Let the Adventure Begin
A bike. A Dog. An Adventure. What could go wrong?
A bike. A Dog. An Adventure. What could go wrong?
Next month I begin what is in my opinion, a rather ambitious adventure. The plan is to cycle the ViaRhôna or EuroVelo 17, cycle route from Geneva to Montpellier with my dog, Liddy.
The route isn’t quite as long as our friend Clive Thompson’s cross-North American journey, but hey, I want that old-world experience.
My Gear For Cycling Coast-To-Coast
I’ve cycled 2,750 miles across the US this summer. Here’s what got me thereclivethompson.medium.com
So... here we go. The opening chapter to our new adventure.
The Dog
Bringing Liddy adds constraints. Fortunately, Europe in general, and France, in particular love dogs. Even so, bringing her along limits the places where we might wish to spend the night and some of the attractions I might wish to visit.
Bringing Liddy means bringing her trailer as I don’t expect her to walk, let alone run the eight hundred-plus kilometres of the route. Pulling her will be a drag (bad pun.) I would prefer to ride without the trailer because of the speed and energy costs that it brings.
On the other hand, Liddy is a great companion for a trip like this. She is up for adventure always enjoying new sights and smells. She does look after me, reminding me to take my pills and letting me know about things I don’t hear. Just a few of the services she provides as my assistance dog.
Age and Health
This month I rolled into my seventy-third year. I’m hearing impaired which makes me a great conversationalist, not. It also adds to the fun and frolics of trying to communicate in a foreign language.
I have a heart condition, and a few other issues that contribute to the collection of pills I take on a daily basis.
Those issues aside, however, I think I’m in pretty good shape. I won’t be making my way to the top of the Furkapass mind you. This is where the lake below the Rhône Glacier gives birth to the Rhône River. I have no desire to push my bike up a nine-hundred-metre climb in the first fifteen kilometres. This would be a good way to start an ordeal, not an adventure. So, thank you. No. The Swiss R1 section of EruoVelo 17 will have to wait for another day.
Gear
First and foremost, Liddy and I will be using the rig pictured above. Our Brompton C Line Explorer, complete with a Radical Design Cyclone IV Chubby Trailer. We have been training with this setup since March and feel it is up to the task.
The B, as I have been referring to my Brompton, is a folding bike with small wheels. When folded, The B fits into the Chubby trailer which then acts as a carrying case.
Lessons on Brompton Bike Touring
I like to tour between towns on a bike and the six-speed Brompton has become my steed of choice. Many people have come…martymanley.medium.com
The Chubby is Liddy’s Support and Gear (SAG) wagon. I like it because it has a wide wheelbase with a low center of gravity. We figured out how to keep the Chubby open for Liddy, providing her with some protection while she rides. She has no problem hopping in and out of the Chubby when she wants. She is also happy to sit and watch our stuff when I have to go into a shop, café or washroom.
The Chubby will carry a few pieces of baggage, like our tent, but most of it will have to be carried on the bike. The Brompton Borough Bag on the front will take some of our stuff, and food, while I will be using a backpack hung on the saddle for my clothes and camera gear. The trick is to attach a rod across the saddle and hang the pack from it. The bottom of the pack is attached to the rear rack so that it is not being kicked by your heels as you peddle. This sounds a bit weird, but the pack is secure and doesn’t seem to wobble about.
The challenge is figuring out how to bring it all together without paying excess baggage fees to the airlines.
Route Planning
So, how do you cycle more than eight hundred kilometres? Like everything else, you do it one kilometre at a time. Especially if you want to enjoy the sites along the way.
I purchased the Kindle version of Mike Wells’ Cycling the River Rhône Route (Published by Cicerone Press.) This 2023 second edition, is very current. Mike has done a great job of laying out the route and providing GPX files. These files map out a twelve-day schedule averaging seventy-five kilometres per day. I might be able to do seventy-five kilometres in a day at the end of this trip, but reality says to plan for fifty or sixty. This is supposed to be a travel experience, not a travel endurance.
There are quite a few applications out there that will help you plan and map your route. The one I have chosen is called Komoot. Put in your starting and ending points and it will offer a suggested route taking popular cycling paths into account. All that personal data we give away can come back to us in a good way. The premium subscription to Komoot will break a long trip like this one into smaller daily chunks. Tell it how many days you want to do the journey in and it will come back with suggestions that take your fitness level and the climbs along the way into consideration. It also provides many points of interest so you can find where to get water, where there are shops and bakeries, and where there is accommodation at the end of the day.
There are great maps and more information about the ViaRhona on their website, here.
Navigation and Safety
As I am a senior (sexy) citizen, my family has concerns about safety when I am out on an adventure like this. At the very least, they would like to know where Liddy and I are. Some years ago we were heading out to southeast Oregon to explore and take some landscape photos. Contrary to what you see in the movies, cellular service is not available everywhere. The solution we chose was a Garmin inReach. This is a cool GPS device that provides navigation services and allows two-way texting using satellites. Depending on the plan you subscribe to, it will post a breadcrumb trail to a map so everyone knows where you are.
Because of my heart condition, I purchased a Garmin Instinct watch. Like the inReach, it pairs with your cellphone to provide mapping and navigation services. I bought the Instinct to show my heart activity more than as a navigator. Lately, however, I am finding how well it works as a bike computer.
OK, back up a bit. Remember I said earlier that I am using Komoot to create my navigation routes? Well, it too will provide the navigation services you might want on your ride. Download the maps and the tracks onto your cellphone, and you have a very good bike computer. If I didn’t already have the inReach and the Instinct devices from Garmin, Komoot would probably be all I would need. If you have the premium subscription, it will send location notifications over the cellular network to your friends and family, and the display options when riding are great. But…
But I have the Garmin devices and I am quite fond of the extra information that the Instinct watch provides. And bonus, Komoot has created an application for the watch that allows you to integrate their route plan into newer Garmin devices like the edge line of cycling computers and smartwatches like the Instinct. So, I will be using the Garmin devices.
The inReach will be used to provide location monitoring and breadcrumb trails. I will be able to turn off cellular services on my phone which will save battery.
The Instinct watch will provide navigation services with the cellphone apps to provide details.
One cellular carrier is T-Mobile. They provide us with unlimited texting and data while in Europe, so we really don’t need a SIM card from a local telecom company. We use WhatsApp to communicate between family and friends. We will only use the voice service, at twenty-five cents a minute, when we really have to.
We will rely on Wi-Fi services at restaurants and campsites to upload stories and photos for our followers.
The Plan
Right. What is written in stone is the first few days. We start with the airline.
Lufthansa has approved Liddy to travel in the cabin with us from Seattle to Frankfurt. This is because she is an assistance dog registered with the Province of British Columbia.
Our daughter will collect us from the airport in Frankfurt. Liddy and I will enjoy one night with our daughter’s family. The next day, we leave my wife with my daughter and take a train to Geneva.
Budgeting thirteen days for cycling, Komoot divided the eight-hundred-kilometre journey into fifty kilometres each day. Day one has the toughest climbs — six-hundred-fifty-metres — but after day four there are no climbs more than two hundred metres. Easy!
In Geneva, we have a hotel room so we should have an easy start on our first stage to Usinens, France. This stage is about fifty kilometres long and has the longest climbs. I expect to be totally knackered at the end of this stage, so I have booked a BnB.
From there, who knows? Sleeping under the stars is not out of the question.