Springboro native Tracy Burge shares her journey on the North Sea Cycle Route, a tour of the countries that border the North Sea. It took a lot of planning and training, but Burge fulfilled her dream in 2019, cycling 3,500 miles over three months and traveling through 14 countries. This presentation was taped live Jan. 25 at the Springboro Performing Arts Center as part of the Next Destination Speaker Series, coordinated by the Springboro Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee and the Springboro Library. For more information, visit https://www.cityofspringboro.com/387/Upcoming-Events
All right uh good evening everyone I just uh want to welcome you all my name is John Nelson I am part of the Spring buau City of spring bureau’s bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee um the reason why I struggle with it so much is we don’t call it that we call it vpack
For sure uh so if you hear the word be beack mentioned tonight that’s what it stands for spring Springboro bicycle pedestrian committee so we really appreciate you all being here uh how many fellow scen residents can I see perfect wonderful and those of you are visiting as guests welcome uh we would
Love to have you back here we are a uh bicycle friendly Community we have great um uh places where uh you can come ride your bike uh with various different backgrounds various different abilities we would love for you to come come back and enjoy our city enjoy the small
Businesses that we’ve got in our city as well um but with uh I’m going to go ahead and ask um uh Dan uh to kind of introduce our speaker today Tracy but before I do that I do have to acknowledge all the work uh and the support that of course city council um
But as well as the city of spring R staff provide bpad and the amount of effort and work that goes into things like this we just come up with the ideas they truly executed so let’s give them a [Applause] hand first of who gets the word out so
All of you lovely folks who hear that we’re doing something like this is Moren uh let’s give a hand to morine as well thank you but I hope you enjoy tonight and I am looking forward to listening to the speaker as well and I hope you all
Picked up a card because this is just one of uh many talks in a series so this this is the second of the many uh talks we’re going to have and so I hope you enjoy uh the second lecture here in the next destination uh speaker series then
Come on up great thanks John thanks John I really appreciate that um in addition to uh some of the folks that he mentioned by the way I’m Dan Boron um also want to recognize Jason Vogal up there for doing sound and light and Joe over here uh to my right who’s doing uh
The videographer I’ll jump into that right now just so you know all the sessions including tonights are being video recorded for later broadcast on city of springb a cable access Channel and also YouTube so uh the presentation will be dropped in should be available within a couple weeks so just uh want
You to know that as well so with that in mind if you have your phone please turn it off or uh at least turn it on vibrate or uh low sound so we don’t uh disturb our speaker tonight first I um she could not attend here because she is ill but
But want to thank also Nan Allen from the Springboro Public Library we partner with the library um I’m putting this program together I think we’ve been doing it since 2016 crazy so uh just a good uh good partner to have on this effort um uh John already mentioned it but we have
Three more speakers including one coming up next Tuesday January 30th at Springboro Public Library community room so please pick up on a card on the way out there are plenty of them and we have two more programs in in early March so this is only the second of five programs
That are going on this year so thank you very much for all of you attending um plenty of items outside as well to go pick up for you okay um Tracy Berg um when we set this up uh Burge sorry um when we all set this up and I first reached out to
You I didn’t realize you were springb resident that came later so uh now I learned that you’re on the 1979 basketball team girls basketball basketball team State runner up so another great thing but uh Tracy has been dreaming of long Trails since childhood after reading about a kid who
Rode his bike across country so after years of Adventures and Misadventures she saw the upon retirement uh read about the longest bike map or bike trip in the world and found the North Sea Trail which she’ll be presenting tonight as well as her bike which will be a prop
Here and I guess it’s going to be undressed as with evening goes on so uh you are all warned about that so without further Ado I want to introduce up to the stage Tracy thanks for coming thank you Dan um um I wanted to thank Dan and the City
Of Springboro for this wow when I was here this would have been in the Clear Creek Elementary Gym you know so this is a awesome an awesome space I’m excited to to be here and share this route it’s a great route and like uh Dan said I did it uh for
Retirement uh but how did this start a lot of people ask me why and how did this all start well like you said I was in the sixth grade class Mrs Lawson’s room anybody know Mrs Lawson no way really didn’t you just love her sister no way Kelly yep 82 I’ll be darn
What’s your name John Wonder oh yeah awesome well I was and you you’re Tom old friends a’t that awesome I had Mrs for six did you wow I just loved her I figured she’s what 83 now oh yeah just you wonderful times wasn’t it yeah well I unfortunately sat
In her class and stared out the window most of the time until she gave us the Scholastic Magazine you guys remember that and I read about a a guy who had ridden across country with his father and I thought now that is something right so I wanted to do that and we
