Monday, April 8 2019
My bike ride down the west coast didn’t work out like I had planned. Bad weather and traffic convinced me to stop after only crossing Washington. Now I have a trip scheduled to bike from Athens to Amsterdam. I start in a little over a month. I fly to Greece on May 9 and the trip starts on May 12. The trip takes about 7 weeks so we finish at the end of June. Unlike my previous ride this one is a group ride and is supported so that there will be a truck to carry our bag to the next hotel each night. Also there will be about 20 riders so that we can support each other along the way.
The ride is run by TDA global cycling (tdaglobalcycling.com). It is the same group that runs the Cairo to Capetown tour in Africa that Mike Mossing is currently riding. Mike put me in touch with this group and was excited about the variety and range of the tours that they offer. He chose a very challenging ride and I picked a much easier ride. He is doing mostly camping while my ride has a hotel every night which I feel is much more appropriate for us old folks. I am posting the proposed route and schedule on a separate page.
The ride is 2,300 miles and an average day is about 65 miles which is not too bad. However, I am told that there will be significant climbing, first in northern Greece, then in Montenegro and finally crossing the Alps. This climbing motivated me to rethink my bike choice. Although I really love the bike Andy Gilmore built for me and it worked great on my ride across Washington, I was worried that the gearing would not be low enough for me to do these big climbs so I read up on the recommended bikes and chose a Salsa Marrakesh. It is a steel bike with a triple chainring so that I can drop down into some very low gears. It is the first bike I have ridden with end of the handlebar shifters which I didn’t care for at first but have grown to like. It came standard with very wide tires which I may change out before the ride to reduce the weight a bit. The bike is quite heavy but as a result, very durable. The wide tires also have the advantage of a smoother ride and being less likely to go flat from road hazards.
I intend to write a blog each day about the trip and I will begin the blog on May 10, the day I arrive in Athens. If you have any comments you can always email me at dorsey1947@gmail.com