WE ARE OFFICIALLY IN LONDON. So how can you tell me you're lonely And say for you that the sun don't shine Let me take you by the hand And lead you through the streets of London I'll show you something To make you change your mind Song by Ralph McTell Yesterday a lovely man in a Volkswagen van came and took our bikes away. To England, to England, panniers, packs and stove, off they drove. Tuesday arvo train, bus, plane, car, London bound we are. And this time it is Halifax to Ottawa. Sorry bicycles you will be back in boxes for this one. :-( Photo from http://traintraveling.com We have finally purchased our 'big ticket'. We will be flying from Montreal via Los Angeles & Auckland to Dunedin. We arrive in Dunners in time for Lance's 30th birthday. Does anyone want to pick up two weatherworn locals and two road-worn foreign bicycles from the airport? We will be there during first half of November 2017. Image from https://www.planespotters.net We have purchased a new home. Her name is Big Agnes, she has two doors and LED lights sewn in to her ceiling. She will be cycling with us shore to shore across the continent of North America. Copper Spur HV UL2 mtnGLO® image from Big Agnes website We are one step closer to our wee ride. Our personal possessions have started their slow journey to New Zealand. This means less stuff to be carried on our bicycles. These little packs of delightful food are excellent. We purchased ours from REI. Some of our favourites are;Rice is not healthy for Kel And indeed it was a dry run. After a very wet northern European August, God gave us lovely sunny days for our Kiel to Karlshamn cycle trip. Click on the photo to see more pictures from the trip. SCHWALBE MARATHON PLUS SMARTGUARD RIGID ROAD TYRE. We have new tires for our bikes, these ones feel like old gumboots and should last us the full 8000 kms without any punchers. The Boy Scout in me has also purchased a spare inner-tube. Fantastic, our maps are here for our USA & Canada ride and are now synced with both my computer and bicycle computer. Thanks Ride with GPS for your help. A big big thank you to Cannondale Pro Cycling for recognising our work and gifting us a little kit for our big trip. Three jerseys and four pairs of socks. Thanks We have purchased our train tickets and will be spending three days and three nights training across the USA. Photo courtesy of Amtrak It is official, we are leaving. Today we purchased our airline tickets from Lithuania to London. We catch our ferry from Southampton to New York. We leave in February. 'Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane. Don't know when I'll be back again. JOHN DENVER photo courtesy of planespotters.net Last year we pushed our bikes up many Slovakian, Polish and Czech mountains. We learned a lot from this trip including pushing is slow & boring and that we really need to get ourselves lower gears. As a result we are now running a 40-30-22 on the front and a 11-34 on the rear. Crankset: SHIMANO FC-M4000 40-30-22T – 175 MM Bottom Bracket: BB-ES300 68mm/BC137 – 118MM Rear Cassette: ACSHG418134 11-34/8SPEED full specs for my bicycle We have been allocated our rooms for our Transatlantic ferry crossing. It turns out to be a fairly large ferry; we will be sleeping on the 13th floor. Image from Cunard website. A big advance thank you to Cannondale Pro Cycling, for their donation of cycling clothes for our trip. We have been Garmin and now Cannondale fans for years. Now that we can wear the Cannondale name, we will be riding like pros. Finally after wearing two broken helmets for way too long, we have purchased two new bash-hats. They have flashing lights on them, how cool is that! :-) Thanks to the advice of @Natbikes; a dude and his Dad we bumped into in Slovakia, we have paid a deposit for two people and two bicycles to sail across the Atlantic. Our bicycles complete with human cargo will arrive in NYC on May 15, 2017.
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