Eventually did my it’s my sister and I up there on the hay bales riding a upside down dog in somebody else’s golf cart but when you ride on a bicycle you have time to do that kind of stuff you don’t get time to do that kind of stuff
Very often we paid the children in the back back there to pet their kittens and they gladly took our money we rode along the Great Lakes how often do you get to do that and people want to talk to you and meet you these people here we were coming into a
Small town in Montana and we called the post office ahead of time and we said look we’re going to be there Fourth of July on a Saturday how are we going to do this get our boxes and they said look we’ll give it to the people that live in
The only white Town only White House in town we’re like okay so we got there and these this young couple there they had tables laid out they had all of our boxes on the table they had coffee brewing and they couldn’t wait to spend time with us and we ended up spending
The whole afternoon with them just because it’s fun so you get to meet all kinds of people when you do these bike rides and sometimes you just don’t know why you’re doing it so most of the time though you do now this trip that I took was my retirement
Trip and I had long dreamt about riding for a long time on the longest signposted route that I could find and so that was my first job was finding a route how can I find a route that I know is signposted so I started Googling and
I came up with the yll routes has anybody ever heard of these guys oh they’re beautiful routes and you can see here they’re all over Europe so I chose one and that was the northsea cycle route 6,000 km or 3500 miles oops once I knew where I was
Going I needed a map and there’s the North Sea cycle route you can see uh England Scotland Norway Sweden Denmark Germany Netherlands Belgium France nine countries let’s see here so now I have a route and I had to follow it somehow so kamut is a really good way to follow
This route um it was satellite we could use it on our phone which was right here told us which way to turn if there weren’t signs and there were signs most of the time but not always and people asked us you went through nine countries so there had to
Been border crossings right well there were but nobody asked us a question nobody asked us for a passport and nobody even looked in our bags so we did it ourselves uhoh no volume I’m saying she Carolyn’s asking me for my passport then she says right there
She says what’s the square root of 144 I say 12 and then she says what’s your middle name and I’m like did you have to ask that it’s bernardet and then she said welcome to Sweden and I said thank you that was our border crossing we just made it up
Ourselves oh yeah the two words that was Norway and then as the slide went on that was Sweden that was the border crossing all right so you have a destination I’m going to tell you the nuts and bolts of kind of how to do something like this so you pick a
Destination that was the North Sea cycle route you get a map you find some way to follow that map and then you get your bike all right so here’s the bike a lot of people ask us how do you get your bike there well we pack it up
We scoot it through the airport like that and they put it on the plane but make sure you know how to put it back together it takes a couple hours to put two bikes back together that’s what they look like once they’re put together I’ll
Go over the bike with you guys or that’s another example we typically pack light but that’s a longtime experience the more time the more packs you have the more you put in it so you can see as you go along that’s what your bike ends up
Looking like you put stuff on it you buy Pringles you put it there you got bananas right there and then you pick up Flags so that’s the bike back of the bike and this is the front of the bike you got to have the co-pilots right so
We love to pick up things around that’s been with me since 2007 it’s fun but we do have our GPS unit our speedometer there our lights in case we’re out after dark and that’s a spot tracker anybody know what a spot tracker is yeah you
Know what a spot tracker is okay so spot trackers are used by hikers and bikers it’s a satellite GPS thing so the Keen thing about that and it is allows people to follow you and I I once said to my friend who’s going to follow me and she
Said you know what there are going to be people out there at their job in front of their computer Going H another Monday and then think what what are they doing and they’ll put your spot tracker in and and look you up matter of fact Carolyn’s
Mother had a map on the kitchen table and every morning she’d look where we had slept and then she’d follow us along until she saw where we slept the next day so it it it brings people into your route and it’s a lot of fun to share that way all
Right all right so now you have the bike we’re going to go over the bike oh oh I forgot to tell you about the spot tracker the extra thing about the spot tracker it comes with $200,000 of extraction Insurance just in case something happens they’ll come in
With a helicopter they’ll fly you out somewhere and it’s it’s a good bit of reassurance okay all right oh this is the packing list okay so I’m going to undress your my bike here for you so you know kind of what’s on it sleeping system this in the front
Pack is the sleeping system so you have your sleeping bag right and a sleeping pad and it’s one of those small blowup ones right okay what do you need next pillow a tent aha pillow got to have it and yes very good the tent let’s see if I can get it out there
It is notice it’s packed in plastic even this is water resistant proof there’s nothing waterproof when you’re out there especially when you’re out there all all day in the rain so that’s it up here in the front are little things you need like a full arm sleeve a tattoo right
