Cycling Europe Day 31: Relaxing With Juliet’s Boob

I was going to do something stupid and then I got smart.

This blog post’s title is meant quite literally.

When friends ask me about my timeline for this trip, I tell them I’ll keep cycling until I get tired. Depending on how you understand that, it can sound very romantic: I’ll just keep cycling and cycling like this forever, maybe.

No I won’t.

In my head, I can be ridiculously flexible. In reality, I am an organizer that sticks to the plan as if not sticking to it will bring the death penalty.

There are a million limitations. I don’t have visas to every country in the world. In fact,

Today’s cycle to Verona involved the Alps as my foredrop. I’ve had quite a lot of that in the past few days.

I am completely limited to visiting European Union countries that allow the Schengen Visa. Ramadan is coming up at the end of June and I am NOT cycling 100km a day while fasting 18-hour days. I actually need to end this a few days before Ramadan because I still have four days of fasting from last Ramadan that I need to make up before this one rolls in. I spent a lot of money so my four kids could join me in the UK this summer. I have to be there before they arrive. And finally, I unfortunately do not have a limitless supply of cash and, even though I’m saving on transportation costs by using my own leg power to get places and I’m camping when I can, this trip is still very expensive for someone like me.

So no. I’m not going to cycle forever. And yes. I do have a plan. But I am not going to tell you what it is. I do not want to burden myself with people’s expectations or with my own, for that matter. If the day comes that I’m too tired to cycle any longer, I stop. If I can manage, I’ll keep cycling until I reach my final planned destination. It doesn’t matter. I’ve already done so much and I’m so thankful.