20260915 Planes, Trains and No Automobiles

Patti here:

We’re on the road again! Our Fall 2026 trip is our Trip #9 and already it’s filled with firsts… (For a recap of previous trips, click here.). We’re picking up the bikes in Newcraighall – a suburb of Edinburgh – where we left them in May, and eventually riding about 1400 km to Lyon, France.

I don’t know about you but the night before I travel is always fraught with anxiety: what am I forgetting? (Probably nothing that can’t be replaced somewhere along the way. Thank-you for the pragmatic reminder, Jasmine.) Will the house be alright? (Of course it will: our pal Brian will be staying in it, and he has back-up support in a number of our friends and neighbours – cough, Johan, Tammy, Jeff – if needed.) Have I actually trained enough over the summer to sustain an average of 60 km/day? (Probably? but there is always some assist in the form of a battery when energy lags.)

Relief for me comes when the plane’s wheels leave the tarmac at YYZ. I know that for John, the anxiety abates when we get onto the bikes on the first day of travel and he can test them for tire pressure, chain integrity, and other technical challenges that I’d really rather not know anything about.

There were 7- !!! – segments to our first 24 hours of travel: (1) the #64 bus to Main Station; (2) subway across the top of Toronto from Main to Kipling; (3) airport bus from Kipling to Terminal 1; (4) flight from YYZ to Brussels which was delayed by two hours causing some anxiety on my part since our turn around in Brussels to catch the next flight was already a little tight; (5) flight from Brussels to Edinburgh – all of that worry for nothing, we made our final flight with loads of time; (6) tram from the airport to downtown Edinburgh; (7) Train from Edinburgh to Newcraighall where the bikes are in storage.

Along the way we had a few conversations with fellow travellers about where we were travelling to (Edinburgh to Lyon) and where we were not travelling to (cough, America….). I’m sure they won’t be the last of those bewildered conversations about world politics. Coincidentally, while we’re in Europe Carney is having talks with the EU about new partnerships.

Takeaway: Europe and the UK are very impressed with Carney. So am I.

We checked into our hotel here in Newcraighall, dumped the panniers, changed into clothing more appropriate for cycling and then walked to where the trikes were stored. John set them up, we did a thorough perimeter search of the rental unit to make sure we weren’t leaving anything behind (more about that later), and after a visit to a conveniently located wine store to pick up Shiraz and zero-beer we rode back to the hotel to plug in various devices, pack and unpack panniers and organize them for the next five weeks of travel.

Sounds great, right? It was. Until…

Until we realized we only had one of the two walkie talkies. Obvi, one walkie talkie is useless.

You cannot believe how many times we – jetlagged we – packed and unpacked our panniers and checked and re-checked the photos we had taken of that locker’s contents in May, finally admitting to ourselves that although we had indeed left two walkie talkies there in May, the “thorough perimeter search of the rental unit to make sure we weren’t leaving anything behind” had been pitifully incomplete. We had only one unit, and matter cannot be created or destroyed….

So….

We climbed back on the bikes (oh, b.t.w., in true Scottish fashion, it had rained in the meantime so the bikes were wet) and we rode back to the storage place. The staff had a good laugh at our predicament. John found the orphaned walkie-talkie nestled into a weird cranny in the unit.

We jumped back onto the bikes (after saying a fond farewell to “Blair” – a staffer we remembered from our May check-in), locked up the bikes in the smoking area at the hotel for the evening, took ourselves to the pub next door for Mac’n’Cheese and a Steak and Ale pie, and then – brace yourselves – tucked ourselves in at 7 p.m. We woke up at 8:30! We hoovered some poached eggs, kitted up the bikes and departed for our first day of riding.