When Odyssey arrived in Washington, DC to start the North American leg of the trip, Gesa and I flew to Detroit to relax for a while. It was a pleasant two weeks, with not much biking. We did manage to get one race in, the National City Run 10k in Ann Arbor.
At the end of two weeks, we packed my bike (remember that Gesa's was in the mail, somewhere between Portugal and London, we hoped) and headed to Ottawa to meet up with the group again. When we arrived, one of the first things we heard was that we had picked an excellent two weeks to miss. The terrain was challenging and the weather was poor. There were several falls and two cases of cracked ribs. However the rest of the route from Ottawa to Quebec City via Montreal was quite pleasant, and I rode most of it.
In Quebec, I said goodbye to Gesa, and she continued on in the car to Boston, while I waited to board the flight to Paris. At the airport there was was bit of drama. Earlier in the year, one of the riders, Matt, in an act of spite, registered the odyssey2003.com domain to himself. This prevented TK&A from using it to promote their proposed 2003 reenactment of this trip. He put up a web site, and the welcome page said "Tim I want my money back". He was pressured by TK&A's lawyers to give up the domain name, but refused. So as we were getting our boarding passes, Matt was not given one, without any warning that this would happen. Some 10-15 riders cornered Tim Kneeland and persuaded him that this was not an appropriate way to deal with the situation. He relented and Matt was allowed on the plane.
After the overnight flight, we arrived in Paris at 6 AM, and after the usual 4 hours sorting out our bags and bicycles, we were transported to a hotel on the outskirts of Paris. As is typical, there was no layover day scheduled for Paris, so it was either go in to the city that day or skip it. Despite not having slept at all on the airplane, I set off on the Metro to the city center. I walked around for a couple of hours in the area of Notre Dame and other Paris-sites. Tired of walking, I sat down on a park bench. Many minutes later I woke up, and decided that I'd better head back to the hotel to rest up.
The next day was to be 155 km, and started off by going across the city of Paris. It was scenic, but at 12 noon, I had completed some 30 km. We passed near Versailles and headed south into the countryside towards the Loire Valley on a hot summer day. There was no road support because, to prevent the volunteer staff from using the support vehicles to go out on the town, management had locked away the keys, and then could not get to them. I arrived at camp at 5:30, only the eighth person in. The day turned out to be 166 km, over 100 miles. In fact for the first 4 days out of Paris, we averaged 100 miles a day, and did 900 miles in the first 10 days. All the days rides were about 10% longer that stated on the route guides. A new distance unit was coined, Kneelandometers.
We did a long loop down the Loire valley, and then north to Mont St. Michel, and then along the Normandy coast and finally to Calais, where we caught the hovercraft to Dover, England.
I called Gesa, who had just flown to London and arranged to be picked up and brought to London the next day. I set up my tent and went to sleep, but some time later, she tapped on my tent, and said: "We're here to pick you up". The second thing she said after seing my sunken cheeks and sunburn, was: "You look terrible".
Odyssey had a three day layover scheduled for London, then it resumed, heading to the west to Winchester and the Salisbury Plain. I rode the first day, but on the second, we teamed up with a couple who had BOUGHT a BMW station wagon in Germany, with the intention of driving it around Europe, and then shipping it back home. It made a nice sag wagon. We drove to Stonehenge, and it happened to be the day of the summer solstice, so the Druids were having their ceremony there. Then we continued to Avebury, which is another stone circle, but not compact like Stonehenge. It is laid out across a square mile. At the end of the day we drove in to camp in the town of Bath.
One of the riders hails from this area of England, and organized his bike club to lead an informal ride around the countryside on our layover day in Bath. He got a pretty good turnout of yellowheads (odyssey riders), even for an off day. A well organized ride of reasonable length has a lot of appeal. The only trouble was that the locals could not keep up with us after our half year of training, so we kept having to stop and wait for the leaders.
After Bath, we crossed the River Severn into Wales and 4 days of serious hill work. Then we took a fast ferry to Dublin, Ireland.
We got in the mood for Ireland with several pints of Guinness and headed out of town for the northwest coast. I wish we could have gone to the southwest and Cork, where there is some of the most spectacular scenery in Ireland, but we had a timetable to keep and countries to accumulate. The part we went through was nice, but not specially memorable, except maybe for the night when we were assaulted by millions of midges, tiny biting insects, at a campground. On the last day we rode by the Giant's Causeway, an interesting formation of basalt columns, and then on into Belfast. We entered Belfast at the start of the marching season, and we saw some barricades and bonfires in the streets. I got through one early in the afternoon with no incident, but a later rider was knocked down when he tried to go through. We did have a rider meeting in Belfast, it was announced that Japan had been taken off the schedule because the expense was too great. Many people didn't mind spending the extra time in Australia, but many others were very upset that they had been promised something that would not be delivered.
Another fast ferry took us to Scotland. At that point we had been on route for quite a few days, too many in Gesa's point of view, so the two of us went off to the little island of Arran. We spent two nights on the island, did some hiking, and drank a little whiskey. Visits to islands have always been pleasant this year.
