Closer and closer it gets. The day of our departure for another mad cycle touring adventure approaches and inevitably this focuses our minds upon making sure we have all our ducks in a row. We have a box of 'not to be forgotten' items into which we toss more things from time to time in case when it comes to the final packing we inadvertantly leave something behind. We also watch YouTube videos featuring cyclists touring around Europe to see whether they can provide us with more detail on what to expect on our intended route, or what not to forget. The most recent of these featured someone who forgot to bring his wallet with him and who also left his cycle helmet behind but despite this he still managed to continue and indeed to film the whole journey quite successfully!
One of the main reasons why we choose to travel to Holland for our cycle touring is that the infrastructure has so much more to offer when it comes to cycling on safe, quiet paths and roads. To find this locally we have to transport our bikes some distance away from home by road to a location that has a recognised cycle path then unload them to go for a ride. This has proved quite easy up to now but with recent troubling world events now impacting all motorised forms of travel we find ourselves imagining how we might continue to live the way we want to live in a future world, preferably without moving house to a new location. We have electric bikes and at the present time these are considered by many public transport operators as too dangerous to be carried safely due to the risk of fire should their batteries become damaged. Like so many other things, our news media will focus disproportionately upon instances where the lithium-ion batteries fitted in bikes, scooters and cars have caught fire or exploded and this is used as an excuse even when the risk is very small for a properly made machine. Our local long distance buses will carry bikes in their storage area but not if they are electric, which means we have to use our own vehicle if we want to go off cycling somewhere else.
But what if there was another way, something that defeats the system, perhaps.
We think back in our lives to a time when we were living and working in London and, having made a conscious decision to be car-free, a pair of folding bikes were our means of getting around. We later had them with us whilst living and travelling around Britain on our boat and they gave us the means to move around easily on land close to where we were berthed or moored up. We notice that some of our travelling YouTubers are riding folding bikes, the smaller wheels and a frame that hinges in several places allowing the machine to be collapsed so that it can be fitted inside a bag. At this point, of course, the bike becomes invisible! It is no longer a bike at all - it is merely a piece of luggage. One of the big attractions is that these bikes can be folded up for travel by train or bus then unfolded at the other end and for those living and working in a city the 'foldie' can be easily taken into the office and stashed next to a desk until needed for the journey home.
Then we discover that there are now electric foldies on the market, expensive but practical alternatives to a full-sized bike in some situations. So could one of these perhaps be used where a full sized electric bike is not welcome? Of course as soon as we discover this then YouTube begins to bombard us with videos of travellers using such machines, a feature we suspect some form of artificial intelligence is responsible for, but this soon gets our brains buzzing with ideas on whether we might invest in a couple of electric foldies for ourselves at some point in the future. We note that there is one model in particular that has its battery inside a removable bag, hidden from view and mounted on the front of the bike when in use.
We may live a long way from the nearest train station but we do have long distance buses which we use regularly. So here's how it goes...
We wait at the bus stop with our bikes neatly folded, minus their batteries which we carry in their conveniently small bags slung across our shoulders, a bag similar to what most passengers are carrying. The driver opens the bus storage space and we put the bikes inside. Should he ask whether they are electric (unlikely if the bikes themselves are enclosed in a bag) we can say that they are not, which of course is correct if there are no batteries attached. The perceived risk associated with lithium-ion batteries does not extend to phones, battery packs or other devices which use them nor does it include electric wheelchairs, which have quite large batteries. All these things are allowed to be carried on public transport. The restriction on electric bikes seems to be associated with the risk when carried in the storage area beneath the bus where they could be thrown about in transit resulting in the batteries getting damaged. In this case our batteries would be safely contained in our rather attractive bags.
Again, based on those YouTube videos, we learn that these machines, small though they are, can carry considerable luggage on racks at the front and the back which gives us even more wild ideas. We already do shopping trips to distant supermarkets using our buses (travel on which is free for us) so this is really just an extension of the same thinking, one that opens a whole world of possibilities. The possibility of a future cycle touring holiday using public transport has been born, in our minds, if nowhere else. The world we live in is changing, more rapidly than we would like, but unavoidably. Some of these changes are already impacting on our lives - higher fuel prices being the main one that will not go away quickly no matter where our world leaders take us. At present we have a motor caravan, smallish but still a large vehicle and we ask ourselves whether we could manage with a smaller vehicle, perhaps electric. Then we think back to that time when we had no car at all. On the odd occasion when we wanted to venture further afield we might have hired a car but generally we were happy to be car free and it was only when we moved into a house in a remotely located village that our needs changed. This car-less period gives us a background of knowledge and experience which we can apply to our present situation, enabling us to ask the right questions; how would we do our shopping, get to hospital appointments, travel to see the family, get about in the cold of winter and so on.
Are bikes always going to be the answer? Probably not. Age and infirmity will catch up with us some day but if the immediately foreseeable future is what we imagine then our thinking is helping us to prepare. Maybe those reading this will also be encouraged a little too.
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