friends who ride. Henrik and Andrea in Australia, again!

follow them: THESOULSEARCHERS

I’ll be in New York the next couple of weeks. Let’s see what happens…

Picture by Fifo

RIDIN.pdf

Here’s the first part of pictures from our trip to italy. After it rained three days, we finally started the ride wednesday in Zurich. Through Zug and Brunnen we made our way to Bellinzona and then Ascona. It was pretty cold already, so heading south is the best you can do then.

Never underestimate the blast from a truck in a tunnel.

Second stage started along the Lago Maggiore. Soon we entered Italy. As there are quite a lot of lakes in North Italy, we decided to use them to determine our route. Usually good roads, nice views and the possibility to jump into the water. We spent the night in San Guilio d’Orta at the Lago d’Orta.

The third day we made it to Como. Very nice route. Some hills, some flat long roads and some pretty bumpy and curvy ones and a long downhill into the town centre.

To minimize the weight of our backpack we didn’t have to much clothing with us, so every evening was laundry-evening. So glad that the bike clothes dry pretty quickly.

After the first night in a tent, we spent the others in hotels. Surprisingly, we couldn’t afford the luxury ones, but hey, as long as the room has enough space for us and our bikes we are happy.

Last part was to Milano, where we spent one more night. It was so hot the last two days and not easy to find something to drink, as most Italian stores are closed in august because of vacation. Was also nice to end the bike trip with some city riding (without backpack).

On the way to the trainstation.

Home again. Well, I could have written a lot more, about all the nice spots and the good food and the equipment and so on. But I guess the pictures speak for themselves. Also want to thank Biroma and opignon again for the support and hopefully we can do something like that very soon again.

Yes, we areback again. Just need to get all the pictures sorted and then we’ll let you know a bit more about the whole trip. Still psyched about the experience. Watch this space….

So Stage II and what I was afraid of happening did occur of course: Ye Ol’ Lack of Cell Phone Coverage, and the unwillingness to drop moolah on Roaming charges.. so what I did receive today was the following text message:

“Yo We’re in Orta, Italy. No reception..at the moment. Ascona – Orta. 80 km, nice! Greetz”

which is funny cuz on my google maps there is only ONE Orta and it seems to be near Naples – w a y more than 80 km south:

SO that cant be the right place..

Basically I dont know what to tell you.. I would assume they are somewhere between Ascona and Milano. They were probably riding SO FAST that they couldn’t read the sign of the town properly…

Anyhoo.. I’m sure they are having a   d a m n   good time – while I’m stuck here serving with the “Civil Protection” unit, driving around in one of these suckers:

How unconventional – four wheels on a bike Blog! I gotta post somthing, right?

And sorry, the gents seem to have gone strictly iphone-photo – we’ll post G11 pics soon.

“one.”

edit: Location changed:

So the mystery of where the Gents are has been solved:

They are of course at the Lake of Orta – thanks for fooling me google earth, way to have a sense of humor!

From above it looks like a damn nice leg of the journey!

So for those Gents who had to stay home due to various circumstances, it means that we have the pleasure to keep you up to date with how its going on the trip.

Today’s (first) email didnt really say too much – just four pics:

we like roads and nature:

Cuz THIS looks AMAZING:

We’re not only Pedal GENTS but also Photo GENIC, ayoooo. (hello MASH! + Please note the Über-awesome Shmaltz Brewery Peloton Jersey)

I dont know, but I would say that this is Flüelen?

Who knows? I DO know that those are some nice Bikes.
Ivan reppin’ BK on an Affinity and actually the Bianchi is straight from NY as well..

I have to say though that they are NOT keeping it real with the Bidons… I guess better than a Camelpac – and hey, whatcha gonna do? Dudes are gurna get thoisty on their long ass ride.

Keep it safe fellas.

Edit: photos added:

It seems our friends have already made it to Ascona, Ticino, and 7 hours in they are already busying themselves with doing some laundry.

and here’s the campsite for the night:

Nice tent yo! I like the color coordination going on there.

I wonder, whats for dinner? We’ll have to wait till tomorrow to, maybe, find out.

G’night y’all!

It’s still raining almost all day long and is cold like late autumn.
Not the best way to start our ride. So we decided to start the journey on wednesday.
Sleeping in a wet sleeping bag on the first night already was just not too motivating.

We’ll keep you posted…

Getting the stuff together for a week of riding. We’ll start here in Zurich and make our way towards Genoa. Let’s see where the route lets us pass. Thanks to opignon for the support.

Now we really hope, that the weather doesn’t upset our plans.

For the weekend in Paris I didn’t bring my bike. But hey, no problem because theres this thing called “velib”. For 1 Euro a day you can rent them. first half hour for free, after that 2 Euro per hour. The idea is, that you go from A to B, which is easy to ride in half an hour, you return your bike to a station and you get another from the station whenever you want. The 30 minutes rule is only, that the bikes are actually used for riding, and not getting locked up in front of a restaurant all day. And it is really impressive how many bike station there are around the city.

Now the bikes; yes they look terrible at first sight, but you get used to that. Also they have three pretty low gears, so you don’t get anywhere near fast riding. But as long as you’re bike is not your fashion statement or you’re train doesn’t leave in five minutes, they are great fun. And the fact that there are thousands of bikes to use by everyone is amazing. Also, you can ride a lot on very nice paths and the cars are more used to bicycles then in other cities it seemed.

I really hope that something like that can be found in every city one day!