During the Pandemic I asked a load of questions about cycle touring, and got loads of advice, and thought it may be nice to let the kind people who helped know what happened.
Bought two bikes Genesis Tour de Fers, really pleased with them.
We have done quite a bit of building up with lots of local rides and some short camping tours to the Lakes and The Coast and Castles and I cycled the Outer Hebrides.
But it all led up to 5.5 weeks in Europe.
We landed at Rotterdam and cycled down to Belgium stopping at Vrienden Top de Fiets, then we went to Ghent and Hosteled then Ypre and then Bergues in Northern France, the weather was not playing ball, what with Rain and Head Winds, so we caught a train to Paris for a couple of nights, then down to Tours.
We then cycled up the Loire camping at Municipals generally with mixed weather then through Burgundy to Beaune, which was amazing. Then the Train to Langres to start the EV19 to Rotterdam.
This was a change of tone as before it was touring but it then became a mission. The low point was a series of hills in torrential rain, and we nearly gave up. But we found somewhere to dry off, and some vending tumble dryers outside a supermarket where we dried everything including shoes, and then night we ended up camping at the Municipal where Joan of Arc comes from eating Mirrabelles and drinking Mirrabelle Cola.
We carried on down the Trans Ardenne cycle path into Belgium again where my wife took a big spill because we were laughing so much and got a docking bruise, that will teach us to enjoy ourselves.
We found the car drivers in that part of Belgium particularly aggressive so did our biggest day of 65 miles to Liege, which with fully loaded bikes we found tough.
After that we headed into the Netherlands and followed the Maas and had another crisis in Dordrecht, in torrential rain which just got frozen stiff and a train to Rotterdam seemed an option, but we got chatting with a Dutch Couple who told us the weather would change in the afternoon, and we warmed up with some KFC and caffeine and pulled ourselves together, and eventually got to Rotterdam.
We camped about 30 nights and Archies was a massive help and cycled about 1200 miles, and have sore bums to prove it.
It was an amazing trip, and we are planning to do another, and really appreciate all the help UKCers gave. THANK YOU