Warmers arm warmers sunscreen lotion lip balm little reminder pad ah waterproof for your phone yeah and that’s about it then of course like I said all your electronics here this is what we call The Lunchbox now you eat a good breakfast right but an hour later what are you absolutely
You’re hungry so in here you stuff it all full of yummy goodies such as like this is cinnamon brown sugar how do you say that petiva yeah you want them there you go how about some cherry slices come on come on there you go oh close pretzels there you
Go how oh gummy bears yeah I knew I’d have a taker on that all right this is also since you never have enough snacks right you’re going to wish you said M&M’s right M&M’s there you go oh I’m short all the time Pringles Pringles there you go watch your
Head and couple more items this area here is called the frame pack and it opens up look at that that never enough food on a trip because you’re you’re um spending a bunch of calories isn’t that the great thing so moon pie no vanilla moon pie how about Twinkies some of my
Favorite all right I do love apples and potato chips yeah bite for bite you know anybody salt there you go you got to have salt so salt and sugar keeps you going so you need to have salt and sugar on your bike sometimes we’ll take frozen burritos and they stay throughout the
Day they’ll get rotten um but most of the time we just have sugar or snacks on the bike you can eat usually on a trip like this you can get restaurants convenience stores and stuff like that this is the tools and I went all a long years of emptying out a water bottle
With all my tools in it look at this WOW right there right so tools ah right Spa cycling bag on Amazon on Amazon yeah it’s really good uh let’s see here’s my inner tubes I I started carrying a here because there’s a lot of space here and I wanted
This full of food snacks all right back here oh no right here this is a just a little pouch for convenient little things you’re going to need like a new bite valve for my water pack quick fixes Allen wrenches stuff like um rubber bands for putting on your stuff and
Then oh diaper rash ointment you know how that goes back here kind of the restroom area cuz you have to stop along the way oh I’ll show you this ah there it is your towel and clothes back here so this is again waterproof and it has a nice thing
When you squeeze it hear that air and then you close it and then it stays kind of compact for a while now of course you want to ride with as M as many colorful clothes as you can get so we usually wear orange or pink or something like
That and then of course there’s a puffy jacket just make sure you have enough clothes in case of any bad weather I think my bad weather stuff is over here this is the rain suit and Rain socks we have gone to mostly wearing sandals on the bike and if it
Rains you put weatherproof socks on and it really does the trick um you can feel that cool air through your toes most of the time gloves in case it gets rain pants and rain jacket and then the most favorite thing about this hotel shower curtain or shower cap
Goes on top of your helmet keep the rain from getting in your helmet some you know I had a friend who had this really expensive hat and I’d put that on every time and he’d just shake his head all right now this side again your packs are never
Waterproof so we have Electronics in like a dry bag and then your electronics of course you know music a charger batteries what else I have oh if you’re on the Ella rout you have to have something that you know you can get different plugs cuz they’re all different over
There so we you got to carry that and let’s see what else is in there ah another set of tools you want this one yeah we carry a tire tool set and then a bike tool set it’s too much to put in one so that’s the tire tool
Set and and first aid you got to have some first aid we really don’t use it that much but that’s about it not too bad oh we carry a water pack I’m still I don’t like anything on my back but we have to have water somewhere
And there’s not a lot of room for water bottles so we have a water pack but I have a purse that’s attached to it right because riding backwards is terrible isn’t it oh I love my credit card so let’s see here all right that’s a Sleep System the tools the clothes the
Food and the electronics can I sure how much does your bike weigh when you’re rolling fully loaded okay about 52 55 lbs but this mountain bike is pretty light to start with and then I’ve learned over the years to narrow it down now if we’re carrying a stove to cook
Food with that adds weight because you got to have fuel too um but generally about 50 55 lbs it’s not too bad it looks heavier than it is and you get used to it all right now we have a destination we have a map we’ve got a bike we’ve got it
Packed or we think we do now we have to plan or not I’m not a big planner we did this whole trip not a reservation one you w pull into town if there’s no Motel you go wild Camp they call it you know what wild camping is you do
This right generally over there people let you camp anywhere you want to and if you’re nice people don’t mind most the time you clean up after yourself but for some people planning is makes you feel more safe it it’s really a personal thing about how much planning
You want to do you can plan the whole route and be there every night where you’re supposed to be sometimes that doesn’t allow for spontaneity it doesn’t allow for those people that we stayed with all afternoon in July 4th so you have to kind of decide ahead
Knowing that you know the best laid plans or Plan B in in in my family we say Plan B is no plan at all so it’s a personal thing how much you want to plan and generally when you don’t plan it works out now we want to I wanted to talk to
You guys about fear because a lot of people ask me aren’t you scared yes how do you get out there well you just do it it it does dissipate the fear does dissipate once you get out there but yeah I’m afraid sometimes I’m my handshake Sometimes I Cry um sometimes
