Pre Flight Countdown
Why the title, “Tour de Med Deluxe?” The answer is that for me this is my most deluxe bicycle tour ever. My past excursions have either been solo, self supported jaunts of less than a week or longer tours with most nights spent in tents. In Australia we did have someone along to fix meals but going across the USA we shared cooking duties. It was fun and I certainly enjoyed showing off my culinary skills. However, for this trip I appear to be going first class. All of our stays are in hotels and all of our meals are being prepared by skilled hands other than our own.
You may also wonder about the subtitle, “An Idiot Abroad.” The short answer is that I have always been a fan of Mark Twain and my subtitle is a play on his travel book, The Innocents Abroad.
You might wonder, why the change? I have never been a lavish spender. Maybe it was too much hard work to make a buck to just blow it on some silliness. I was never very likely to just sell everything, buy a motor home and become a Juggalo following the Insane Clown Posse around the country and spraying root beer. (If you don’t get the references just look up Juggalo.) Doing a bicycle tour through Europe during a pandemic presented a few more challenges than I felt comfortable handling by myself. When I learned that TDA Global Cycling’s TransEurope tour was still on and within my budget, I decided it would be worth the extra bucks to obtain the support and comradeship of going with a group. Of course such luxuries as beds and roofs will be hard to get used to but somehow I will suck it up and soldier on.