Rad-ndo bikes

Yeah that'd be nice but no game when there's nothing dry to dry them with. My bag has a wee bit extra down in the footbox tho so I'm not too bothered about my feet.

@Oddo no idea about the floods, but I know there were nasty storms in the area. My hometown got roofs blown over, we never had that happen before. Hopefully I'm lucky en route. My mother is a bit paranoid.

I forgot to eat enough today so felt a bit shit for a while - 100km is easy enough for me not to be careful about, but rhe bonk sets in like clockwork for me at 100. Today's route was 120 so the last hour sucked a bit. I stood up too fast at the train station and nearly blacked out, rhen did a quick calories calculus and stuck a few bananas in me.

Trains in Germany are very expensive and very late, and their bike spot reservation system kinda sucks. But that's also everywhere else.

but no game when there's nothing dry to dry them with

Ah yes drying anything requires this basic detail.

Still, try it when you can. It makes being in a sleeping bag so much more enjoyable IMO.

Fingers crossed for you and everyone in that area. My Partner and me cancelled our Slovenia West loop trip because of it. We got lucky though. Due to family obligations, we pushed our initial planning out by a few days. we would have been in the centre of the floods.

500km to Ljubljana lesgooo
I should be in the Alps tomorrow, I'm so pumped for that. Haven't climbed a good hill in a good while. I got what seems like half my bodyweight in food, should be good for some big days eh?

1 Attachment

Nice. I love Ljubljana, haven't been in a long time though! Such a nice town to just wander around.

What a good day. Feel pretty good, quick coffee break at a gas station, I'll push past 200 tonight. Having lots of fun. More words later probably. It's so hot and humid here it's insane.

5 Attachments

I change my mind I hate cycling and want to die (ie I wasn't able to sleep last night)

2 Attachments

What do you think caused it? I've been known to load up on sugar and caffeine throughout the day and then curse my sleeping kit/the weather/insects all night long for not being able to sleep.

I always bring a few sleeping tablets on trips for this scenario. I'm sure it's not ideal, but useful once in a while.

I couldn't sleep in my tent last night either, I think it was the antihistamine I had just before bed. That or a 12pm coffee. But the antihistamine feels more likely.

Oh the reason was very obvious, I slept in a bus shelter right on a busy road. It didn't look busy as I was laying out my bivy, but there was a loud car passing every 15 min. Maybe it was just the acustics, but I was waking up regularly, cringig at rhe noise even. 2/5 audax hotel, but not enough for a proper kip. That, on top of a 230km day really did me in in a big way, but I managed another 100 over a col the next day, so all good.

3 Attachments

One thing I find frustrating with the Alps is the erratic thunderstorms. I get nervous at any rumble or flash. They seem to be mostly harmless if you're in the valley, and I feel silly fretting anxiousky over my radar app while people are walking around with picnic baskets, but I don't have a roof or car at hand, so not entirely unfair.

This weird blend of rational and irrational fear can really mess with my head, and it's hard to decide sometime whether it's wise to go forth or wait. Being conservative is the obvious answer, but there is something about idling in a town when I have the strenght to move that makes me feel like a dunce. I don't particularly enjoy sightseeing, or spending tourist tax on coffee, so I'm very reluctant to sit stuff out.

Last night I had to do it because messy stuff was brewing exactly below me, and I would be riding straight into it. A local confirmed that the sky is too dodgy to chance. Back in town, with enforced trepidness, I realised taking longer breaks is not inevitably silly, even from the milage maximising standpoint. An hour of sitting down with some food can easily buy another few riding hours of otherwise totally worn out legs. I charged my phone, had some coffee, and an hour later the radar app had good news. Stress dissipated. Walking the hills feels less like defeat and more like a nice stroll when there's pretty sky to look at.

And finally, dear reader, I have to close prematurely, as these things sometimes have to. I slept super well last night. Sky full of stars that would put my spotty face to shame 10 years ago, not much noise to get rattled by, and fatigue you'd need a prescription to emulate, all made for an unperturbed night. I didn't even bother to hide from the road, my only cover were the innocuousness of my bivy and the inattention of drivers. This used to make me nervous, but I don't think anyone forced to drive after midnight or around sunrise can be arsed to take time to stop and scold a potential weirdo sleeping outside. Especially if they know what sleeping in a bivy feels like. A bivy is not a camp, it is an unfortunate intermediary between moving over interesting places.

