T-24 Bicycle riding!

Finally fixed up bicycle for the season: New back brakes, fixed chain, added speedometer/odometer, which actually agrees with DailyMile about distance. Good. No need for a €150 GPS when I can do with a €7 magnetometer. Gear needs some adjustment, as it falls off when on low gear. Otherwise, it felt good to be on the bicycle again.

2.77 km, 00:09:50, top speed: 37.5 km/h, average speed 16.9 km/h

I might be 110 km behind on my training schedule, but I'm right on the goal for average speed at this stage. With the current trip schedule, I should be able to complete the entire Paris-Amsterdam trip with an average 3.7 hours bicycling per day. That leaves plenty of time for sight seeing.

But that is theoretic.

T-31 Tickets purchased

In order to avoid hotels in Oslo, I'm flying with Norwegian to Paris and return with SAS. After booking, and getting ready to register the bicycle as special baggage, the great difference between the airlines show: Norwegian wants €82 to bring the bicycle, even in a bicycle case, while SAS allows the bicycle to travel for free. Add that the bicycle case costs €250, it is cheaper to buy a brand new bicycle in Paris than to bring it with me.

And that's what the plan is now. I arrive a day early anyway, there's time to purchase a bicycle. Since my wife currently doesn't have one, it will be a female bicycle, which in turn will come back with me to Norway. After all, it travels for free on my return ticket, as long as I register it in due time.

T-31 Time to buy plane tickets

I just did a jump in the countdown. Due to time limitations with my driver, cycling begins May 15th instead of 21st. This means it's 31 days left before riding. He must return on 22nd, which changes the logistics a bit for me. I feel I can complete the trip with a few more days. By returning on the 27th from Amsterdam means five more nights, but also the cheapest return ticket and two days to spare.

As fate will have it, the cheapest plane going from Ålesund to Paris on the 14th costs twice as much as any other day, begins at 7 in the morning and arrives 17:25 in Paris after spening amounts of time waiting in Oslo and Copenhagen.

Which means I need to leave Norway on friday 13th and get one night accomodation in Paris... wish me luck!

T-61: Practice and dates

Practice: Last week was a disaster. My goal was 4 km/day, 28 km total for the week. The total was 4.22 km. This, of course, explained by the fact that my oldest son was sick, and I spend much of the week as "assisting home nurse".

Also with regards to children - assuming that my wife gets assistance with junior from my parents, the boundries of the trip must be May 11th - May 31st. However, this is a very busy time of the year at school, and it might be just as good to bring junior along to France - in which case the boundries are May 11th - June 6th. It's an idea anyway. And he likes to fly - but will he be content to sit in the car with Klemet, or do I need to pull him along on the bicycle? Hmmm...

Goal for next week: 7 km/day, 49 km total, and if I should catch up with this week's 23.78 km deficit, I should do 72.28 km - or 10.3 km/day. Hmmmm... we'll see. At least "the wolf" will be back in kindergarden tomorrow.

Todo next week: Tighten chain and get riding outside again.

T-68 An inaccurate date?

Time is closing in, and might be closing faster than expected, too. My travel partner is open for travel between May 11th and June 6th. As ESC is being dropped, I need to finalize the travel dates, and this could mean starting before May 21st. Basically, only start and stop of travel are required. And booking the plane tickets.

I will be a "home alone with one chide"-dad for a few weeks counting from March 29th. In the meanwhile, I need to intensify my practice, which has been close to non-existant. Target travel rate is, after all, 30 km/day - or 210 km/week - a far cry from my current 5km/week average (actually altering between 4, 6 and 9 km/week of walking).

It is ten weeks until expected departure. A practice program should increase the distance by 20 km/week2 - 3km/day every week or 0.42 km/day every day. When bicycling is not an option due to other restraints, I must make use of the stationary bike - every day!

How should I accomplish this, I wonder? Well... first of all, write it down!

Week number: daily practice, total for week, total in period (comment)

Week 11: 4 km/day 28 km 28 km(15 minutes/day?)

Week 12: 7 km/day 49 km 77 km

Week 13: 10 km/day 70 km 147 km

Week 14: 13 km/day 91 km 238 km (an hour/day? Must be morning practice.)

Week 15: 16 km/day 112 km 350 km

Week 16: 19 km/day 133 km 483 km

Week 17: 22 km/day 154 km 637 km (two hours/day? How do I fit this into my schedule?)

Week 18: 25 km/day 175 km 812 km

Week 19: 28 km/day 196 km TOTAL: 1008 km

Next: Something as simple as a piece of paper with this information - or a spreadsheet. Jot down actual practice and check against the four different goals written down in the table above. Figure out how to get about doing this as I go.

P-114 Caravan

Klemet will be joining. The plan now is a rental caravan. This would radically change the approach; while the route still sits, the schedule can be completely undecided. That is, only start and stop dates need to be set (to be able to catch the plane), but the rate of progress can be completely up to my own pace. I can therefore go slower or faster than planned, and basically the project changes from specifically Paris-Lille to "Paris towards Amsterdam and let's see how far I get within this time frame."

Facebook: Paambi Stage 1 event Join in!

P-118 Time for action

Basically, the decision seems to be - drop Düsseldorf, go directly to Paris. Time to get some accomodation and plane tickets.

On Facebook:

• Event: Visiting Paris
• Event: Paris-Lille by bicycle
• Group: Paambi