Introduction
Over the last few years I've been dreaming about visiting Europe. More recently I decided it would be fun to do a bike tour of the United States. Shortly after I made this decision, it struck me that I should combine my plans and do a bike tour of Europe. My new goal is to spend the entire next summer going across Northern Europe starting from Dublin, going to London, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo, and hopefully ending up in Norheimsund on the Hardanger fjord where my middle name (Norheim) comes from. The planning of this trip will involve lots of budgeting, exercise, smaller tours to nearby areas to prepare me for the actual tour, and learning how to repair bikes.
Overview
I'm planning this trip about nine months in advance because I know it won't happen unless I'm incredibly prepared. Over the next nine months, I need to save up about $4,500 ($750 for a bike, $250 for equipment/passport/camera etc., and $3,500 for the trip itself, including plane tickets, hostels and food). With any luck, I'll be able to get my bike shop friend to underhandedly get me a deal to the tune of whole-sale plus 10% on the bike and the equipment. She said this plan would involve me coming in and picking out which bike I want, and then her having her boyfriend come in and pretending to buy the bike (because the discount she gets applies to her boyfriend). The bike's frame will most certainly not fit him because I'm taller than him, but I think the plan will work out regardless. I visited a nearby bike store today to see what sort of prices were available. After looking around, it seemed like the ideal bike for me was about $910 before the Labor Day weekend sale, which brought it down to about $745. More expensive bikes only had slicker derailleurs and lighter materials, which I admit are important, but not as important as saving $600. Right now I'm not even sure how much money I have saved up. Hopefully I can make a budget for myself soon and after I have enough money to pay off all of my rent/utilities/groceries etc. I can then dedicate all the rest of the money to a new bike. The salesman said I could have them set the bike aside for me while I save up the rest of the money, but I'm hoping to see what sort of a deal my friend at the other bike store can get for me before I blow my load.
Budgeting
If I need to earn $4,500 over the next nine months, that means I need to make $500 every month above and beyond what I'm paying for my normal monthly expenses. At this point it's too early to say what my normal monthly expenses are (although they'll probably be around $1,000) and what my normal monthly income will be but that will become more clear with time. Now that I'm an adult and I need to pay for things out of my own pocket instead of using student loans like I have over the last few years, I've learned how to have fun without spending money. I've recently begun using Quicken to see where all my money goes, and guess what- most of it goes to booze. This is the first thing I need to change about my new lifestyle in order to make ends meet.
Complications
Another added wrinkle is that I plan on taking courses full time next semester in order to complete required pre-Pharmacy courses. This will drastically cut down on the number of days I can work. I am, however, planning on taking out as many subsidized student loans as I can to pay for tuition as well as the money that I would've been making on weekdays while I'm at school.
Plans for smaller tours
Once I have the bike I intend to exercise regularly by biking around Lake Mendota any days I don't work, which at the moment are Wednesdays and Fridays. I also plan on doing bike trips to Milwaukee and the Twin Cities in order to simulate touring conditions and determine what I should and should not pack. From what I understand, 80 miles is the average amount of miles which can reasonably be covered in one day. Milwaukee is about 80 miles away. This would be a good weekend trip. If I could get my Saturday and Sunday brunch shifts covered (and lose money in the process by not taking the shifts) I could head out Friday morning, arrive in Milwaukee late Friday night, spend Saturday there, head back Sunday morning and arrive in Madison on Sunday night, ready for work on Monday morning. The Twin Cities are about 280 miles away and will take about 3-4 days to get there. I'd need to bring along camping equipment and camp out each night along the way. I'm thinking maybe I can do a trip to Milwaukee before the snow flies this fall and a trip to the Twin Cities over Spring Break.
Exercise
I began the summer at 205 lbs., lost about 5 lbs. while frolicking over the summer and playing lots of ultimate frisbee, and since I started working at The Old Fashioned over the last few weeks I've lost definitely 7 lbs., and maybe 10 (I've been consistently around 193 lbs. but today I was 190 lbs. after a 7.5 hour shift with no breaks or food). I started college at 165 lbs. but grew about an inch so I think I would ideally get down to about 170 lbs. In short, I feel I could easily lose 20 pounds (from 190 to 170) and I fully intend to do that with my training over the next coming months. Hopefully I'll be able to afford my new bike with birthday present money and working extra and double shifts before we get snow here in Madison. After it snows, I haven't decided yet whether I'll visit the gym and use the exercise bikes or do the more fun option: cross country ski at the Arboretum, conveniently located just a hop skip and a jump away from my new place. If anyone wants to go cross country skiing with me, I will most certainly be interested.
