Caution: These vehicles make frequent stops
This morning we woke up pretty late because we’d had such a long day yesterday. We had several things to do in the AM before we could head out, including coffee and breakfast, a bit of shopping, (medical tape, more ibuprofen) and Harald had to replace his tire with the new one he bought last […]
Read More Alps 2024 — Day 2: Singen, Germany to Buchs, SwitzerlandI woke up at 4:45 as per schedule and tried and failed to do some mobile video editing. Eventually I gave up and decided to pack up. We were planning to leave at 6:00 am. A five minute ride over and we were ready to go. Anticlimactic, no pictures or fanfare but down the hill […]
Read More Alps 2024 — Day 1: Welzheim to Singen (192km)Long flight, not much sleep, but that’s a distant memory. We were on our way to Welzheim by 10am after breezing through customs and baggage claim. Like Madison. Stuttgart is also a nice, smallish airport that doesn’t overwhelm. We arrived at Harald’s boyhood home and chatted for awhile with his lovely parents. His mother, in […]
Read More Alps 2024 — The ArrivalToday’s my big travel day. I splurged and found a great flight to Stuttgart out of Madison through Atlanta. This, in lieu of our typical bus trip to O’Hare followed by a long flight from there, which would probably have put me into Frankfurt too. That wouldn’t have been quite as convenient. Yesterday I finished […]
Read More Alps 2024 — In TransitAn adventure long-in-the-planning is finally here! Ben and Harald are headed to Germany where they’ll start their cycling tour through the Alps! On Sunday (July 7, 2024), Harald began his journey to Stuttgart, Germany and on Monday, I’ll follow in his footsteps. If all goes to plan, sometime on Wednesday we’ll begin our first leg […]
Read More Alps 2024 — Ben and Harald’s Alpine Adventure BeginsIn Toto Now that we are a bit removed by space and time from our Race around the Netherlands adventure, perhaps we can look back with rose-colored glasses. For a different look at our complete ride, you can check out this Komoot collection. If you’re coming to this blog late, you can find all of […]
Read More RatN – A Look BackHere’s something for you to consider: did we bring a bike lock (or two?) on our trip? The answer? Not really. We brought a very lightweight (something as thick as a USB cable) combination lock for situations where we want to discourage the most casual of thieves. We did not bring a lock that we […]
Read More RatN – Day 8 – Schoorl to WassenaarLiz has a Zwift racing buddy from the Netherlands (shout-out to Manon!) who can’t believe the run of good weather we’ve had for this race, particularly given how bad the weather had been leading up to it! So we were just waiting for the real Netherlands to show her face, and today? Well, let’s just […]
Read More RatN – Day 7 – Will the Real Netherlands Please Stand Up?Today’s route has us dropping down along the Markermeer into eastern Amsterdam and then heading back north east up the coast into some very tourist-heavy regions of the Netherlands. It started out pretty chill, with breakfast in the room from careful shopping the night before. Six days in, we’ve started to develop a routine. We […]
Read More RatN – Day 6 – North HollandFerwert to Lelystad, 170km or 106 miles. I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread Bilbo Baggins, The Fellowship of the Ring You and us both, Bilbo. I was just too tired to even put a thought together, yesterday. It wasn’t any harder but the cumulative strain is building up. […]
Read More RatN – Day 5 – The Morning After