Bag, check. Bike, check. Map, check. (Slight lie on the last one, just made up the route as we went.) We were in Slovenia, each armed with a Mercredi steel frame bike (both lovingly made by Adeline, one fresh off winning best dirty drop bar bicycle at UK handmade bicycle show Bespoked) that would carry us and our luggage up into the mountains along the border of Italy.
We were there not for content, nor for creating the epic or mastering the unachievable—we were there because we were totally burned out. Only five months into the year and we felt like we’ve each already had three birthdays in half that time. Not so good for the aging process that.