Cycling

So, Day 1 finally arrived and this journey started with the first step. How satisfying it was to put the out of office message in, delete teams and outlook from my mobile and get into the swing of things!

The morning

I woke up at 5.40am at Zurich Airport in the Hyatt Regency hotel. For some reason not a restful night, but perhaps it was the anticipation. The Hyatt is a great hotel a stone’s throw from the airport and is my go to hotel for when I have to catch an early flight. This time it was where the car with all the kit and the bike was parked. So in the morning, after doing a final packing check (and still forgetting things…), I checked out and drove to Basel, from where my cycling trek was planned to start.

Being the techie that I am, of course a 14 day cycling trip is going to require some serious tech. So here’s what my cycling carry looks like.

Navigation

I used to use Garmin Edge devices on my various biking adventures, but they are tiny, routing info needs squinting and the smarts required to get back to the route after a detour, or starting somewhere else than what the route said have been seriously lacking. Combine that with severely limited storage and all that in expensive device… no thanks. I am carrying the perfect cycling computer with me all the time, my iPhone. So, on this trip, I am using my iPhone 15 Pro on a Quadlock Magsafe holder, connected to a massive battery, which rides in my top tube bag. That way, I am not going to be out of battery.

So I am about to do a thing. Cycle from Basel to Cologne and then back to Mannheim for relaxation and to switch off from work. This trip is going to start on Wednesday, May 28th 2025. For that I am starting this blog, so I can keep a diary for myself and whoever it may interest.

There is a network of pan-European cycling routes, called the EuroVelo network - and I am going to go loosely along a majority of number 15. From Basel to Karlsruhe, I am staying on the French side, then I’ll switch over.