TRICYCLE TOUR AND THEIR FIRST SHORT LITTLE STORY

Here is some news about our trip that started 10 weeks ago. Sorry that our website – www.tricycletour.com – is in French, but hopefully you can translate most of the things on Google Translate, and you can enjoy our pictures, at least.

Starting to pedal!

We left on the 22nd of September from Avignon, in the south of France. The night before leaving, we rented some mobile homes in a campsite for our family, friends and ourselves to spend a last night all together before THE departure.

In the morning of the 22nd, after hugs and last goodbyes, we started pedalling!

Switzerland

Until Geneva, in Switzerland, we followed the « Via Rhôna », a cycling road that follows the Rhône river. This road is not totally finished yet, so there were some moments where we had to cycle on unpleasant and dangerous roads, mainly until Lyon (we thought we were probably going to die on one particular road, but we had no other choice than to take it on 7 km, …) . After Lyon, the « Via Rhôna » was much better and almost done everywhere, so it was a pleasure to ride along it.

The weather was awesome too, since we had almost no rain at all during all our time in France! However, the sun was really hot sometimes and we couldn’t escape some sunburn.

We didn’t do any sports

Concerning the physical conditions… well, before we left, we didn’t train, we didn’t do any sports at all, so the beginning was… hmm… quite hard, we have to say. Especially that we left with so much weight in the carriers – Alexys has 100/105 kg behind his bike and I have 80/85 kg (without counting the bikes and ourselves!!!). Well, that was hard.

Alexys’ legs are better now but mine still hurt very much and I’m still awake several times during the night because of muscle pain (hopefully, this will be better soon!).

Alsatian region

In Switzerland, we had to go through some big mountainous areas, so this was also a huge challenge for us, but well, here we are in Germany now, so we did it! Yay!

After Switzerland and before Germany, we crossed the Alsatian region, which was really nice. Lots of cycling roads here along lots of canals, so this was an easy and pleasant region to go through. The people were also very friendly and welcoming there, which was a great surprise for us, as people often think that Alsace-Lorraine people are a bit « cold ».

People

During these 7 weeks, we have already met so many people, and so many have already welcomed us in their homes for the night, shared a coffee, a meal with us and so on… we are amazed by that because we didn’t think it would be so easy, especially in France. We are surprised every day to see how 98% of the people are actually « good », really nice, trying to help us as much as they can.

Recumbent trikes make it easier

We think that meeting people is also much easier thanks to our recumbent tricycles. Everyone finds them so curious, and the conversation starts very often thanks to them! We are so glad that we left for this human adventure, with this special way of locomotion and we are looking forward for the future weeks, months… with hopefully more and more meetings as we go on.

Comfort

Riding on these bikes is also so pleasant. Since we left, we have felt no pain at all (except the muscle pain of course). Our backs, our knees and our butts (^^) feel perfectly good! It’s also a pleasure to focus on the landscape while we ride rather than the handlebars!

Contributed by Alexys and Valerie

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