Learning about Bike Repairs
In order to learn about how to repair bikes, I plan on building a bike. Over the last few months I've been working on a bike at the Freewheel Coop, a workshop where the bike parts and help are free if you strip bikes and help others who are in need, but they unfortunately have lost their space a few weeks ago. My friend who knows a lot about building bikes helped me find a quality frame which fit me as well as some drop handlebars and good pedals. At this point that's all I have. I still need wheels, brake cables, brakes, a chain, a derailleur, gear shifters, gear cables, and I'm sure a lot of other things too. The problem is that not only are the parts not free now that Freewheel has effectively shut down, I also need to get my frame back so I can work on it on my own. I recently found Freewheel's e-mail address and asked about getting my bike back. It turns out I can come pick it up from some bus (which is holding all the stuff from the workshop until they find a home) at the South Madison Farmer's Market on Saturdays from 10 A.M. until 2 P.M. It's wonderful to find out that I can pick up the bike I was working on, but unfortunately I work at The Old Fashioned on Saturday Brunches until around 3ish every week. I've considered asking my roommate to pick it up for me but I can't even remember the name of the company who made the frame so I'm not sure he'd pick up the right bike. It was some Japanese bike manufacturer with five letters in its name, starting with an 's'... I think.
In a related story, my roommate found four bikes in our new apartment's basement and we snatched them all. One is a cruiser and the other three are road bikes, one of which has a woman's frame. They are all old and of low quality. I'm hoping to scavenge some parts, namely those listed above from these bikes in order to make my new bike work.
Future Tours
If this trip works out I'll use my bike, equipment and experience to take me on a tour of the European Mediterranean, starting in Spain or Portugal, going to Nice, all the way down around Italy, then through Eastern Europe and ending up in Greece. A less ambitious but equally intriguing tour would be around the perimeter of Iceland. I might even be touring for the rest of my life, covering the U.S. as well as any other continent I feel inclined to cover.
Conclusion
This blog will be dedicated to logging all aspects of the planning for this trip as well as the events of the trip itself while I'm on it. I'm sure it will be a difficult process, but it will be even more rewarding. Hopefully at this time next year I'll be returning from my incredible adventure, full of stories, ripped, worn and ready to plan the next bike tour.
Over the last few years I've been dreaming about visiting Europe. More recently I decided it would be fun to do a bike tour of the United States. Shortly after I made this decision, it struck me that I should combine my plans and do a bike tour of Europe. My new goal is to spend the entire next summer going across Northern Europe starting from Dublin, going to London, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo, and hopefully ending up in Norheimsund on the Hardanger fjord where my middle name (Norheim) comes from. The planning of this trip will involve lots of budgeting, exercise, smaller tours to nearby areas to prepare me for the actual tour, and learning how to repair bikes.
Overview
I'm planning this trip about nine months in advance because I know it won't happen unless I'm incredibly prepared. Over the next nine months, I need to save up about $4,500 ($750 for a bike, $250 for equipment/passport/camera etc., and $3,500 for the trip itself, including plane tickets, hostels and food). With any luck, I'll be able to get my bike shop friend to underhandedly get me a deal to the tune of whole-sale plus 10% on the bike and the equipment. She said this plan would involve me coming in and picking out which bike I want, and then her having her boyfriend come in and pretending to buy the bike (because the discount she gets applies to her boyfriend). The bike's frame will most certainly not fit him because I'm taller than him, but I think the plan will work out regardless. I visited a nearby bike store today to see what sort of prices were available. After looking around, it seemed like the ideal bike for me was about $910 before the Labor Day weekend sale, which brought it down to about $745. More expensive bikes only had slicker derailleurs and lighter materials, which I admit are important, but not as important as saving $600. Right now I'm not even sure how much money I have saved up. Hopefully I can make a budget for myself soon and after I have enough money to pay off all of my rent/utilities/groceries etc. I can then dedicate all the rest of the money to a new bike. The salesman said I could have them set the bike aside for me while I save up the rest of the money, but I'm hoping to see what sort of a deal my friend at the other bike store can get for me before I blow my load.
Budgeting
If I need to earn $4,500 over the next nine months, that means I need to make $500 every month above and beyond what I'm paying for my normal monthly expenses. At this point it's too early to say what my normal monthly expenses are (although they'll probably be around $1,000) and what my normal monthly income will be but that will become more clear with time. Now that I'm an adult and I need to pay for things out of my own pocket instead of using student loans like I have over the last few years, I've learned how to have fun without spending money. I've recently begun using Quicken to see where all my money goes, and guess what- most of it goes to booze. This is the first thing I need to change about my new lifestyle in order to make ends meet.
