Well, I am officially graduated from Seattle University. The commencement ceremony was held on Sunday the 15th at Qwest field and involved the reading of approximately 1,000 names, which doesn't warrant any further detail. My parents came to Seattle, following on the heels of cousin Randy's wedding in Salt Lake City. Despite our frantic errand running and packing, I think they managed to have a good time and see a bit more of Seattle.
Speaking of packing, I think I should make a brief note about the inner workings of a three month European bike trip, at least from my amateur perspective. Touring equipment falls into two basic categories: bikes and stuff. Because we are biking, stuff is minimal, all fitting into four Ortlieb bicycle panniers (two a piece), plus a few extras. We packed necessities like Chacos, rechargable batteries, a few changes of underwear and books to read. Items left behind include: 1 small raised bed garden chock full of lettuce, spinach and beets; 1 iPod (deemed too large & cumbersome to bring along), and 0 books (I managed to sqeeze every book I possibly could into our panniers). Both bags are chock full. In order to bring any mementos home with us, we will have to be very creative packers.
Bicycles themselves, it turns out, require a surprising amount of creativity to pack. Meghan and I purchased bicycles that are designed specifically for touring. Basically this means they are built with thick walled tubing, slack steering angles, and little bonuses like extra spoke holders, tire pump pegs, and extra long chainstays (to accommodate panniers). Specifically, we purchased the Sojourn bicycle made by Raleigh. Having put approximately 200 miles on my bike commuting from home to school in Seattle, I can say that these bikes are very solid and very stable. I have been careful to keep track of how difficult and expensive it is to transport bicycles on trans-Atlantic flights, in the interest of avoiding high costs and headaches in the future. There have been a few surprizes already. To preface this, I'll say that my days working at Scott's Ski and Sports had prepared me with the packing and unpacking of hundreds of bicycles. There is a particular puzzle-like configuration that manufacturers use to fit their bikes into shipping boxes. Because of it's great length the 59 cm Sojourn bike does not fit into the smaller (29"x52"x7") cardboard bike boxes, which we had scavanged from one of our many local bike shops, Recycled Cycles. So we tracked down a second box at another LBS, Greg's Greenlake Cycles, which we measured carefully before carting it home. It did indeed fit into this larger(29"x54"x7.5") box, with room to spare. So we managed to fit the bikes (including racks and fenders, plus U-locks, bottle cages, helmets, and a few other items).
Because of rising airline costs, we will end up paying anywhere from $50 to $150 per bike to have them checked onto the plane. As it turns out, the Seattle to Chicago flight (on Frontier air) cost us $50 per bike, which is cheaper than shipping UPS. Even if the cost for Chicago to Paris is $150, this is in the best case only marginally more expensive than the cost of shipping the bike DHL worldwide ($130-$200). One recommendation: buy a few rolls of reinforced packing tape and plaster the bare cardboard box with it, especially the corners and the handles.
The flight from Seattle to Chicago (with a brief layover in Denver) went well, and we arrived in Chicago with bikes and luggage intact. Meghan's dad was there to pick us up at midnight. The ride home was enlivened by a late night stop at "R Place" a 24-hour family diner. Eating Denver omelettes in the middle of the night was strikingly reminiscent of the college life I am leaving behind. We made it to Tiskilwa at about 3:00 am. We are still waiting to find someone to stay with in Paris, but we aren't worried, since there are dozens of hostels in the event that no one can host us for our four days in the city.
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