Training Partners

Who are “Training Partners?”

“Training” in this context does not actually refer to any sort of athletic preparation, but rather to the vehicle, the long box with windows, pulled by a locomotive, and with cushy seats inside.

So, are you a Training Partner? You may be, if you are described by some (or all) of the following...

• Your idea of a good time involves eating, drinking, and camaraderie.
• You enjoy the rural side of a culture. But you prefer a book in an idyllic setting to panting through the same setting with sweat in your eyes.
• You feel that “exercise” is best limited to an evening constitutional. If you have to breathe through your mouth, you’re working too hard, generally speaking...
• Or, you simply don’t particularly enjoy road biking.

But, you have this friend / mate. He seems to get pleasure out of eating weird food compressed into bars. She wears fluo vests normally reserved for those in the rubbish collection line. And a diaper, more or less well-disguised as a pair of shorts. He loves adding a dose of sunstroke to a layer of hypoglycemia. She feels naked without the grease mark of a bicycle chain imprinted on her calf.

Despite the eccentric behavior of your partner, the two of you would like to travel together.

Well, our “Training Partner” program may be just the thing.


How Does Being a “Training Partner” Work?

As the name implies, you move through the trip without the benefit of a bike. Generally this happens by train. On our regularly-scheduled departures, we back up our routes by following country rail lines, and giving the cyclists daily information on how to jump on the train at several points along the way. Our daily “route sheets” thus include all the information you need to move from town to town by public transport. Your smiling trip coordinator buys the used tickets from you at the end of the day. Simple!

The train rides are typically short and pleasant: 30 minutes on a country local filled with the people you came to rub elbows with. As you adjust to the principle, you will learn to get fancy: a morning train to the town with the castle, lunch there with the cyclists as they pass through, an afternoon visit to the castle, and then a second train on to your destination.

In the evening, you are “part of the group,” as always, to the degree you want to be. You can use our advice for the visits of the towns, join the crowd for dinner at the carefully selected eatery... and you will have a heck of a lot more energy than the bikers do for the dance bar afterwards.... See below for some technical details.