I’m lost and I’m frustrated but overall it’s really a wonderful thing don’t let the news make you afraid I’ve never had any trouble out on the road never so people can oh my dad oh my gosh what what are you doing out there I’ve never had any problem it’s really
Wonderful to be out there to slow your life down to smell hear the as you go by you hear the sheep and you call back to them when do you do that in your car you you don’t so don’t be afraid if you want to do something like this even if it’s a
Two-day Adventure do it it will be okay and encourage others to be part of your journey we encouraged our family and there we are in Norway with my sister there and my nephew who’s now 6’5 um well he was quite tall there you can see and they came to Norway with us
And at that point you stop being a biker and you become a tourist and we rode boats and we we went on trips and we rode a little escalator but it’s not called an escalator up the mountain and we’re up on the top and it was beautiful
And we took about four or five days there and it’s awesome because their presence there made us change our trip a little bit all right let’s see here okay so we have a route we have a map we have a bike we have packed it we’ve planned or we
Haven’t and now Fitness and well we all wait to the very end don’t we you don’t have to be fit to to do something like this eight days to Fitness will take care of it you start the first day and you think I feel great this is awesome and the second day
You’re like oh this hurts and by the fifth day you’re like I feel pretty good and by the eighth or 10th day you really are fit nothing nothing’s hurting and you just keep going I’ve started some trips where I was really really fit and you know did 70 miles the first day and
I’ve started trips where I wasn’t fit at all and I did 30 miles the first day and maybe 40 the next day and maybe back to 30 it doesn’t matter if you’re fit or not it Just matters that you want to do it and you make yourself do it it’ll
Happen other important things make sure and stop and talk to the locals I can’t do very long without touching some kind of fur so I did a lot of that all right now we’re going to go to the trip because we’ve done everything we need to do to get
There and we started in England here’s the map and this is this is England right here a little close up there you go we spent about 10 days in England it was fantastic we were just Gob smacked at the beauty how quaint it was how friendly people were how many Hills there
Were but look at that people had flowers everywhere just a little bit different fields of flowers they just live a different little bit different life that that’s Monday morning traffic in England castles just Castle after Castle we just couldn’t believe our eyes we’re like wow this is awesome here we’re wild
Camping at a church that’s a really good place to Wild Camp because they generally don’t mine and it’s generally safe uh we also like cemeteries because there’s water in a cemetery um um of course then we went next to Scotland even Hillier there’s Scotland right
There about 12 days and it was more open than England yet still had quaint small villages that were beautiful old now talk about old this is a 16th centur house that we stayed in have you guys ever heard of warm showers right warm showers is an underground kind
Of what do you want to say organization that allows bikers to stay with bikers for free do you guys know D and Abby D and Abby look at the bells do you recognize them yeah remember when the servants would sit yes and they’d ring a bell and they’d jump up well we were
Talking about that with Willamina right right here our warm showers host and we decided to reenact um down Abby there’s our star right there Carolyn she’s right there so it was so much fun with the host we all we were all giggling like teenagers and we said let’s make it up let’s make
Let’s video it so here’s the video she’s just chatting away and then the bell sounds and Carolyn’s acting like the servant oh my gosh I got to hurry oh and I am the impatient Lord we go through the house and I say you’re quite late and then she
Curtsies and we cracked up and everybody you can’t can’t see them but the whole family was behind there we were all in it it was so much fun now this was a little town called fauland in Scotland and we saw this violin shop and we’re like oh man we got
To go see that right so we go in there and we met this man who knew Johnny Cash small world and he told us about the story I hope we have sound no sound oh that’s too bad because he says in a very thick accent oh Johnny he he came here
Because he traced his ancestors here I can’t do the accent and he said I said how did you meet Johnny in this town he said well it’s a wee town of course we saw him so Johnny came here and then they started a relationship and end up
Johnny Cash’s daughter came and and did a concert for them and they they raised money for the violin shop just because we took the time to look into the violin shop we got that whole story so be sure again when you’re planning leave some time to talk to the locals I wish we
Could see the hear the accent oh there he goes he’s talking all right there’s Roseanne Cash right and all his violins he was quite the character he could play guitar he played guitar for us that’s a 14th century Bridge amazing just more beautiful little towns and buildings and the and the little Seaside
Villages were gorgeous and the Fish and Chips were delicious these were some of our signposts very beautiful another traffic jam and then this was my favorite sign of the whole trip another seaside village and now we’re in Norway all right so here we are England Scotland we
Took a ferry here to the orcy islands and then a plane a small plane had to pack up the bikes again put them back together again and now here’s Norway we did again about 12 miles in Norway it was sparsely populated but o so beautiful again look at that the roads were
