At 77 years old now, we are at a stage where it makes sense to look ahead and try to guess how many years of cycling touring are still in us. There are some reasons for making the guess. At a sort of trivial level, too few years left on the clock would suggest not investing in any more new and fancy bikes. Or we might avoid storing bikes in too many exotic and expensive foreign locations, that we might never return to. 

But more important is a bit of a mental trick. If you can convince yourself that you have some fixed number of years ahead, however few, then you can put aside worrying about it. Until, of course, that number of years expires. But then you may be able to make up some new deadline, even if shorter.

I used to do something like this during difficult math exams in the old days. Facing a question that just seemed too difficult, and maybe starting to panic over it, I would pretend that I had all the time in the world to dream up the strategy for the solution. I would lean back, and (for a minute?) imagine that there was no time constraint at all. In that protected space, I would often solve the problem.

We were using this type of thinking when we set off last August, to cycle from Leipzig Germany to Valencia Spain. We had booked all the hotel stays and air flights, and also that costly bike storage in Valencia. It was because we confidently planned to return to Valencia in the Spring and carry on cycling from then. And for the meantime, we booked hotels in Costa Rica, plus all the air flights to and from the capital,  San Jose. It made sense. We figured on another 5-10 years of cycling ability.

So that's where, as well described in "Grampies Repositioning Ride" , just two days out of Leipzig I suddenly could barely walk, or see, or eat. Carrying on nonetheless, I cycled  15 km beyond the town of Halle, where I collapsed for 30 minutes. Pushing on, I  finally fell off the bike 15 km from Calbe. A passing motorist picked up the bike for me, and I managed to pedal to Calbe. But after that, I was done, and the story became one of ambulance, CT Scan, and finally, limping home to Canada.

The "Repositioning" blog carries on to tell what happened next. But that was then, and this is a new blog! It's happening because this Grampie has risen from the dust, at least enough to get back on the bike!

There may be a bit of a sense of deja vu for some readers, with the blog title. For example there was Grampies Ride Again, and Grampies Go On Their Knees. Fifteen years of cycle touring has indeed required some resilience at times.

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So now we will try it again. As I write this, at the end of October, it's way too late to pick up and complete the previous itinerary. It's really too bad, because it was planned as a great ride. Right today, we should have been arriving back in Vancouver, after much fun in Provence, Mallorca, Valencia, and Barcelona. 

With our big European bikes safely returned to Leipzig, we really could not go to somewhere like Spain or Portugal just now. (However the Fenwicks are doing just that, right now.) But we do still have our Bike Fridays, and our idea is to take them again to Mexico. In fact, we are likely to store them in Mexico, because as we know, we have years and years that we can use to pedal them over there!

How will we get the bikes down there? What is the storage situation like? Where will we cycle exactly? We have figured that all out. Watch for the reports in the next postings!