It was in December 2016 we cycled from Sawantwadi, a place near Goa to all the way till Kanyakumari, the southernmost tip of India. This was a trip where my aunt Lalita had also joined us. The three of us had pushed ourselves to all possible extremes to reach Kanyakumari on our bicycles. We still cherish our 1200 Kms of sheer will power, endurance & pure cycling fun.

    During this journey we realized that bicycle touring provides us with endless possibilities. It helps us in slowing down and eventually making us appreciate tiniest of things around us. It is worthwhile to spend our longest of vacations doing bicycle tours. We also gathered a lot of inspiration from a American Traveler Darren Alffs. His YouTube channel “Bicycle Touring Pro” introduced us to a whole new world of bicycle touring. Darren’s bicycle touring videos from Europe made us fall in love with it’s countryside. It was then we decided to do our next bicycle tour in Europe.

    European countries are well-known for their bicycle friendly road network. They have dedicated cross-country bicycle paths that go through jungles and countryside. These routes are called EuroVelo bike paths. After a lot of reading and research I narrowed down on EuroVelo 6 & EuroVelo 15. EuroVelo 6 has been mapped along the Danube river while EuroVelo 15 goes along the Rhine river. The idea was to traverse through 5 countries namely Austria, Germany, Switzerland, France & Netherlands. Both these bicycle routes were going to take us via these 5 countries.

    After the initial Euphoria settled down, we began with our preparations. The three of us got our Montra bicycles serviced from a Borivali based bike shop named Track & Trail. The shop owner Mr. Shailendra heard us patiently & got us what we needed for the tour. People like Shailendra make this hobby so much fun. Many thanks to him & his staff. We then started reading travel articles of people who have done this route. Watched a lot of YouTube videos to understand what the climate could be. Noted down various campsites along the route. Made a tentative rough route plan along with days plotted. Finally we applied for Schengen Tourist Visa. Maithili & I were falling short of required funds in our account. We were planning to take a personal loan from our bank. However my Aunt Prerana came to our rescue & offered us a great help. She offered me a financial Loan without any interest which was like pleasant energizing breeze. We will always be thankful to her as it eased out our another hurdle.

    Then it was a time for Visa process. This was going to be a completely different challenge. One needs to show a complete itinerary with all accommodation bookings at Visa office. Unlike other pre-planned tours, a bicycle tour always offers you with a sense of uncertainty and an element of surprise. We were supposed to camp and were not sure where exactly we would be at the end of each day. A tricky situation. Here Ms Priyanka Dalal came to our rescue. We had read Priyanka’s bicycle touring articles earlier and she had gone through the same dilemma during her time. I mailed her my queries and she immediately answered all my queries in detail. Following her suggestion, we were honest about our travel plan in the Visa cover letter and mentioned the nature of our bicycle tour along with camping plans. We made it very clear to VFS office that we have purposely not booked any accommodation for the same reason. People at VFS office were very friendly and helpful. They were quiet amazed just to know that 3 Indians are doing this strange bicycle trip. I will have to write a separate article on our Visa process moments. Then we waited for the Visas to get approved. It was 4’th of April, Maithili’s birthday which we did not celebrate as we were waiting for the response from VFS office. To our surprise we got our Visas approved in just 3 days. It was a time to celebrate. Lalita collected all our Visas from the VFS office and then we met one more time to celebrate and discuss the tour plan.

    The only thing that was pending now was to dismantle our bikes, pack them in box and keep waiting for our Lufthansa flight to Austria.

    This was going to be epic!