Quiet and children were out playing by themselves this little dude wanted to bike with us and he did through the town it was just so cool you felt like you went back in time these are Norwegian garages another Norwegian garage another quiet Quiet Road I have a story about this young
Lady we wented to Wild Camp again and we saw her out gardening and she had these big shears with her and and you know we kind of you know can we sleep in in a tent in your yard and she said yeah come on in so we’re putting up the tent and
There’s these big black slugs about this big and I’m carefully picking them up and moving them out of the tent area right and she comes over to see what we’re doing and I carefully picked up another slug and put it over here and she was standing there and she reached
Down and cut it in half with her shears I was like ah I was saving that she said no no no bad oh she was quite the character just more beautiful towns and of course lots of bay towns or Seaside towns there’s sweet Sweden so here we go again England
Scotland Norway and a little bit of Sweden not too many miles there just four days I love this sign who’s cat lover I’m a cat lover yeah look at that Beware of the cat slow down love it pigs and then we got ready for a big fairy ride
Across to denm Mark Denmark was rainy rainy rainy most of the time I love this old dude in this little jumper rain suit jumper all right so here we are in Denmark right here closer picker picture about nine days and lots of headwinds terrible headwinds beautiful windmills though of
Course you got to enjoy the windmills because of the wind let me me I wish you could hear this but look at the sea that’s how windy it was and then watch my hair it’s like and then we were biking against that wind and I say here oh my
Gosh all right whoops I just turned I just did a wrong button there it is all right I love the thatch roofs there just beautiful old buildings beautiful old towns now we’re in Germany here we are Denmark now Germany this little V here little closeup went into
Hamburg days five days about very little English very few people speak spoke any English we never knew knew what we were ordering on the on the dinner most of the time it was meat and potatoes but we didn’t know what meat but it was again just beautiful cobblestones are a little
Hard to take but it was beautiful now this was really interesting these guys were rethatching a roof so I stood there and asked them how are you doing it so they would throw it up to that guy and that guy would throw it up to these guys and then they
Use these tools where they smashed it up in there and then smashed it along the edge here and then would cut it it was so interesting to watch they said these things last about 50 years much better than asphalt shingles gorgeous it reminded me of World War II videos that I’ve seen right
Those Barns and then this guy here had little red footprints on the road and we’re like what are these things and we’re starting to follow him and they went to this beautiful Windmill and he took us up in there and he showed us the workings of the windmill we went all the
Way up through the top up in here all the big gears and I was just fascinated by how that all worked and he keeps it as a working windmill so the people can see what they used to be now we’re in the Netherlands all right we’re right about in
Here there’s a little bit whoop whoop I’m so sad we don’t have sound there’s Netherlands and you can see people ride their bikes of all ages this is the grocery store right there look at the parking lot that’s the parking lot for the grocery store look at that it was awesome
And this is the town we were in anybody want to try it huh ah so we asked this guy you’re close you’re very close we asked this guy if he could say it and he says it very slowly Hipp and then we ask him to say it
Quickly and he got all tongue tied it was his own town so we tried again and she was telling us hippoo sh and then she laughs and she says sh you got a sh [Laughter] see just little fun things you get into we asked that guy to say it but we couldn’t understand
Him beautiful little trails that we had this was actually our Trail some of it was gravel the not always on the on the roads here we are in Belgium beautiful beautiful sand dunes we’re right about in there oh it’s longer than I thought oh because it includes the Netherlands we
Were about 3 days in Belgium and we went to Brugge anybody been to Brugge gorgeous isn’t it Belgium was one of the Brugge was one of the few towns in World War II big towns that escaped the bombing of World War II so all the buildings are still intact just
Gorgeous I love the canals that’s the main town center and now we’re in France now this was a very interesting and emotional area because because we were there at dunker you guys remember what dunker was it was where these soldiers 338,000 British solders were brought across the Bay by any boat that
Was seaworthy where they would go get three 10 50 and bring them back over to Britain so just to be there and and see the outdoor museums and read about that it was an emotional part of our trip here we are down here in France and we we those are the White
Cliffs of Dover there were actually hospitals in there I can’t find the windows um we had another picture where it showed the windows they they built hospitals back in the cliffs so that the hospitals would be safe from any bombing then we were at back at brid
Written and we were standing there wa reading these signs at an outdoor Museum and three older people came up and two young two older men said we watched the Battle of Britain and we’d get on our bikes and we’d ride over to any German plane that had gone down and
We’d look at the dead soldier and then we’d get the metal from the from the planes and they said one guy said I I actually still have a box of scrap metal from the planes that went down when we were kids we’d go over there and get
