Mission Accomplished for Stage One of the E-Bike Cycle Tourists Journey

As far as emotions go, the E-Bike Cycle Tourists have just about experienced them all over the past 16 months as we pedaled our way to a new, imposing, world e-bike long distance record.

Day after day, week after week, month after month as we pedaled our Haibike xDuro Trekking e-bikes for a total of 1490 hours and 27,800 kilometres throughout mainland Europe and the UK, we were bombarded with a multitude of emotions.

Personal satisfaction, joy, trepidation, exhilaration, stress, anger, anticipation, disappointment, elation … we experienced them all and many, many more.

But more than anything the most overwhelming emotion we experienced came on August 30, 2016 when we arrived at Friedrichshafen in Germany on the final day of our amazing journey – and that was one of ‘mission accomplished’.

After so many kilometres of e-biking the occasion was celebrated with high fives, a celebratory kiss and, of course, a photo session to record the moment.

As far as we were concerned by successfully completing our journey unscathed we had achieved the equivalent of winning a grand final, scoring gold at the Olympics, or in cycling terms the ultimate of prizes, winning the Tour de France.

A tad over the top you may say, but not as far as we were concerned after 16 months of self-supported cycle touring at an average of 75kms per day while towing fully laden cycle trailers in all sorts of weather conditions and across all types of terrain.

Sure, we had an amazing time, met a long list of new friends, were in constant sensory overload such were the amazing sights we saw on a daily basis and wouldn’t swap the experience for anything, but don’t for one moment underestimate the huge amount of motivation required to complete our tour.

Okay, we were riding e-bikes which effectively helped to iron out the hills and to tame annoying headwinds, but that doesn’t mean that our bodies didn’t ache day after day after spending six or more hours in the saddle or that everything went exactly to script.

While for the majority of the time it was all plain sailing – or should that be e-biking? – there were plenty of times when we questioned our sanity and our reasons for continuing.

But the toll that wild weather, aching tailbones, rundown campgrounds, unrelenting hills, sickness and fatigue took was nothing compared to the overwhelming exhilaration we experienced and the countless “how good is that” moments that we enjoyed.

In fact the few challenging days we experienced paled into insignificance when we opened our laptop computers at night to read the many, many emails we received from people throughout the world who claimed our journey was an “inspiration” and “the motivational force” for people to either purchase an e-bike or to go on their own e-bike cycle touring adventure.

Six or so months into our journey after the power and incredible reach of social media kick in, it was as though we were being followed by an invisible army of supporters.

Suddenly our journey wasn’t just a personal crusade to smash the existing world e-bike long distance record while enjoying a trip of a lifetime, but it was a very public way to promote the amazing capabilities of the new breed of modern-day e-bikes.

In particular our Haibike xDuro Trekking e-bikes in combination with their heart and soul, the Bosch performance crank drive system, performed faultlessly throughout – testament indeed to the quality of the product and the reliability of today’s top-of-the-range e-bikes.

So where to now?

While we are the first to admit it will be near on impossible to beat the high we were on throughout our e-bike journey in Europe and the UK, we have no intention of stopping riding any time soon.

While we are fit and healthy we intend to continue pedaling to not only continue to add to our e-bike world record kilometre total, but to be able to continue to promote everything that is great about e-bikes.

As such we are currently in the early stages of organising our next adventure – a “Best Of” e-bike tour of the east coast of our home country of Australia starting in February or March, 2017.

Given that the majority of people (cyclists) in Australia are still unaware of the amazing boom in the popularity of e-bikes in Europe, how much fun they are to ride and the well documented health and social benefits associated with their use for people of all ages, we are eagerly looking forward to spreading the good word at every opportunity.

So there you have it.

While it is a case of “mission accomplished” after stage one of the E-Bike Cycle Tourists amazing e-bike adventure, the journey is far from over, with many, many more adventures in Australia and hopefully beyond still to come.

Stay tuned!