Bicycling holiday to Austria.

[Vovolov]

Right.

A buddy and me mountainbike a lot. In a couple of days, we'll be cycling to the Ardennes and are going to stay there a few nights, mountainbiking, seeing stuff, just your general silly adventuring.

Now, we've had an idea to cycle to Austria, which is quite a trip (we live Noord-Brabant, the southern bit of the Netherlands), but we'd both like to see it, and undoubtedly, there'll be a whole lot to see on the way there. We hope to go through Limburg (which is a province of the Netherlands), Belgium, Luxembourgh, France, Germany and Switzerland before arriving in Austria.

Has anyone here ever done anything similar? Do any of you know great spots that we could go visit, or good places to stay, etc.? Any crazy ideas, comments, or people joining in () are welcome.

 

[AWdeV]

Sweden?! That's a hefty detour.

No, this seems like a really awesome trip. Be sure to pack enough supplies (lots to drink! It's hot out!) and be prepared. Know how to fix your bike, for example. Practice German and French before going. Good luck mate!

 

[Vovolov]

Oh what the ****. I meant Switzerland. 

Yeah, we both know enough of our bikes, how to fix things, etc. Language might be a problem, we both know neither of the languages very well, although German isn't too hard. I suppose we'll have to take a little pocket book or something. Or just hope people'll listen to a Dutch guy talking English.

 

[AWdeV]

Hehe, obviously.

 

[Lord Krashnok]

Sounds like an awesome trip,
I wish I lived in Europe to be able to take it ha.

From my experience with cross country biking, I chose to never listen to an iPod or any other music device (it gets me distracted and sometimes makes me sleepy),
and always know where your at (GPS or a phone with GPS or something like that),
and always have a good supply of back of water and a medical kit.

 

[Vovolov]

**** me. We were standing still, and my buddy fell because he couldn't get his foot off the pedal (clipless pedals). Landed on his wrist, and broke a bone which he had broken before and was pretty fragile now (or so it would seem).

This means we'll have to postpone any plans 'till next year. Bah!

 

[AWdeV]

Ah bummer dude. Clipless pedals though? What's the point of those?

 

[Vovolov]

Your shoes clip to 'em. Makes you able to pull your pedals up, as well as push them down.

 

[AWdeV]

And apparently makes you unable of lifting your foot off of the damn thing to stop yourself from falling and breaking ****. Doesn't sound like a good trade-off to me.

 

[FrisianDude]

I've heard of similar things twice and twice I heard of them because someone broke something. Though the other one had a sort-band-thing on his pedals where he'd stick his feet in. Also fell over.

 

[Vovolov]

And apparently makes you unable of lifting your foot off of the damn thing to stop yourself from falling and breaking ****. Doesn't sound like a good trade-off to me.

Nah, it's really easy to get your foot off normally. He just hadn't screwed the plate under his shoe on tight enough, which made it move around, which made him unable to get his foot loose from the pedal.

 

[Cyborg Eastern European]

Couldn't he have used his hands to block the fall?
Or did he have them clipped to the bike as well?

 

[Vovolov]

He used his left hand to block the fall, which he'd been better off not doing, because it broke that bone.

 

[AWdeV]

Oh ouch.

 

[Cyborg Eastern European]

did he use his hand or his wrist?
Sides, whenever I fell, I used both.

 

[Vovolov]

I have no idea, it all went pretty fast and crazy. I was laughing about it, and so was he. Then we cycled another mile or so, and he got a real pain in his left hand.

 

[Cyborg Eastern European]

Youch.
Whenever I fell to the sides, I just rotated my body 90° to the side and put my hands in the way. Kind of like doing pushups. Kind of.
Though, usually when I fell, I wasn't blessed with falling sideways.

 

[AWdeV]

Protip: Don't fall headfirst. Bad experience. (although no memory of it.)

 

[Vovolov]

Protip: Don't fall headfirst. Bad experience. (although no memory of it.)

I did that once, and ended up with a radiator

隐藏

embedded in my head. Bled pretty bad.

 

[AWdeV]

I ended up with a hefty concussion and 6 weeks of no school.