That and then the woman came over to us with tears in her eyes and said if it had not been for you Americans we would have lost this war still what 60 80 years later she can still get tears in her eyes about our ability to help
Them so it was really interesting to stop again and talk to the locals that’s it any questions yeah lots of question how you I noticed that you were on like some bike PA some gravel pass some road so what what was that is like
The what do you say ovll it’s a ovll one and they con connect all those things yeah and then you go to k.com or something like that yeah and k.com has ovll one on it so I could follow my little Dot and it would tell me turn
Left turn right if we didn’t have a sign okay so how much like what was I don’t really like riding on the roads especially if I’m by you don’t like it I don’t like riding on roads by myself right Road no um and if there were roads
They were very very quiet very quiet sometimes no traffic at all oh I would say only about maybe two or 3 hundred miles were we on any busy road okay yeah yeah do your samples have clicks oh yeah my sandals have Clips yeah I love Clips yeah these are awesome the air
Gets through say oh what brand let’s see e star e exu star and those are the only shoes we wore night and day walked in them right yes right see that yeah it’s none of this yeah when did you go and um have a second question I remember in a second
Okay 2019 just after I retired so what I’ve been retired five years when in the year oh year mid July mid July to October okay and then the other question was U you said get a mountain bike I’m assuming mountain bikes can be preferable over a road bike or something
Like that correct oh I’ve done thousands of miles on a road bike too um what we did with this mountain bike and it’s a really great way to do it if you want something something like that I like the position of a mountain bike you’re not
All the way down like this and then we just switch out tires we have or Wheels we have a mountain bike wheel a road wheel so this can become a road bike and then we have touring tires and right now I have the touring wheels on it use
Tubes not tub no these are tubeless yeah the road tires the road wheels are tubed but the mountain bike and the touring are tubeless mhm yeah how many miles did you do per day wrong per day 50 to 70 you know whatever we felt like that day and what did you
Do when you went to a museum would you take I mean apparently you couldn’t take everything from the bik into a museum did you just take your clothes or leave everything we leave we left it just like this and I forgot to show you we have a
Very small cable I don’t think I brought it very thin cable the don’t have it it’s oh thinner than half of my pinky with a lock and that’s just enough to deter somebody we’ve never had our bike stolen not yet I mean the things oh yeah people
Left it alone well I that’s why I carry my money on my back but nobody has ever taken anything off the bikes it’s by two weeks it’s all pretty much very personalized right it’s exactly some people are like oo how do you handle like just maintaining your bike and I don’t mean
Like fixing repairs and spokes but like getting the dirt off of it and like what was that like that was Carolyn’s job I’m the mechanic she’s the cleanup crew clean the clean the chain oil it every night check the tire pressure yep you went into any mechanical problems oh
Um little ones you know not shifting problems stuff like that but nothing major yeah yeah did you plan time on the end of your trip or did you have the pressure to get fast for your no time it was a one-way ticket oh yeah yeah I was [Laughter]
Retired yeah did you arrange that plane ride ahead of time or were they pretty flexible no they were you mean orany yeah they were flexible we got we got two days we had to stay a couple days and then we took the flight and how many
Sets of clothing did you take two just two two shirts two shorts that’s right did you wear shammy in your shorts very little I don’t like the shamies the thick shamies they they maintain too much heat and moisture it’s just um it’s a it’s a thin piece of uh fleece that’s
It and last question is what was your SE it’s grade say that again this the grade percent grade oh Norway Norway I don’t know the percent grade but I think I walked two or three times and it was everything I could do the rest of the time sometimes on on the mountains Hills
And I just don’t like to walk not because I’m proud it’s just i’ prefer to bike so sometimes Carolyn was walking and I was still biking but it was steep I mean she might literally right two or under right we would zero out the computer we wouldn’t essentially we weren’t moving but we
[Laughter] were what was your average temperature 65 70 75 yeah yeah what it was the most inclement weather you had and was it ever something that prohibited you from riding that day and what did you do with that uh yeah one time it was absolutely pouring in Denmark you saw the weather
Map and we we opened up the door and we were like yeah can we rent it another night you stay at hotel sometimes to yeah cabins hotels we stayed in everything um Little Campers cabins sheds everything yeah what was the average speeding wi M but we we say in
Our mind that we’re going to make about 10 mil an hour now we might be doing you know 15 but then we stop for lunch and then we go up a hill so it’s about 10 yeah you have another adventure plan we have another adventure planned in
About four weeks we’re going to go from Spain to Greece somewhere in there on another yell route yell 8 we have found that we love biking over there the car s are much more respectful there’s a community of bikers it’s really wonderful yeah well first of all congratulations on fulfilling your dream
