK I can see where the 1 and ½ kilos came from now.

Well it is lovely being home, even though it is the middle of winter. It is not too cold to ride my bike though. I have thought a lot about the last month and asked myself if I would have done anything differently to have finished the Trans Am, apart from the obvious: not sticking to my original game plane - if I had done that I would have finished.

I had too much stuff.

Yes, I should have taken less stuff for a start. I thought I had perfected my load but once a cycle tourist – always a cycle tourist and I took things I thought were indispensable but proved to be the opposite. I shouldn’t have taken a tent and sleeping bag – they may have been light weight but motels were the accommodation of choice, and a bivy bag would have done the trick for those occasional times of wilderness. I took far too much first aid stuff – that  could have been reduced by 2/3rds and I didn’t need insect repellent – I wasn’t still long enough for insects to bite me. I didn’t need a knife and fork but I did use the spoon and plastic cup I took - a lot, as motels have coffee making facilities but no cups or spoons and it was useful for eating cereal and yogurt out of. I don’t regret taking 3 drink bottles as you can always leave them empty when in an area of plenty of shops, but when you need a third drink bottle it is indispensable.

I should have been more flexible with my riding; I should have ridden through the evening, night and morning until the motels opened for the day and slept through the heat of the day. If I had kept cooler I wouldn’t have got so saddle sore and the creams wouldn’t have melted straight off like they did.

I should have had a Garmin or loaded the route onto my phone instead of using 12 heavy maps that needed to be constantly checked for directions and needing turning over to the next map. I wasted such a lot of time with my maps and if I had the route downloaded – I wouldn’t have got lost as it would have told me I had gone  the wrong way.

I was fit enough – my training was great,  but I needed to ride more through the night and to constantly push the distance as you get caught up in the hype of the event and your original ideas of daily distance gets abandoned in favour of keeping up with everyone else.

But what I have learnt – I can pass on to Niel who is still keen to do it next year.

Next year…… I have given it a lot of thought, and decided I want to be a ‘credit card’ tourist- doing big mileage but taking very little gear and using motels / hotels. Being away cycling for 3 weeks this way would cost the same as being away for 6 weeks and doing 100kms a day and camping the whole time. I am thinking about riding from Bangkok to Singapore.

Planning for next year already.

I met some lovely people while I was away, and I am very grateful to my lovely friends Jan and Reed from Olympic Peninsula near Seattle, who ‘rescued’ me and put me up for a week. It is often the people who make a trip not the scenery or physical achievement. Having said that though , I am very proud of myself for how I rode – not many middle aged women could ride 200kms a day carrying the weight of a child on their bike, in 40 degree heat  barely eating and in constant discomfort from saddle sores and  surviving on an average of 5 hours sleep a day.

Life after the TransAm

I've been trying to work out in my head what my cycling niche is now. This trip has sorted some things out for me and I realize that what I really enjoyed before, isn't what I enjoy now. Maybe it's a progression of aging, maybe it's that nothing in life ever stays the same. Maybe I am sick of hardship and hurting, or maybe I've changed. What ever it is I still love riding my bike.

What don't I like? Pain, going to bed dirty, being away from creature comforts for too long, repeating the same roads instead of seeing new stuff. And getting up at 2/3am every morning.
What do I like? Feeling free, fit and being part of the environment around me. I enjoy long rides - I find them physically satisfying. I enjoy the feeling of accomplishment from the comfort of a motel room or your own comfy archair after a hot shower.
I'm starting to wonder if I've got soft.

Niel ' s Idea of Creature Comforts

Option 1) cycle touring long distance but over the short time of a week staying in motels.
Option 2) vehicle assisted touring with a bit of comfort, no load and the versatility that gives you.
Option 3) do Randonneur events from home or a motel.
Option 5) doing organized tours where you don't have to carry anything and everything is done for you - although you may have to put up with annoying people.
There is no reason to carry on doing things the way you always have in the past. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it, and I need to do things a bit differently now.

10 days was enough.

After 1600kms my body has said enough. My saddle sores are so bad that I can barely sit on the saddle at all despite all the cream I am putting on them, and the lack of sleep is wearing me out so much that I am simply not enjoying this. When I got on my bike and started vomiting I knew it was time to pull the plug. If I could get one more day to Missoula In Montana where there was an airport and or train, then I could get to Seattle to where my friends live and try to get a flight home.

So one last day of struggling with my complaining stomach and saddle sores over Lolo Pass, I actually had to walk up some of the Pass.
I have seen some great scenery and some lovely people. I've seen Squirrels, Chipmunks, Deer. Birds of all sorts, and on my last day I have finally seen a mother and baby Moose right next to the road.

It has been a great experience and I exceeded my own expectations of my riding ability.
But right now I am going to recover with my lovely friends and enjoy the summer temperatures while I sort out getting home.