After taking the ferry back to the mainland, we had to get to the northern town of Inverness in a hurry. Odyssey would be there and we had to deliver our bicycles so the could be loaded on a truck, in preparation for being shipped to Norway. At the Glasgow bus station, they told us that our bikes had to be boxed to be put on the bus. We had about ten minutes before departure, and in that time, found some cardboard in a garbage bin, removed wheels, seats and pedals, and fashioned new boxes on the spot, and we were on the bus with a few minutes to spare. I remeber spending almost an hour to accomplish the same thing in past years. We arrived in Inverness in the early evening, and found a youth hostel near the bus station. It was Saturday night and pub night, so it was a little noisy, but adequate. It beat camping in the Scottish rain with the rest of Odyssey.
The next day we were bussed to Aberdeen, to spend one day, and then catch the airplane to Norway. We decided that we wanted to return to the US for another break, and booked some tickets for a bit later.
In Bergen, Norway, we were not all that anxious to bicycle through the Norwegian mountains, so we went to the tourist office and found a room in a guest house. It turned out to be a wonderful place, right on the water and with a great view. It was going to be two nights, but turned into three, then four. To catch up with Odyssey, we booked scenic train, bus and ferry tour through the fjords. We lucked out, the weather could not have been better that day, and it made the scenery stunning. Our bikes had to be put in cargo, and so we sent them on to Oslo while we took ourselves to the campsite in the town of Gol. This turned out to be a mud pit, and the dinner was perhaps the worst one of the whole year, so we were quick to get on the train again, all the way to Oslo two days early.
In Oslo, we retrieved our bikes and found our way to a tourist office. They had a room for us, but we had to get the key at the house before 4 o'clock. That was in 25 minutes, so I got on my bike and went all out, mostly up hill. I just did make it, dripping with sweat, but I got the key. Then I had to go back down, and ride back up again with Gesa and our daypacks. The room had a kitchenette, and it was nice to cook for ourselves for a change.
Our four days in Oslo were very enjoyable. It is a nice sized city with a nice pedestrian street, waterfront, and interesting parks and museums. Norway was altogether great, and is one of the places I want to go back to.
When it came time for the ride to continue, we watched them go on their way to Sweden and Denmark, and stayed in Oslo for another day. Then we boarded a very large overnight ferry for the port city of Kiel in Germany. The next morning, Gesa's dad and younger brother picked us up at the ferry port and took us back to the tiny town of Wetzen. We left my bicycle at the baggage storage, and took hers with us.
After two days, we got a ride to the Hamburg airport, where Gesa caught her flight back to the US. Her bicycle remained in the garage in Wetzen, a gift to her brother. I was delivered back to Kiel, where I retrieved my bike from storage, and set out on my own for Copenhagen, Denmark.
I just did catch the morning ferry, with about 5 minutes to spare. This was fortunate, because the next one was 6 hours later. Denmark is composed of many islands and I was planning on taking to ferry to Langelland, riding some 50 km across the island, catching another ferry to Sjaelland, and riding the 100 km into Copenhagen. I was foiled in this. The first ferry was just about the slowest boat I've ever seen. I think we were going faster on the rubber raft we had ridden on the previous day. So I got to Langelland 3 hours later, and there I found out that the ferry to Sjaelland no longer ran. So instead I went 25 km to another ferry port and took a boat to Lolland island, and set out from there. I made it about half way to Copenhagen by dinner time, so I stopped for the night in Voringsborg.
The next day, I set out early and rode the rest of the way to Copenhagen. Denmark has a great system of bike paths so it was very easy. I didn't know where the Odyssey hotel was exactly, but as I was riding through the city center, I passed a Hard Rock Cafe, and saw Wild Bill, Florida Suzi, Colorado Dan, and Tall Rod (we mostly don't know each others last names) sitting outside, having more than a few beers. So I joined them for a while and then got directions. I knew I would run across at least one of our group before too long.
Unfortunately with my extended journey across Denmark, I missed the layover day in Copenhagen, and had to set out the next day back to Sweden. With Gesa back in the US, I was on my own and that usually means that I ride all the miles. The next days were pretty long, we did 440 miles in the next 5 days to Stockholm. The riding was mostly through farmland and pine forests, without much climbing and descending. The campgrounds were nice, and it was mostly pleasant. This section was only marred by one serious accident with a rider, who had to go home.
We had a layover day in Stockholm, and that is a very scenic city. There was a rider meeting there, where it was announced that Japan was back on the schedule. Then we took another ferry across the Gulf of Bothnia to Turku, Finland. And the next day was 115 miles to Helsinki.
In the original schedule, we were supposed to go from Helsinki to St. Petersburg, Russia. That segment was canceled; we were told it was impossible to arrange all the visas and movement of supplies into Russia. Well, Denise investigated on her own, and manage to arrange a separate trip by train, with visas, into St. Petersburg. Later TK&A managed the same arrangement. I didn't want to pay for something that I thought I had already paid for, so I opted not to go, and instead spent 5 lazy days in Helsinki. One day, I took a day trip over to Tallinn in Estonia, and that was fun.
From Helsinki, we flew to Berlin, Germany. My flight back to the US was from there. I spent a day, trying to get my bike shipped to London, where I would pick it up three weeks later, but I was frustrated. Instead I left it in Berlin with Gesa's older brother, and would figure out later what to do with it. The next day, I saw the riders head out towards the Czech Republic and Austria, then I got on an airplane back to Detroit for another break.
4. Canberra to Singapore