Platinum Blonde Nomads – Packing the Pino

The Hase Pino is a big bike. It’s slightly shorter than a conventional tandem but it’s more awkward in some ways as it has unusual wide handlebars that wrap around the wide front seat. However it does split in two for transport and I was confident that we could transport it by air as others have done in the past but it wasn’t clear how to pack it.

Platinum Blonde Nomads – Gadgets Part 1: Reading, Communication, Navigation

Any new venture is an opportunity for a gadget addict like me to add to the collection and many touring cyclists seem similarly inclined. Going to Kerala we had a rich set of needs that might be met by a careful choice of gizmos.

Platinum Blonde Nomads – How to fly?

Knowing that it was theoretically possible to take the Pino to India by air, and having plenty of experience of flying with my Brompton folding bike did not make it any easier to confront the reality of getting 26kg of very big bicycle, plus everything we would need for a month, to and from a small town in Kerala.

With this team on our side what could go wrong?

Platinum Blonde Nomads in Kerala – Online Maps

Having established that the paper maps are very limited I have been thinking about how to use free online mapping.

Google maps might seem an obvious choice

Platinum Blonde Nomads in Kerala – Not so grey!

This Grey Nomad business is sounding a bit…grey and I’m not sure I want to live with it for the next three months

So I’ve been trying out some alternatives. “Silver” is sometimes used as a slightly more respectful way to characterise oldies but I have a bit of a problem with that as there are a lot of silver cars around (I think it’s the most popular colour these days) and they are very boring. Apparently buying a silver car is the mark of a very conventional person.

But having come under the influence of Lakshmi Loves to Shop I may have moved on to a better place. Having been fair-haired when younger both Isobel and I have hair that is best described as white and hers has the faintest hint of blonde colour in it. I like to say that she’s a natural Platinum Blonde. So clearly we are Platinum Blonde Nomads!

And yes, that’s Jean Harlow with her bike in Hollywood. They both look great don’t they?

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Grey Nomads in Kerala – 2. Are there Maps?

I’m a mapaholic, (as well as a gadgetaholic) probably one of the reasons I like cycling is that maps and cycling seem inseparable. So when planning a journey as big as this my first question will always be, “What are the maps like?”

In Kerala this is not straightforward. There are maps but the general advice from  travellers is that each map has its own unique version of Kerala. It’s not that they are necessarily untrue but other maps will have other versions of the terrain, possibly also true.

Grey Nomads in Kerala – 1. Grey What in Where?

In February 2013 we are off to Kerala for a month for a cooking and tandem experience.

While checking out cyclists’ journals on Kerala on the excellent crazyguyonabike website we found a comment by Alexa McAuley about having to share a hotel restaurant with a bunch of whingeing Grey Nomads. Alexa has since re-assured me that sexagenarian tandemists are a different class of person altogether but I quite liked the idea of “grey nomads” cycling through the back country so we’ll try it out for this trip.