20th Anniversary European Bike Adventure Days 0 and 1: Austin to London
As I mentioned in my last pre-adventure post, I worked until lunch on Friday, so it didn't even really feel like anything was happening until I got home and our house was full of giant boxes and no dogs.
We had a little bit of potential pre-trip drama that I knew about when I posted that last post, but was trying very hard to be positive, so didn't mention. Instead of typing it all out, I'll just embed the first vlog I did on the trip! I didn't know if this was a thing I'd end up doing, but I ultimately did record and post several, so I'll share those when they're appropriate:
Good news is the Super Shuttle managed to fit our bikes and boxes (and us), it was a pain to haul the boxes through the airport, but went off without incident, and we made it to our gate with many time units to spare.
Passports: not forgotten!
Our flight departed at 6:30pm and was ~9 hours, so in theory we should have eaten dinner shortly after takeoff and then slept most of the time. I did manage to get a couple hours sleep, but I don't think Matt was as successful. The good news is it was a quiet, relatively smooth flight, and actually seemed to go fairly quickly.
Gremlin-free.
It helped that the flight had a ton of movies and TV shows to choose from. So even though I had planned to get some reading done, I instead watched all-but-the-last-episode of the first season of Killing Eve. My decision to start watching it was roughly one hour too late to watch the entire season. Oops. I hoped maybe the flight home 3 weeks later might have the last episode. (Spoiler: It had exactly one episode. The first one. So that didn't work out, and I still haven't seen the season finale.)
We made it!
We made it off the plane and through customs without incident.
My first time in Europe!
And then we were reunited with our bikes and our boxes without incident, and with really no waiting at all.
Yay for free carts! Take note, US airports. Free carts.
Originally our friend Russ was going to pick us up from the airport and we would stay at his place the first night, but due to some health issues, he wasn't sure whether he'd be in the US or the UK when we arrived, so he very graciously hooked us up with his friends Martin and Mary, who would pick us (two total strangers) up and let us stay in their home. And while we had exchanged photos via email, we were basically wandering Heathrow looking for people we'd never seen before.
Fortunately we were the only people hauling two giant bike boxes out of Arrivals at that point, so we were easy to find!
Also fortunately there are no photos of my face when I saw the tiny car that I thought we were going to fit all 4 humans, two bike boxes, and two big cardboard boxes into.
Even more fortunately, there was a whole other car, and everything fit just fine.
Mary and Martin drove us back to Beaconsfield, where they live, outside of London, and we immediately began our first and most important project: bike reassembly.
Originally we had intended to land, drop the boxes off at a bike shop, have them reassemble the bikes, and pick the bikes up on Sunday before beginning our journey. Then we learned that pretty much all bike shops in the London area are closed on Sunday. And there just wasn't time to drop them off anywhere Saturday and also pick them up reassembled the same day.
Welcome back to one piece, my little bike!
But Russ is a clever one, and the friend he hooked us up with is also a huge cycling enthusiast with a dozen bikes of his own, which means he had a bike stand and several of every tool we might need. Between Matt and Martin, the bikes were assembled efficiently and without incident, and we were able to go for a little half mile test ride around the block to make sure everything felt good.
Cycling in cargo pants.
After a little rest and a much needed shower, Mary made an amazing dinner for us. And for Russ and Claire, who came over to join us! Turns out Russ made it back home in time to see us. Thank you, miracles of modern medicine, for fixing Russ.
Russ and Claire, Martin and Mary, me and Matt
Begging exhaustion, being that we'd basically been awake for 2 days at that point, Matt and I headed to bed fairly early, and since our travel plans didn't begin until the following afternoon/evening, we were able to sleep in late and get caught up on sleep, which we'd need for the rest of the trip!
Total miles for days 0 and 1: 0.92 miles around the block.
We had a little bit of potential pre-trip drama that I knew about when I posted that last post, but was trying very hard to be positive, so didn't mention. Instead of typing it all out, I'll just embed the first vlog I did on the trip! I didn't know if this was a thing I'd end up doing, but I ultimately did record and post several, so I'll share those when they're appropriate:
Click to viewGood news is the Super Shuttle managed to fit our bikes and boxes (and us), it was a pain to haul the boxes through the airport, but went off without incident, and we made it to our gate with many time units to spare.
Passports: not forgotten!
Our flight departed at 6:30pm and was ~9 hours, so in theory we should have eaten dinner shortly after takeoff and then slept most of the time. I did manage to get a couple hours sleep, but I don't think Matt was as successful. The good news is it was a quiet, relatively smooth flight, and actually seemed to go fairly quickly.
Gremlin-free.
It helped that the flight had a ton of movies and TV shows to choose from. So even though I had planned to get some reading done, I instead watched all-but-the-last-episode of the first season of Killing Eve. My decision to start watching it was roughly one hour too late to watch the entire season. Oops. I hoped maybe the flight home 3 weeks later might have the last episode. (Spoiler: It had exactly one episode. The first one. So that didn't work out, and I still haven't seen the season finale.)
We made it!
We made it off the plane and through customs without incident.
My first time in Europe!
And then we were reunited with our bikes and our boxes without incident, and with really no waiting at all.
Yay for free carts! Take note, US airports. Free carts.
Originally our friend Russ was going to pick us up from the airport and we would stay at his place the first night, but due to some health issues, he wasn't sure whether he'd be in the US or the UK when we arrived, so he very graciously hooked us up with his friends Martin and Mary, who would pick us (two total strangers) up and let us stay in their home. And while we had exchanged photos via email, we were basically wandering Heathrow looking for people we'd never seen before.
Fortunately we were the only people hauling two giant bike boxes out of Arrivals at that point, so we were easy to find!
Also fortunately there are no photos of my face when I saw the tiny car that I thought we were going to fit all 4 humans, two bike boxes, and two big cardboard boxes into.
Even more fortunately, there was a whole other car, and everything fit just fine.
Mary and Martin drove us back to Beaconsfield, where they live, outside of London, and we immediately began our first and most important project: bike reassembly.
Originally we had intended to land, drop the boxes off at a bike shop, have them reassemble the bikes, and pick the bikes up on Sunday before beginning our journey. Then we learned that pretty much all bike shops in the London area are closed on Sunday. And there just wasn't time to drop them off anywhere Saturday and also pick them up reassembled the same day.
Welcome back to one piece, my little bike!
But Russ is a clever one, and the friend he hooked us up with is also a huge cycling enthusiast with a dozen bikes of his own, which means he had a bike stand and several of every tool we might need. Between Matt and Martin, the bikes were assembled efficiently and without incident, and we were able to go for a little half mile test ride around the block to make sure everything felt good.
Cycling in cargo pants.
After a little rest and a much needed shower, Mary made an amazing dinner for us. And for Russ and Claire, who came over to join us! Turns out Russ made it back home in time to see us. Thank you, miracles of modern medicine, for fixing Russ.
Russ and Claire, Martin and Mary, me and Matt
Begging exhaustion, being that we'd basically been awake for 2 days at that point, Matt and I headed to bed fairly early, and since our travel plans didn't begin until the following afternoon/evening, we were able to sleep in late and get caught up on sleep, which we'd need for the rest of the trip!
Total miles for days 0 and 1: 0.92 miles around the block.