Complications
Another added wrinkle is that I plan on taking courses full time next semester in order to complete required pre-Pharmacy courses. This will drastically cut down on the number of days I can work. I am, however, planning on taking out as many subsidized student loans as I can to pay for tuition as well as the money that I would've been making on weekdays while I'm at school.
Plans for smaller tours
Once I have the bike I intend to exercise regularly by biking around Lake Mendota any days I don't work, which at the moment are Wednesdays and Fridays. I also plan on doing bike trips to Milwaukee and the Twin Cities in order to simulate touring conditions and determine what I should and should not pack. From what I understand, 80 miles is the average amount of miles which can reasonably be covered in one day. Milwaukee is about 80 miles away. This would be a good weekend trip. If I could get my Saturday and Sunday brunch shifts covered (and lose money in the process by not taking the shifts) I could head out Friday morning, arrive in Milwaukee late Friday night, spend Saturday there, head back Sunday morning and arrive in Madison on Sunday night, ready for work on Monday morning. The Twin Cities are about 280 miles away and will take about 3-4 days to get there. I'd need to bring along camping equipment and camp out each night along the way. I'm thinking maybe I can do a trip to Milwaukee before the snow flies this fall and a trip to the Twin Cities over Spring Break.
Exercise
I began the summer at 205 lbs., lost about 5 lbs. while frolicking over the summer and playing lots of ultimate frisbee, and since I started working at The Old Fashioned over the last few weeks I've lost definitely 7 lbs., and maybe 10 (I've been consistently around 193 lbs. but today I was 190 lbs. after a 7.5 hour shift with no breaks or food). I started college at 165 lbs. but grew about an inch so I think I would ideally get down to about 170 lbs. In short, I feel I could easily lose 20 pounds (from 190 to 170) and I fully intend to do that with my training over the next coming months. Hopefully I'll be able to afford my new bike with birthday present money and working extra and double shifts before we get snow here in Madison. After it snows, I haven't decided yet whether I'll visit the gym and use the exercise bikes or do the more fun option: cross country ski at the Arboretum, conveniently located just a hop skip and a jump away from my new place. If anyone wants to go cross country skiing with me, I will most certainly be interested.
Learning about Bike Repairs
In order to learn about how to repair bikes, I plan on building a bike. Over the last few months I've been working on a bike at the Freewheel Coop, a workshop where the bike parts and help are free if you strip bikes and help others who are in need, but they unfortunately have lost their space a few weeks ago. My friend who knows a lot about building bikes helped me find a quality frame which fit me as well as some drop handlebars and good pedals. At this point that's all I have. I still need wheels, brake cables, brakes, a chain, a derailleur, gear shifters, gear cables, and I'm sure a lot of other things too. The problem is that not only are the parts not free now that Freewheel has effectively shut down, I also need to get my frame back so I can work on it on my own. I recently found Freewheel's e-mail address and asked about getting my bike back. It turns out I can come pick it up from some bus (which is holding all the stuff from the workshop until they find a home) at the South Madison Farmer's Market on Saturdays from 10 A.M. until 2 P.M. It's wonderful to find out that I can pick up the bike I was working on, but unfortunately I work at The Old Fashioned on Saturday Brunches until around 3ish every week. I've considered asking my roommate to pick it up for me but I can't even remember the name of the company who made the frame so I'm not sure he'd pick up the right bike. It was some Japanese bike manufacturer with five letters in its name, starting with an 's'... I think.
In a related story, my roommate found four bikes in our new apartment's basement and we snatched them all. One is a cruiser and the other three are road bikes, one of which has a woman's frame. They are all old and of low quality. I'm hoping to scavenge some parts, namely those listed above from these bikes in order to make my new bike work.
Future Tours
If this trip works out I'll use my bike, equipment and experience to take me on a tour of the European Mediterranean, starting in Spain or Portugal, going to Nice, all the way down around Italy, then through Eastern Europe and ending up in Greece. A less ambitious but equally intriguing tour would be around the perimeter of Iceland. I might even be touring for the rest of my life, covering the U.S. as well as any other continent I feel inclined to cover.
Conclusion
This blog will be dedicated to logging all aspects of the planning for this trip as well as the events of the trip itself while I'm on it. I'm sure it will be a difficult process, but it will be even more rewarding. Hopefully at this time next year I'll be returning from my incredible adventure, full of stories, ripped, worn and ready to plan the next bike tour.
posted by Nels at 5:45 PM
1 Comments:
It's nice to hear that it's possible to do over 100 miles in one day and that it's possible to get a lot of equipment for around $200. I couldn't imagine touring on a mountain bike. The mountain bike I have, a Gary Fisher Advance, is so heavy and slow I wouldn't want to take it on any sort of trip.
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