Biggest Bicycle Touring Mistakes ( …not what you might think! )

Hi everybody, I'm Erik from Wheels2Wonder and in this video I want to tell you guys everything you need to know about the biggest bicycle touring mistakes Maudie and I made on our world bicycle journey. I'm going to talk about the experiences mostly and hopefully the insights I give you here help you on your own journey to avoid them of course. So let's get into it with number one So from the beginning I think what we did wrong is that we had a certain kind of rigid daily mileage that came because we wanted to cycle from point A to B in a certain amount of time which gave a daily mileage we needed to hit every day and I was kind of diligent about that. I really wanted to hit those targets and that put stress on Maudie and that again put stress on us as a team and that of course that didn't work out. When I started to relax about that a little bit more we got into a better groove with each other and on the journey as a whole. Yeah we didn't hit our A to B target but we had more fun. Also one of these things that came out of the rigid daily mileage is that we were pushing it a lot and what that brings is more tiredness. So we were physically tired, we were mentally tired. These things cause you to miss out on opportunities. Maybe there somebody offers you a tea or you see this beautiful waterfall. Actually you don't see it because you are more or less like that. You want to go to your destination, you want to go to your campsite. So when you feel tired take a nap, rest a little bit. That's always a good thing to do. Also for me especially and maybe that is also for you is when I eat unhealthy food that really tires me out really quickly. So I try to eat as healthy as I can to not to get too tired during the day. So I can be there in the moment with people or with a beautiful scene you come across. In the beginning of our tour we got scared about other people's opinions and a good example of that is the opinions people had in a certain country about their neighbors. And people were saying these people are bad people and they have nasty habits and all these kinds of things and we were getting scared and kind of stressed out about going to the next country. And when we came there it couldn't be more further from the truth. People generally were always friendly, always helpful and it's kind of crazy that people you speak to on the road kind of stress you out about nothing. So hopefully you can take some things people say with a grain of salt and watch until the experience unfolds for yourself and then you will see it's probably really different. So from time to time we got into this partner bubble because we were tired or because we were scared. We would cling to each other, not make as much contact to the people outside and then we were missing out on a lot of opportunities actually. I'm not really sure if you should mitigate that. Sometimes it's just really really good especially when you're scared you get comfort in each other's presence and that's of course really important as well. But I just wanted to put it in here just to let you know kind of our experience with that and that also we felt in this situation we were missing out. So the next category is getting into a rut. You've done it, I've done it and actually it is one of the things you want to avoid because hey that's not fun right. So too much of the same experience can really get you into a rut. Like the same routine day in day out for weeks months and then what actually are you experiencing. So a tip I want to give here is mix it up. Stay a little bit longer in a certain place, relax. Go for a hike and enjoy nature in a different way or go for a cultural experience. Maybe you can visit some local people and stay with them for a while and learn a little bit more about the culture you're in. One of the things on the tour but for us is really special is talking to people and that is really difficult when you don't speak a common language. And what we tried to use was Google Translate and yes it really helps and for sure you should try it. But what we came to realize that you're quite limited in what you really can talk about and that makes it kind of superficial to talk with people that way. Interesting until a certain level but beyond that level that's really difficult. So what I think is really important is your non-verbal communication and especially the humor side of things. Slowly but surely you will get the hang of it and then you will see it's not that difficult and it's a lot of fun to do. You will lighten up the load for everybody and yeah you will have the greatest interactions with people you can imagine. So one of these points that really got us into a rut was the boring food we ate from time to time. Especially our breakfast which was oatmeal mixed with nuts and maybe some fruits. Of course delicious but for months and months and months. So we tried to change that up by eating kind of a soup in the morning or have your dinner in the morning. Changes your day, changes your routine. So these are all things you can use to mix it up and have different experiences and make it fun. So the next category is too much pavement and that's of course for us the quite personal. Because maybe you are a road cyclist and you like asphalt and that's your mecca. But for us we feel we saw too much asphalt actually and too much traffic. So for the next tour we want to try and change that up and I'm