Generic Touring Thread

Well I'm safely ensconed in a hotel in Sardinia now, I can safely say that it was a bit of a disastrous 'tour' and I'm generally quite upbeat about these things.

Positives:

Munich is nice, had some sausage and a giant pickled gherkin. My friends dad who's a cyclist took the morning off work to help me get new stuff.

The insurance companies sounded positivish.

Given some beers from a bike shop after they heard about ordeal

I checked into a random Austrian hotel at midnight soaked and freezing. They took pity on me and let me in for around 1/4 the normal price.

Dolomites were very striking

Arrived in Trento and a whole pile of Italians started buying me beers

I had a good pizza

I met some interesting cyclists on the train

I had a Padina

Negatives:

5 minutes after leaving my house I realised I had forgotten my shoes

Everything stolen subsequently arrived to my accommodation late then got little sleep because I was pissed off.

Had to wait till the shops opened at 10am.

The screws for my cleats were wrong that I bought from a second hand shop so they kept loosening. I got a whole pile of knee problems

Only left Munich at 6pm, about 15 hours later than planned.

Rain started at 8pm just as I was getting to the bottom of the Alps. I got cold and all my lovely sandwiches got soaked.

Stopped earlier than I had hoped because my back light stopped working. When I got to the hotel I took it apart and some water came out, it started working but decided to break again the next night. The following night the police escorted me off the motorway with a broken back light.

I wish I'd not done the Brenner pass as my 'big climb'. It's pretty dull and full of motorbikes and fancy cars.

I arrived in Trento and whilst having my pizza on the outskirts I'd booked a cheap hotel next to the train station. Little did I know this was right in the middle of an annual all night party called Notte Bianca. I put some tissues in my ears but the bass was deep enough for it to reverberate through my entire body. Once I got to sleep I was woken at 4 by some drunk revellers who had opened my stupidly unlocked door to discover me sprawled nude across my bed.

The whole Italian train fiasco. On the regional train to Bologna I spoke to an Italian and American cyclist who said I couldn't take it on the fast inter-regional trains. But they agreed if I just got on, played ignorant and was generally considerate they may take pity on me. So the first train arrived I was just about to get onto then the conductor came and told me to piss off, he wasn't happy. Luckily one of the station info guys saw this and was super helpful and nice about everything. He took me the main info office where for 2.5 hours they discussed taking the bike onto the train. Eventually he sourced me some big bin bags. At this point I got onto the train but it was a real ball ache to carry around. I really don't understand why they make it so difficult, my dismantled bike took up way more space, was less mobile and it annoyed me.

I got to Rome to transfer to the port and whilst walking from platform 4 to 25 I must have lost one half of skewer.

On the final train the police came and questioned me for 20 minutes, looking at all my cards, ID, passport, plane tickets, train ticket and ferry ticket. Very odd, told me it was normal but I suspect not.

Whilst in the taxi from the station to the port my taxi driver got into a road rage fight with another car, I was already late so this wasn't helping.

All in all its been an interesting experience and I've learnt some important lessons, mainly allow more time for this kind of stuff for disruptions. I'm happy with my set up for the TCR. I guess the final verdict will depend upon what my insurers say otherwise it's gonna be few months of credit card bills.