Anyway, I woke up glad and packed up with half an uncaffeinated brain willing to help. I couldn't find one of my shoes,but figured it would appear after I put away everything. Then everything was packed, and my shoe was still missing. My feelings were now mixed. I couldn't come up with a straightforward causal story as to where it may have gone after I took it off last night, so I just spent another hour looking around my spot. No game. I had lost my shoe.

If anyone has a good story about how foxes or badgers are attracted to sweaty chewable plastic or whatever, feel free to share, but I'm just baffled. I'm not a super light sleeper outside, but I feel like I'd hear an animal dragging something away right above my head. And why the shoe?? Why in general?

I weighed my options for a bit and decided to hop on the train to Ljubljana. I'm not limping over a huge hill to a bikeshop that might sell me a 100e spd shoe that I'll never wear again, only to grumpily ride some 150km. Had I been stranded, I'd have ziptied something to the pedal to create a platform, but I am on vacation, and cannot be arsed. Plus, I get to finally try the rinko bag that I carried all along.

Fin, I guess? Next up I guess probably fixie rando build up and some long test riding.

4 Attachments

This weird of rational and irrational fear

I don't feel like it's irrational at all. The weather can change quite quickly and being in the mountains it can get quite a bit colder. There is usually less shelter around and even a shelter in 10km distance can seem far away due to elevation.

Curious story about the shoe :D but I completely agree with your approach. I like touring where you aren't bound to a specific destination per day, where you can remain flexible and taking a train doesn't feel like defeat but progress.

Very cool rinko setup. How did you carry it into the train? Do you think it's a decent way of travelling with a bike?

Feels like this whole trip is a battle of man vs nature.
Good read.

Love to see a bit of rinko. Bad luck on the shoe.

Great write up and photos. Bad luck with the shoe!

Yep, nice read. Thanks for sharing.

Great read. Thank you 🙏

I'll let you know if I see your shoe

+1 for solid rinko. The shoe is utterly baffling, abd while I'm sure it wasn't at the time, hopefully funny in retrospect.

Good read this thread! Did you manage to fit everything including bags and basket into the rinko bag or did you take that separately?

Cheers guys! At my parents' now, reunited with my laptop.

@Zebra, @Oddo: I have thoughts on rinko, not all good ones. The goal was to use it more frequently and see how faffless can combining the train and riding could be, but I only ended up using it in Austria, Slovenia, and Croatia. I was charged e1.50 in Slovenia because the bag took up a lot of room in the cabin, but later I realised that if I put it on the seat next to me, we both occupy 2, which is pretty good.

The assembly/disassembly is a faff, esp with plastic uncut mudguards and threadless headset. Something would always rub after assembly, so effectively putting it together took more than the 10ish minutes to get it together. I carried the bags outside, on my other shoulder, it was too much otherwise (I do have a back injury thing, tho). It is definitely clunkier than it looks in the photos, but I was able to just chuck the basket and helmet in without securing it, and that worked. Carrying more than two bags would not have been fun. If you have a choice to go for a tougher vs. lighter fabric on the bag, go for tougher, things will be poking and it's an awkward thing to carry.

Overall, it allowed me to go on trains which would have been impossible had I not had the bag, and for that it was absolutely worth it, but on this bike, it was a bit of a faff. I found a travel sized 32 spanner on ebay in the meantime, so that'll do for one other threadless bike I have (this one has a 36 nut).

tldr: bit faffy, but worth it if you have to get somewhere, or bail with a train. Will use more.

Honestly, being out and about like this does wonders for my brain, and I found it hilarious from the start. I mean, what's the actual issue - I get to chill out on a train, and I have a new funny story.

Amongst the many things we left outside in our garden, the foxes only ever took one thing to play with (and hide): my smelly touring sandals that were out to air.

MYSTERY SOLVED