TransAlps 2015: Day -6/-5/-4

Here we go again. Departure week. Starting with a serious quote. If documenting our latest adventure on bikes in Europe approaches anything near this serious, please stop reading. Wilbur and I are a couple of clowns who ride our bikes too much. We wear bad glasses (future post material), baby wipe our bikes, coordinate our socks and generate nicknames for the fellow riders we think are bigger clowns than us. 

These trips are about having fun. Will do my best to share it with you as we go. Have a couple additions to this year's edition. Enjoy our ride. 

Prep for these trips generates good anticipation. Changing up the food program this year. Wilbur has convinced me that dirtbags (us) should consume calories at the lowest cost. Instead of sports nutrition bars, it's Rice Krispie squares and Snickers. A week's worth of race food. Sure I'll toss 1/2 of it as I'll be sick of what I brought by day 4 and on to a strict diet of white bread and Nutella. 

My partner Wilf/Wilbur/Wilfred - the original dirtbag. The only dirtbag who lives in Shaughnessy and drives a Porsche (two!).

I completed TransAlps in 2010/11/12. Year off 2013 and finished Haute Route last year. Most of it chronicled on this blog (Wilf's also done all 4 and TransAlps 2009). Back for TransAlps again. A similar course to the 2011 version. 

It's all about the bike. She let me down at last year's Haute Route. Electronic shifting packed it in 1hr into Day 2. White Lightning v2.0 debuted a month ago. 

So far so good, but always nerve-racking taking apart a perfectly functioning bike and packing it into a case in pieces. Never know what's going to come out on the other end.

Met Wilbur on Tuesday night for a serious spin, very serious.

Fly Vancouver - Munich tomorrow night. Easy spin tomorrow early morning to keep the legs active. As they say, the cake is baked.