Oh thank you cost wise I’m sure I’m not the only one wondering about it yeah I’d be glad to talk about it now me um I would prefer to camp and when I camp and go to grocery stores for my food you can get off maybe 10 or5 a day because you’re eating
Groceries and camping in the wild but of course when you’re in a hotel they’re usually $70 80 but that includes breakfast and then if you’re eating at a restaurant you know how that goes so it can add up pretty quick so you can choose again you can
Choose what you want to do um I know in 2007 I traveled for a year I took a spa off work traveled for a year and I boasted that I was doing it for $5 a day of course that was 2007 so now it’d be what like $50 a day
But I didn’t I didn’t uh I think I stayed in two or three hotels for a year I was thinking about this the other day I think I washed my clothes in a washer twice during that year so you can get very cheap and pretty expensive
Yeah what did you retire from from if you don’t mind me asking I followed Mrs Lawson and I taught okay yeah cost of the shipping of one bike it’s about $150 to ship right on a plane on a plane on a plane and about same if you’re not
With your bike on the way you know when when we quit we fly home we take our bikes to a bike shop and say you know and they pack them up and send them home now that can get weird we came home in October this year and we’re still
Getting bike pieces from the bike shop in whales still yeah oh we forgot this matter of fact I have two different pedals on because they forgot one pedal dang yeah did you carry a spare chain no I’ve never had to worry about I’ve never had a chain fail but I we clean
Them Carolyn cleans them most every night yeah anything you wish you would have packed that you didn’t I mean look like you covered it all but more Twinkies now and and over years you know I’ve been doing this for years and I’ve paired it down pretty well normally the
Real question is what did I pack that I didn’t need you know get rid of this that was a terrible Hill get rid of that anybody else H how much water did you to be like fill up in the morning and then did you empty that and have to
Fill it up one more timeout the day yeah it’s kind of personal I’m I’m not a big water drinker so a leader would last me a day and Carolyn carries probably goes through two liters so yeah did you do any kind of special hydration stuff or just straight water straight
Water and then straight beer said [Laughter] Carolyn yeah I find if I put sugar anything in there then you oh I’ve had some monuma Revenge so was there anywhere on that route that you had trouble getting water or was it pretty plentiful no on these ell routes that’s
Another thing I like about them there’s water food convenience stores anything thing you want most of the time now I’ve been in remote bike trips and yeah water can be a problem but not here not in the year V routes yeah when you flew from the
Islands to Norway I gu right right you arrived at the airport with your plane but how did you box it up or put it up I mean you didn’t have any packaging at the airport we went to the bike shop on the orne islands and then
When we received them then we put them I put them back together so they arrang the B yeah Y and you can usually go to any bike shop say hey we’re flying to such and such can you help us out and even if they can’t do it they’ll
Probably have a bike box and you can do it and then you just stuff whatever in there newspapers your clothes which we didn’t have very many of anything extra bike boxes that you cut up yeah how often would you clean your clothes you don’t want to
Know um you know again when you’re when you’re not in a hotel not very often um but you try and keep some things clean but in uh you know many times in a hotel at night you wash them in the sink and then you wrap them around something them out and then
Hang them up and put them on the next day you try and keep them as clean as possible particularly your shorts of course keep them as clean as possible but the [Laughter] shirts anybody else yeah what of year was the ride July 15ish to October 15ish and perfect we had really
Generally had perfect weather we had maybe five or 10 days of rain in three months time yeah and we were lucky do you have any kind of tre Insurance oh yes the spot tracker this little thing here it carries $200,000 of extraction or um medical insurance Etc
So it’s like $250 to sign up for the GPS tracking and that lasts three years and that comes with that insurance so yes good idea so I don’t know if they happen in any of the other countries but we were just in Scotland the were horrific did you experience any issues
With that we didn’t wow we didn’t we just hit it just right yeah yeah tell them about our friends in Scotland that we traveled with um oh D yeah Dundee so we were we were riding along and I saw a like a young woman ahead of us and and we tried
To catch up with her and she was young and she took took off and we never we thought we would never see her again and then we pulled out in the morning the next morning and here she came behind us and of course you stop and talk to the
Locals she wasn’t well she was more local than we were but she was on a bike ride by herself and she was lonely and so we hung out for eight or 10 days 15 days yeah so the very next day I saw guy with a bike and he’s sitting on a bench
Kind of like this and so I went and talked to him and he was lonely and we had a great time for about 10 days we hung out together we rode together it was awesome so you pick you can pick up people along the way and that happens
With me when I cycle alone I find other people that are also alone and you do sometimes want to be with somebody else yeah anywhere that you never go back and write again you know I don’t think so there’s some shopping malls that I wouldn’t
