2 yellow bikes in the sunshine...

A little post from Sylv in France, whilst Harriet is probably doing some strange scorpion pose in the ashram in the Himalayas. Apparently, she's enjoying it loads!?!? Even eating only twice a day is, supposedly, great. She should be liberated and back in the "real" world on Monday. Looking forward to her post and pictures from the ashram.


On the other side of the world, I've been stuffing myself with French pastries, nice fresh bread, CHOCOLAT, wine, cheese, more chocolate, etc. In between meals and snacks, I've been busy (yes I was) finding bicycles for the next leg of our trip in SE Asia. But it can't be just any bicycle. They have to be solid (stainless steel frame), simple (no fancy gear system or hydrolic suspension), practical (with front and back carriers for panniers) and have universal (26") wheel size. The sort of bike that is not very fashonable at the moment, as nearly all are Aluminium and 28", and therefore hard to find.


But my parents were fab and looked around for me before I arrived in France. And their shortlist was indeed successful. A lovely shop in Freiburg in Germany provided the solution and with a few changes and additions, I got what we needed: two beautiful yellow bikes, Fahrradmanufaktur T400.







And having now recovered from a nasty cold (the temperature difference from India 36 degC to Alsace -3 degC last week was a bit of a shock to the system), I am able to go and try the bicycles out in the sunny autumn days of Alsace.




We now need to give names to our lovely yellow bikes. Any ideas, do send them over.


Next step: filling the panniers, packing the bikes in cardboard for the journey on the plane and mechanics and maintenance lessons with my dad. Big thanks to my dad for all his help!