Mid Life adventures on 2 wheels

An Australian based couple living their mid-life, pre-retirement adventure dreams on 2 wheels, whether that be on their bicycles or motorbikes.

A trip of this nature is very enjoyable to plan, but given the independent nature of our travels it does take some time to organise the general route, kick-off points, key sights and experiences we both want to have.

PLANNING THE ROUTE

We decided on Western Europe as a destination for this trip, mainly based on enjoyable experiences during past cycle tours as well as areas we had the chance to visit whilst living and working in the UK pre-kids and family. We also drew inspiration also from various travel-type shows we see in Australia that highlighted great cycle and canal paths that allow us to travel quite safely and mostly out of the way of cars, buses and trucks! For example, one of our first plans included the Amalfi Coast and a side trip to the Croatian coast, but reading various blogs and cycling forums we decided that it may be easier as well as safer to find other routes.

Ultimately, we settled on an approx 3,000 km route that takes through:

  • Brittany – including The Brest to Nantes Canal
  • Atlantic Coast of France- La Rochelle to Bordeaux
  • Bordeaux to Provence – including the Garonne and Midi Canals
  • Nice to the Ligurian Coast in Italy
  • Rome to Florence
  • Venice to Munich
  • Following the Rhine and Moselle Rivers to Champagne region and finally
  • Following the Marne river back to Paris

Key references and Sources of Inspiration

The following a key references we have used in the design and finalisation of our route and plans

https://www.komoot.com/

https://www.google.com.au/maps

The canal from Nantes to Brest by bike (francevelotourisme.com)

https://www.freewheelingfrance.com/where-to-go/canal-des-deux-mers.html

Via Romea (Francigena) Cycle Route – EuroVelo 5: Hills of Tuscany – EuroVelo

https://www.achensee.com/en/discover/summer/cycle-route-munich-venice/

OUR BIKES

We both ride light-weight gravel bikes and have done so for our last few trips. The bikes are mostly off the shelf, except for additions such as pack racks and extra cages for both drinks and equipment. That said, our training was recently interrupted by a broken back rim on the Kona and broken back spokes on the Felt so we upgraded to stronger, nonstandard back wheels. These rear wheel issues were mostly down to multiple trips over a 4-year period with luggage, but it’s possible that user error (read body weight!) may have contributed!

We are again taking these bikes, and although not designed for heavy loads, they allow us to easily meet our weight limits, when combined with bike bags and our gear when using airlines. Altogether (bikes / bags / gear) our travel weight is usually 25-28 kg’s for each bike and the touring weight (without the bag) is about 15-18kg.

The team at Offcourse Brunswick have again made sure we are ready to roll.

OUR TRAVEL EQUIPMENT

We are fortunate to have to have accumulated most of our travel equipment from previous adventures and so have not needed to purchase too much for this trip. That said, and as a nod to the longer length of this trip, we decided that some personal space might be an advantage and purchased 2 x one-person tents instead of our usual somewhat cramped sharing of a two-person tent. Our equipment for the bikes is as follows:

GEAR LISTS

We have timed our ride from late April to late July so that we miss the European high summer season. We think this will help avoid the crowds and make accommodation a little bit easier to find on the fly! We are expecting daytime temperatures of 15C-20C in the first month or so and 25-33C for the majority of the time. an exception is the climb over the Dolomites where we anticipate getting cold. We think the gear lists below will be fine and if we have any issues we will deal with them in the local fashion houses!

Chris will be wearing this summer…

  • On Bike – 2 T-shirts / 2 Shorts / 2 Step-One Undershorts / 3 Socks / 1 Cycle Shoes / 1 Neck Warmer / 1 Windproof Cycling Jacket / 1 Warm Gloves / 1 Thermal Longs / 1 Rain Jacket / 1 Rain Pants
  • Off Bike – 2 Travel Long Pants / 1 Socks / 2 T-Shirts / 1 Travel Long Shirt / 2 Jocks / 1 Boardshorts / 1 Travel Towel / 1 Sleeveless Puffer Vest / 1 Fleece Pullover / 1 Pair of Adidas Casual Runners / Swimming Cap and Goggles / Sandals

Janette will be wearing this summer….

  • On Bike – 2 merino t-shirts / 2 shorts / 2 tri pant style bike shorts / 2 socks / 2 Sport bras / Cycle shoes / 1 merino 3/4 zip long sleeve top / 1 Warm cycling jacket / warm gloves / ear covering headband / 1 buff / Rain jacket / Rain pants
  • Off Bike – 1 travel long pants / 1 skirt / 2 t-shirts / 1 travel long shirt / 1 lightweight merino pullover / 1 lambswool pullover / 2 socks / 2 knickers / 1 bra / swimwear / Long sleeve puffer jacket / 1 Plimsouls / Sandals / Swimming googles and cap

OUR ACCOMODATION

We have booked very little beyond the days after arrival and prior to departure from Paris. We do like to start and finish with a little luxury, and for Paris we have selected the following hotel on the Left Bank – click on the link and you may see why.

Hotel Notre Dame Saint Michel *** Paris | Boutique Hotel Notre Dame Paris | OFFICIAL SITE

We considered using old bike boxes to transport our bikes, but logistics (i.e to and from airports / accommodation / re-packing on way home) meant we decided to take our EVOC bikebags. We really would like to extend our thanks to the hotel who have also kindly agreed to store our bags whilst we tour which also saved us $$ – MUCH APPRECIATED to the Hotel Owners

We are planning on spending approx. 50% of the trip in camping grounds, especially when on the canals and rivers of France and Germany. The sites below have been very useful in planning the camping grounds where we may stay:

Camping in France – camping.info

Camping in Italy › All campsites – camping.info

Camping in Germany – camping.info

With just a gentle reference to our domain name ‘Mid Life on 2 Wheels’ – 50% of our trip will also be in budget type ‘Pension / Boutique’ type accommodation when camping is not an option or where we just need to enjoy some creature comforts. We find Booking.com to be a useful guide in helping plan and pre-book accommodation of the type we choose. Once we get our daily routine established after the first week, we envisage attempting to book 2-3 days ahead for any particular accommodation (i.e. good location close to the key sights, good bars and restaurants and laundry).

DATA AND COMM’S

We are planning on following some well-known EuroVelo paths and canals, so directions outside of towns should not a big problem and for this we download our Komoot maps for offline use. However, riding into towns and cities may involve navigating ancient roads, streets and alleys (check out Genoa, Rome or Venice), and finding specific accommodation can be more difficult – especially if we need to visit a few places to find availability. For this purpose, we prefer to use Google Maps, hopefully with wifi access, but if not, then data will be required. We also need data to update our route on Komoot when on the fly.

Our research has shown that it is a cheaper option to purchase a data package from a European telco company as opposed to an international package from an Australian telco supplier. With all current mobiles having the ability to use an eSIM – we will be looking to purchase, and subsequently top-up with one of the following packages from Orange Travel

We are on our way!

Final prep ride – the Ballarat to Skipton Rail Trail – stopping in Linton
Bikes Packed
The total of our gear for the trip – awaiting taxi to the airport
Getting the bike bag checked in