Home Run

We’ve made it.   We rolled into our final destination this afternoon and it feels great to be done.  We couldn’t have timed things any better.  This cycling vacation was just long enough to get into the rhythm of things but not so long that we were at each other’s throats.  I’ll definitely be leaving wanting more which will guarantee that I come back to Vietnam sometime soon.

Here’s the damage done over the past couple weeks:

• 9 days of riding
• 2 rest days
• 1191kms
• 39:54 of ride time
• 6583 m of climbing
• 5 crashes
• 8 punctures
• 212 cafe sua da’s
• 104 sugar can juices
• 53 Cornetto ice creams
• 47 bowls of Pho
• 1.2 tons of rice
• 50 cocaine bars (recipe to be posted – these things are great!)
• GPS Files: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8, Day 9

Some people have asked about what we brought along with us on this trip.  I intend on posting this but thought it would be more useful to do it after we finished so we have an idea of what we wish we had brought, and what we wished we had left at home.    Some interesting findings.  I’ll get this done next week.

Tomorrow we make our way home with stop-overs in HCMC and KL.  There’s a good chance that I’ll be taking the rest of the week off posting but I’ll check-in if possible.

Just out of curiosity, what’s your feedback on me posting this type of content here?  Is it interesting? Boring?  Could you not care less about my cycling vacations?   Is there something you may have been interested in hearing about that I didn’t touch on? (keeping in mind that I don’t have 4hrs a day to write blog post).  Be honest. You won’t hurt my feelings if you tell me that this trip was a rip-off for you.

As soon as we saw the beach today we all threw our shoes and jerseys off and ran straight in!

This is our driver for the past 2 weeks.  His name is “#8”.  Why #8 you ask?  Well, in Vietnam the families are quite large.  It’s not uncommon to have 10 kids in the family.  The family will informally call their children #2, #3, #4, etc.  However, there’s a superstition to never call the first child #1 because long ago sometimes the first born would end up dying at a young age. Therefore they call their firstborn #2.   Our driver was the seventh born and it was easier for us to call him #8 than by his real name.  In fact, none of us know his real name…

Final group shot of the trip.  We’re all smiling because we had a ripping tailwind for 150km today.  The Parlee Bitsa has been a fantastic bike and has proved to be tough as nails against some of the best and worst roads I’ve ever ridden on.