Ewangronk – good effort. How did the youngest cope? I have a daughter who will be one soon and I want to go touring with her next spring. I have a triler and just wondered how she coped? was it pretty much she slept and when she woke up you took her out adn played with ehr a bit then she was happy sitting watching the world go by? what did she sleep in?

Sorry for all the questions, would just love to do something like what you did and haven’t really heard of people touring with a one year old before.

Cheers

Dave

The youngest was great, as you’ve said she slept alot while we were riding, but we had many small stops for the two of them to play. Thats where touring with kids is slow as there has to be many small stops you wouldn’t normally have.
She just slept in a sleeping bag on a mat like the rest of us, took her a few nights to used to settling down as she was used to a cot at home and the freedom to get up and walk around the tent was a big distraction to sleeping. She just turned 2 last week so think she’d of been around 18 months at the time.

Heres the link to my album if interested.
Holland Tour Web Album

ewangronk, what is the bracket holding up the front wheel of the towed bike, not seen one like that before. Looks a bit more substantial than a trail gaiter thing…

Yup its called the Follow me tandem, heres the linkFollow Me

And until I found this I didn’t really think the trip would be possible as he was just too big to be stuck in a trailer but not old enough to cycle on his own as far a we hoped. Also we wanter him to cycle some sections on his own.
Its extremely easy to hitch/unhitch once set up, so once in holland on the flat he did alot of pedaling himself but as soon as he was tired it took only a min to get him back on.
The LBS had just newly became a distributor as well so worked out good, they are not cheap but much better than the trail gator alternative.

Managed 4500 miles, UK to Dubrovnik & back via thirty odd 1000m plus alpine passes (one of which still hadn’t been cleared of snow in mid June) – but that was all 27 years ago & still yearning to do more. If the chance arises take it.

On our trip we saw a family of four on a tandem with a tandem trailer bike attached!

did a 3 day tour de cotswolds this summer,

cheltenham (home) > stratford > oxford > cheltenham.

stayed in campsites, ate out one night and camp cooked the other night – weather was pretty nice apart from the final day which was miserable!

Dave

Not exactly touring, more an epic, my mate Andy :

http://nepalorbust.info/blog/2011/05/17/432/

Loco.. looks amazing. Would love to know how he planned his route, costs and how long it took to get to nepal. I see he’s in NZ now

Why is it his 2nd attempt? what happened on the 1st?

.

Rode the pacific coast highway from Seattle to LA with my ex. Great route, sh*t company 😀
Stayed in motels, ate junk food and drank beer. Took road bikes and one set of front panniers. The route north from Seattle who be good route.

Rode the pacific coast highway from Seattle to LA

Pondering this as far as San Francisco. Did you have a blog?

Spent two months in NZ

Best thing I’ve ever done, would go again tomorrow if I could. The world seams so much better when all you have to worry about is keeping your wheels turning and finding a place to spend the night!

our trusty steeds by NaneandPaul, on Flickr

another sunny day by NaneandPaul, on Flickr

SWMBO and I did NordKapp to Gavdos (European JogLe) a couple of years ago. 4000 miles of self supprot touring on our no 1 tandem.

Blog here

I did NordKapp to Gavdos

Did you cycle to Nordkapp from UK or start at Nordkapp? I’ve been thinking about doing something similar for years but solo 😕

Nah. We took ‘some’ aeroplanes… Took nearly as long as flying to Oz. The mileage was from point to point via 12 countries.

I know it’s boring, but …..

I’m off to celebrate good old blighty on Monday with a spiffing new LEJOG route LEJOG via the back roads

Riding lightweight as explained at the bottom of this blog entry

The adventure is trying to do it in “October” weather which is looking to be grim on the best days.

Looking forward to reading about that DavidB. Days 8 and 9 look interesting 🙂

DavidB – Member
I know it’s boring, but …..

but really it will be anything but! I bet you’ll have a great time.

I’m planning to cycle across to our house in France next August, I’ve planned a route of 250 miles or so. My wife normally drives over and spends six weeks over there, I join her for the last two weeks and then we all drive back together. Instead of flying over I’m going to take the St Malo ferry and then cycle down to our house. I’m looking at doing it in about 4 days and shall use the ferry crossing as one of the overnight sleeps.

Now I’ve gone and started planning all this and my wife has turned round and said she’d love to do it the year after too. She’s going to be turning 50 and would love to do something like this too.

Now she has a little MTB but I know that she’d be a lot better off on some sort of touring frame ( I personally use a Lemond Poprad cyclo cross bike, it gets used for everything). If I’m going to get her fit enough to come with me we’re going to have to get out with the local road club and put some miles under our wheels. Does anyone have any suggestions for a reasonably priced bike that would be suitable for her, she needs about a 48cm frame as she’s about 5’2″ Any help will be much appreciated.

pepper – I really prefer an MTB set up for touring – much comfier than a road bike for my aging bones.

Ok, so u reckon an MTB with slicks would be ok then?

It will be a bit slower than a road bike but much comfier. Certainly for this 50 yr old crock. I have toured a fair amount on an MTB – tried a road bike again for the first time for a long time a few weeks ago and couldn’t believe how uncomfortable it was

I think I’ll find a good set of slicks for her, she has a cheapo set which she uses for commuting to school on but a good set would make a big difference and then I reckon we’ll have to do a small tour in the UK to see how we get on.

She’s done the London 2 Brighton a few times on her MTB on slicks and pootles along fine, and if I take all the heavy stuff on my CX bike then she should be able to potter along at fair pace too.

conti sport contacts for me

A “proper” touring bike will be faster, comfier and more efficient than a hybridised MTB. If this is going to be a one off for her, then she’ll manage fine on an MTB with slicks (you might want to consider bar ends and rigid forks). If you think it’s going to take some practice for her to get fit enough and she might like to carry on touring, invest in a tourer now.

druidh – depends on the person. those narrow road tyres are very unforgiving and the greater stretch to the bars does nasty things to your backs natural curves.

I have done many many thousands of touring miles on both and far prefer the hybridised mtb for comfort tho the road bike is faster

See what cycle touring can lead to…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-15217704