gonna list the things here for you what I think caused us to cycle too much pavement. So one real obvious point is that especially I was too heavy that when I couldn't cycle the bike was too heavy to push for an extended period of time. So that caused us to avoid areas like that. So yeah being too heavy really prohibited us from getting out into these more natural areas. And for the next time that is one thing for sure we want to look into and shave some weight of our setup so we can go more into these natural areas and experience the things that we love to to see most. So cycling on asphalt it cycles really easily but you also tend to have a lot of traffic, a lot of noise, a lot of pollution and also a lot of danger. I think actually that cycling on pavement with trucks flinging by your head is one of the most dangerous things on the whole bicycle journey. So that's another reason to stay off the pavement a little bit more to also be a little bit more safe. Also in certain areas we saw this incredible nice route on the map and there was nothing at all out there. And then we got kind of scared about doing it because it was maybe for 50 kilometers something and we didn't know if we we needed to hike or if there was any water there. And that has to do with the proper preparation for such a situation. So that also caused us to miss out on these kinds of opportunities. So this kind of unpreparedness and also tiredness from time to time really caused us to take the easy road and the road of the asphalt and magical things happened there. Don't get me wrong at all you can probably know by now I'm really passionate about this subject. The wilderness areas the more back roads kind of areas where you have these small villages where people living a more primitive kind of lifestyle. These things are the things that really gets our heart beating and that's what we want to experience. So the last category is not taking enough time off. And one of the things we had was FOMO, the fear of missing out on opportunities. And especially as content creators we're shooting a video and photos and you're looking for those beautiful opportunities like a beautiful sunset or some beautiful lightning somewhere or maybe a special situation of a thing you have never seen before. And we were kind of always ready to seize the moment. And that also kind of wears on you because you have to be always ready. There's always this pressure of making the video happen. And of course it's a lot of fun to do but it can also take you out of the moment. When you see an opportunity you start thinking about the ways to approach the opportunity instead of just experiencing the beautiful moment that is there for you. So we also made long days and days turn into weeks and turn into months. And taking time out is a great way of just resetting yourself for the next chapter of your tour. And that's actually the way we did it. We divided our longer tour of two years into smaller chapters and then we could see like hey how's this chapter like? Do we still like it? What should we switch up or anything? We have this rest period to recuperate and from there we could go on. But also we sometimes just cycled for days and days and weeks and months at a time without actually resting that much. We got into the situation where we felt frustrated with our trip. And yeah that's a shame because that's not the reason why you run a trip in the first place. To change it up take some time off to rest and digest all the experiences. And maybe even go home for a little while. Go back to your family see your friends. That can be a great thing to go back home for a little while and then come back with renewed energy. And then you can go on for many more months to come. So being always together 24-7 for two years from our experience we can say that's quite unnatural actually. There's nothing like you ever experienced before. Being so close to one person for such a long time. I think Maudie and I really did good in this period. Of course we had difficulties but I think we came out stronger in the end. But we also met people who split up. Who broke up because of their experiences on the road together. So in a sense it's not a really a mistake or anything like that. But it for sure can bring a lot of friction to your relationship with your partner. So really keep that in mind. And when you go on a tour like this maybe you factor in a little time for yourself here and there. Maybe go at it alone for a week or something in between somewhere. And actually that's something that we want to try in the future as well. Just to switch things up. To keep things rolling. To keep things fresh. And I think that could be a really important tool to get the most out of your experience. I want to finish up by saying that there are no real mistakes to make. Only experiences to learn from. And that the biggest mistake you can make is not to learn from the experience. So we have come to the end of the video. Thank you for watching. I hope you learned something. I hope you got something out of it. If you have any questions or maybe you would like to add something about your biggest mistakes. Please leave them down in the comments below. If you want to like, subscribe and hit the bell. That would help us and the channel out a lot. So thank you for that. Up here somewhere I'm gonna put some extra videos for you guys to watch. And from here I'll say to you have a great day and we'll catch you guys in the next one.