Riding on the coattails of our Great Divide trip

The bikes are ready--or can be. We have the gear--or most of it. We will make the time--or justify it. We've figured a way to budget for it--or at least make accommodations for outflow and reduction of inflow. Our bodies are primed--or at least the muscle memory is still running. We've said, for years and years, "we should" travel overseas--and haven't yet. But with a few conversations reminiscing about bike trips with friends on dark, wet, pre-winter nights, followed by a couple long days exploring air mile partner mumbo jumbo rules and fees and logistics (with bikes!)--we bit the bullet and booked flights.

That's sort of how this new adventure came to be. Or something along those lines with a lot of other inspirations and reasonings and considerations added to the mix.

We're going to cycle through parts of Europe this year! And we leave in just one month, on 16 March, from Seattle. Assuming our bikes arrive in Paris unscathed, we'll spend a few days there settling and exploring, then we'll take a train to Dijon from where we'll begin cycling in earnest.

The pinpoints below are in no way related to how far we'll cycle each day (we're only estimating for about 40mi/60km per day, allowing us time to appreciate what comes), or our exact route, but the image shows general areas we'll be passing through as we cycle through France's Burgandy and the ViaRhona cycleway, across the mountains of Provence to the Ligurian Coast and into Italy; inland across Italy's Emilia-Romagno to the Po River Valley, to the Adriatic and then to Venice; then we'll follow the ancient Roman route, the Via Claudia Augusta cycleway, to and across the Alps before reaching the early trickles of the Danube River; we'll follow that cycleway as far as Passau, Bavaria, before visits to my distant family near there in Aidenbach and in Munich, and perhaps a couple regional side trips by train before we fly home the end of May.

Or, at least that's how we've planned it so far...

This (phab)adventure will be such a contrast to our Great Divide ride of summer 2014 (www.cyclingthegreatdivide.blogspot.com), with pavement instead of rough forest and desert roads, society instead of solitude, drinking fountains and rest rooms instead of filtered cow-creek water and backcountry potty-holes.

Ack. 30 days and counting, with much ready or somehow staged (in the dining room, mudroom or mindroom), yet much still to do!