But but no I don’t think so that’s a good question I’ll have to think about that but right off the top of my head no what are some of the trails that you’ve done in the US I could you done the Gap trail and oh yeah the Gap trail the CNO
The um out in uh the KD Trail they’re all great the Gap in the CNO great stuff yeah we were on the Gap in the CNO we were ending our trip and this man came out of the woods and these tattered clothes and he’s walking along and we invited him over
For breakfast turns out he’s a doctor from Sweden and he was finishing his uh cross country trip and his clothes were tattered because they were sunor the son had just you know disintegrated his clothing he said he’s done this sometimes and he’ll be in the airport and somebody will offer him
Clothes tell them about the TDR oh the TDR I did do um now this was the remote area I did do a trip from bam Canada to them to Mexico it was gravel roads it was actually a race and um it was solo and you had to get everything on your
Own you the time started when uh June 12th and it ended when you hit Mex Mexico and you were totally it was solo you did it all on your own nobody supported you nobody cared if you were there or not um so that was a great trip
But it was hard to get water sometimes yeah anybody else yeah um as far as some of the places where you’ve been especially if you’re wild camping and you run into Wildlife do you have any issues with that um I’ve never had any issues but I’ve
Been like this in my tent in Grizzly country woo I don’t like to think about that but I’ve never had any other issues other than one time camping with my sister the raccoons got into her lipstick we imagine those [Laughter] Coons now oh I wanted to tell you something you when you plan you got to plan on some mistakes so we were just this last trip I had run out of toothpaste so I went to the store to go get toothpaste and the next morning I
Thought you know got to brush my teeth so I’m brushing my teeth it wasn’t toothpaste it was poly grip it was just filled my mouth and we’ve done a couple of those you know mistakes you get lost sometimes I I traveled in Japan once there’s no English over there
I was lost more than I was found I finally made it across but wow you just keep going I cried sometimes but you just keep going how long have you had your bike that bike 2012 I love this bike once you find a bike that fits does she have a name no
But I’m very sentimental about her when I did the the trip from Canada to Mexico I was on her 14 16 18 hours a day and when I got home she had to be in my bedroom with me now i’ she she lives out in the living room
But what’s next for you guys where you going to next uh Spain to Greece yeah but I’m retired now so you know I have time but but even if you like I said even if you take a two-day trip or a three-day trip I that’s what I used to
Do you know and it was awesome just for two days or three days you still smell hear talk to the locals it’s still all there just shorter yeah what Grand it’s a moots have you ever heard of moots it’s um they’re in Steamboat Springs um it’s a you know it’s I’ve
Used all kinds of bikes I meant to say that I’ve used Walmart bikes I went to Europe I was in Greece and I bought basically this Walmart bike and I made it all the way to Spain it it didn’t matter it if you want to do it it
Doesn’t take a special bike it just takes up here and right here do you have H how many bikes do you have right now n plus one is the ultimate my whole family bikes so we have a triple actually my three sisters we get on a
Triple we have a double a tandem and then you know all those Mountain all the bikes I couldn’t let go of I still have the bike I rode across country in 1997 and all the other bikes that you know you know how it is you prefer the
Hard tail versus a full dis actually this is a soft tail it has about one inch of travel yeah I I don’t like full suspension because it’ll break but I do I do like that soft tail takes just a little bit of the bump out yeah what uh what tire pressure are you
Running that’s 40 right now of course in my mountain bike 28 23 and the road bike 90 so but the touring tires you’re at 40 40 mhm yeah and make sure make sure you know what the rim can take because when when we started out with these toring tires we thought well
The tires said they could go up to 60 so we you know five miles down the road we’re like pow pow like what is going on until we finally read what the rim could take and the rim could only take 40 so we went through shees four tires before
We figured that one out yeah show me where that’s at on the rim I’ve never seen that uh yeah very very fine print yeah yeah anybody else yeah do you ever have any health things where you had to find a doctor or a hospital or injuries anything like that yep yep um oh
Yeah on the Canada Trip I actually it was a race and I started the race with the flu unfortunately and 5 days into the race I couldn’t eat so my body was eating itself and my legs were so swollen that they were coming down over
My shoes and so I had to stay in Whitefish and of course I’m at the doctor’s and I’m crying I got to get back on the route and he said you aren’t going anywhere and he took me home with his wife and I laid on their couch for two
Days yeah and they fed me they fed me meat I didn’t even get up they just kept feeding me meat CU I need a protein so that’s about it you know I’ve Had The Mont Zuma’s Revenge and that kind of stuff you have to camp out a day or two
But generally oh we both got sick with the cold could have been covid May probably not we had to stay in a hotel two days and then two days later two more days for her two days for me but nothing big yeah you’re lucky to have a sister to
Travel boy it’s awesome yeah yeah if you had to travel with friends any recommendations on personality tra the best the best recommendation is duct [Laughter] tape well if you guys are finished I don’t want to take your time it’s been a lot of fun thank you
Thanks I still got Twinkies in a moon vibe Yeah