Sorry to disappoint but this was not an interesting day. I still do not have my bag so I spent much of the day trying to track it down and get it delivered. KLM has now told me three times that it was on a plane to Athens and would be delivered shortly. The first two times were not correct. I am now told that it is on a plane and will arrive in Athens at 1am tomorrow morning but that they cannot deliver it before noon. The ride leaves at 8 so that won’t work so I will take a taxi out to the airport if it arrives and collect it myself so that I can do the ride. If it doesn’t arrive I will probably have to abandon the ride.
Other than calling and texting KLM to no avail, we had our first riders meeting today so I got to meet all the riders. It appears that I am the oldest by about 5 years. The youngest is probably about mid 30s. The meeting lasted about 2 hours and went over all the details of how the ride is conducted. It should be fun if I get to go. There are a total of 28 riders of which I think 22 will be doing the whole ride. TDA offers the opportunity to do shorter segments so a few people will leave early and others will join later.
I also put my bike together today. Everyone took their boxed bikes out to the sidewalk in front of the hotel and put them back together. We have a bike mechanic from Germany as part of the TDA staff and he was able to answer questions and help as needed. Turns out I couldn’t remember how to reattach the front disc brake but he was able to put it right very quickly.
I promised pictures but had been thinking that I would have the opportunity to do some sight seeing but that didn’t happen so I will just have to post a few from around the hotel. Hopefully tomorrow I can post some from our first day of riding.
