And we do drive! To Europe and back please!

A 5-headed family with the cargo bike on bike tour through Europe

Laura & René + Elias (5 years) + Valerio (3 years) + Aylin (8 months)

The preparations are now finally completed and we're ready to go on the adventure of our lives. Leaving our apartment was hard and exhausting, but we made it. In March we thoroughly tested our equipment at the house of Laura's parents, which we're currently living in. Everything goes without problems and how it's supposed to. Wasser filter, stove, sleeping bag, sleeping matt, tent, ... all that is waiting to fulfill its purpose. Unfortunately we're currently in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, which forces us to delay our travel start to April 5th 2020! There are people dying all over the world, because of the SARS-CoV-2 illness. That makes it currently impossible to start onto our journey. We would start anyway, but we don't want to endanger other people and so we show solidarity and adapt to the circumstances.
Will we start? YES, we will. When? Unfortunately we currently cannot say that yet, but we hope for the 20th of April 2020. One problem that we have is, that at the moment the non existant passports for our kids, because the citizens' offices are still closed as well as the country borders. We asked ourselves how we will now proceed and how that will influence our route planning. In general, we clearly have to be very spontanious! Our current plan looks like this. As soon as the citizen' offices have opened back up again, we will issue passports for our kids. We plan going to Rostock the very same day. We will load the cargo bike as well as Laura's travel bike onto a trailer and let ourselves be taken to a ferry port. From there, we want to get to Trelleborg in Sweden to start our journey with our changed route plan. 
From here the Rohloff Speedhub 500/14 has to prove, what it's already proven in the everyday life, it has to last on Laura's travel bike, but most importantly on the 280 kg cargo bike (system weight). It has to be added though, that if René keeps drinking so much beer, there could certainly be a few kilogramms added. Besides all of that our current position looks like this: The Rohloff hub is the last piece, that we're worried about. It never let us down, neither in our everyday life nor on our test tours. Technically, you don't even notice it being there, because it just works too well. We love this hub!!
But back to the topic. From Telleborn our journey will lead us through south Sweden, so that we can hopefully enter Denmark after a few weeks. Then further over Belgium and France to Spain. In Spain we decided to take the pilgrim path to Santiago de Compostela. Its expected, that we will not visit Italy anymore, but in the end who knows currently. To put it clearly, „the path is the goal“. If we end up cycling 500 km, 2000 km or even 6000-10000 km is totally irrelevant! The journey itself and being with the kids is the highest priority and only that is important!!! And here, it had to be mentioned, that we also have to give a huge thanks to the Rohloff AG and also to the Radsport Lindemann from Porta Westfalica, as a Rohloff specialist dealer, who heavily support us in this plan, as well as be by our side at all times during our journey, because the following is clear: something like this is not granted!!! Much thanks to the team of the Rohloff AG, as well as the team of the Radsport Lindemann!!

 

You can see, how it's currently going for us on our social media channels, as well as on our homepage.
 

Homepage: https://www.radreisen-lastenrad.de
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/radreisen_lastenrad
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ReneundLauraHorvath/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc_Gb4NvC53FSo9zK9egSZA