It is Monday. Our apartment has been packed up and moved and the keys are now in someone else’s hands. Our bicycles are packed into their boxes and our bags in varying states of disarray, concurrent with our minds as we try to wrap up the many loose ends expected when departing the country for four, maybe more, months. Tomorrow evening we board a plane to begin three days of displacement with the oddly shaped, two hundred pounds of possesions that will accompany us on our bike ride. We fly from Chicago to London to Prague were we will stay for one lovely evening prior to boarding a series of buses bound for Jowita’s hometown, Sabkowice Sl., Poland.

(One item we should get out of the way is how to pronounce Jowita’s name, repeat after me…. ‘yo-v-ta’. Some might also known her by her middle name, Marzena, pronounced ‘ma-jshay-na’. Use which ever you prefer. Really, they are both quite pretty names.)

We will stay with Jowita’s brother, sister-in-law, and her little goddaughter and visit the family, where we will be happily force fed too much food, and be challenged to drink another shot of vodka at Jowita’s cousin, Marcin’s, wedding by her uncles. After a couple weeks, the gluttony will end and we will struggle to keep our stomachs full as we burn more calories than we can keep up with as jump on our fully-loaded, bicycle shaped, semi-trucks towards the Czech Border.

Our first month will find us riding through the Morovia Wine growing regions of the Czech Republic, along the March and Danube Rivers through Vienna to the foothills of the Alps where we will be faced with a mountain range we find hard to know if we are prepared to ride through it. We continue through the mountains to the foothills of the jagged Julian Alps in Slovenia and then to the Slovene Coast for our first taste of the Adriactic Sea.

Our next two months are even farther from certain than the first. While the route is very thoroughlly planned for our first month, we can expect, and even seek out a variance. The next two are entirely tenative at this point. We know we will enjoy the islands in Croatia, but for how long? We know we want to see Sarajevo but don’t want to ride in snow. We know are going to Greece, but do we have to go to Italy first? The hard and fast is Istanbul. Our return flight is from Istanbul, but with all the variables, the date of that flight may change.

We look forward to sharing our adventure with you and hope you can follow along with us. Please send us emails, become our friend on facebook and check back often for updates. Our little 12″ Powerbook is joining the other seventy pounds of stuff straped to Chad’s bicycle so that we can update the blog as much as we are able.

Off to the HandleBar for one last drink with our friends for the year.

Enjoy the ride

Chad Tyler and Jowita Wyszomirska