Oldies Gap Year

There is nothing more pleasant than sitting in the shade of an oak tree, with spectacular mountain scenery in front, munching away at a fresh roll stuffed with pongy Swiss cheese. This has been a bit of a recurring theme over the past few days. The Swiss, do, however have an unfortunate ability to place pylons just in front of any view that you want to capture. To be fair, they do keep these pylons in very good order, and we witnessed some of them being painted green by some most acrobatic ( and brave, because I guess the power had not been switched off) painters who were swinging by ropes keeping them in good order. Today was through “Heidiland”. Thus called, because the writer of the books hailed from here, and in an entrepreneurial spirit someone has created an idealised version of the log cabin that Heidi lived in. This, oddly enough, explains why some of the signs in the local train station are in Japanese. There is a Japanese animated version of the book, and tourists appare...

“You need to go there. Very big campingplatz. Ve are full” said the very Germanic and bare chested campsite owner. This was after having sat for an hour in the heat waiting for the tiny campsite in Buchs to open. He wrote down the name of this campsite but gave no indication of how far it was. So I trudged back to a waiting Sian to give her the bad news, and we clipped our bags back onto the bikes which were hidden round the corner and started our march of shame past the reception area, both of us with a somewhat fatigued and down hearted look. His face suddenly changed. “You only haf tents? Now zat is completely different. Ha! you can find any empty spot unt camp zere!”. So we didn't end up in Lichtenstein, and therefore can’t add that country to our list. Lesson learnt - make sure the campsite owner doesn’t think you own some form of mobile camping behemoth, of which there are loads around. Our journey up till then involved a bit of hill climbing, and something we hadn’t associat...

Well, we survived our night quite adequately! True to my race, having paid the best part of £15 each for breakfast ( Thank you Switzerland ;)) we made sure that we ate pretty much everything placed in front of us. This wasn’t really a problem, as we were both suffering from cyclists hunger anyway. I think the only thing left, beyond the salt,pepper and the plum jam (yuk) was a forlorn pot of yoghurt. Paid the bill and off we went. Sian was a little bit nervous about the uphills on the way, but in fact just taking it steady and having plenty of wee(Scottish for small, not what you were thinking. Although we did have to do that anyway) stops made it perfectly conquerable. Again lots of picture perfect views of the Alps along with fine weather. Respect paid in descending order today to the following 1) Anyone like us with front and back panniers ( and especially if they are also towing a child at the back) 2)Rear panniers but no front panniers 3) Racing bikes 4) Mountain bikes 5)El...

Our first taste of Swiss railways took us to Oberalpass - basically the source of the Rhine and some 2040m above sea level. I’d like again to report that the railway system didnt run like clockwork, but alas, from the queuing system to the time we rolled into Oberalpass, it was not only impossibly efficient, but also wonderfully spectacular in the views from the 4 separate trains we had to take. You can’t complain about the £73 each ticket price ( although I did winge at the time) as not many railways deposit you at the top of a high mountain pass! Not how to store your bikes What wasn’t quite so easy was carting our fully loaded bikes on and off. The Swiss seemed not so keen to get help as we lugged the behemoths on and off, preferring to stand back and mentally tut as their smooth passage onto the train was slowed. That said, we chatted to a very funny Swiss couple who were on their way to holiday in Italy, the reason being that it’s much cheaper there. Yes, even the Swiss find Swit...

Well, you just have to hand it to the Swiss. Having slightly stressed about where we were going to put the bikes together and get rid of the boxes, we need not have worried. Right by the carousel was a little station complete with giant bins for cardboard AND an automatic tyre pump that all you needed to do was set the pressure and press a green button. Other potential stress points were 1) Would all the bikes fit in the taxi? Answer - yes, but only after plan C was put into operation which involved folding over the back seats and me sitting in front of them hoping that the driver wouldnt have to brake suddenly. 2) How much hassle checking in the bikes and bags? Answer - actually none at all. Check in staff had seen it all before, so not even the proverbial eyebrow raised. 3) Would it all the gear arrive in one piece? Answer - obviously yes, but actually very impressed with the robustness of the “Chinese shopping bags” that I had purchased of eBay. No pump required Fully assembled - I...

One option we specified for the bikes are special couplings that essentially allow the frame to split in half. So this is my bike split in tow with the front wheel taken off, and the handlebars twisted around 90 degrees The large cardboard boxes came from Halfords, who were more than happy to give us them. I’m conscious that we will also have to scrounge boxes and packing stuff abroad - notably Tokyo and Bangkok, so want a system that will just use whats readily available. The picture above isn't the finished thing - I’ve added some more cardboard protection. The rolls of cardboard between the spokes of the bike are meant to avoid the box being crushed and the wheels with it. We are flying with BA, where there are basically two options. Either put the entire bike in a ginormous plastic bag, essentially complete, or like I have done above in a box. There is a fair amount of debate as to the best method. The plastic bag afficionados say that it’s obvious to luggage handlers that it’s...

We have done various trips locally with an increasing load and then spent 4 days in Pembrokeshire with a full load of what we expect to take. My bike weighs in at 45kg and as such becomes a bit of an unwieldy monster if you lose concentration and let it start to tip over. If you are not careful you and the bike become an upended tortoise with a similar grave difficulty in getting upright again. The very low gears that I somewhat sniffed at when we did a trial unloaded run when we bought the bikes came into their own. Pembrokeshire has got some stiff little hills, and the only way to conquer them is to spin in these ludicrously low gears and wobble/weave your way to the top. Oh, and don’t try and stop half way, as getting going again requires an art that we have yet to master fully. Perhaps the main thing we have learnt from these mini trips is how easily you can get cold- so we have invested in some decent down jackets from Patagonia ( the company, not the place) that can pack down i...