About this Website

ABOUT THIS WEB SITE 
This website was started on 12 November 2007 some weeks after our return from cycling in Italy - and is now being updated October 2015!. It was whilst we cycled up and up the relentless hills on that particular holiday ("adventure" would be more like the description) and struggled with some of the trains, that I decided to "bite the bullet" and create a web site on my return to chronicle some of our biking holidays/adventures and to share some hopefully helpful bike notes and advice. 

I am reminded of our train trip from the CBD of Paris out to the CDG airport for our return home, after struggling with our fully-laden bikes down the stairs to the RER station and the chance meeting (as you do) with an Irish couple living in Paris who turned out to also be bike riders. Our sweaty faces and struggles with the bike un-friendly turnstiles of la gare led them no doubt to take pity upon us and they very kindly gave us some helpful tips which made the "train thing" so much easier. It never ceases to amaze me, this kindness of strangers, but also how a few pearls of wisdom can make such a difference. Don't let anyone tell you the trains are bike-friendly in Europe! 

Further to this ramble, we are Australians (if you haven't already guessed) in our early 60s!!, reasonably fit, but we are not Tour-de-Anything sort of riders. When touring, we generally travel about 50-60 kms a day - depending on the terrain - on hybrid bikes with paniers carrying approx. 10kg total. As we are limited to 20-23 kg total depending on the airline (just like everyone else), we allow 16 kg for the bike (in a bike bag) plus 4 kg in a panier - as checked-in luggage - and 6 kg in the 2nd panier as on-board luggage. At home, we ride 2-4 times a week - on road bikes - riding 30 kms before breakfast and 40-60 kms average other days (sometimes longer at weekends). I'm telling you this so you have an idea of how to rate the rides on this website. 

The internet is of course a wealth of information these days - there is so much more than when we started - and there are many excellent blogs. We have accessed books for assistance as well as the web - see the sections on CYCLING IN FRANCE or the one on MAPS, BOOKS, WEBSITES & OTHER STUFF for more info. We prefer to move from place to place when we are touring, with the bike a means of transportation. When we tour, we are just like other tourists: interested in seeing places, and eating and drinking the local food and wine - that is, not just riding for riding's sake. Having said that, we love the bike as a way of getting around and we hope you will find this web site useful when planning your next trip. 

Finally, as I update this now in October 2015 and move from my dedicated domain to Blogger, my focus has broadened to include other (non-riding) travels which you may (or may not!) be interested in.