nothing crazy about it. my first tour was to school. saved my money from
flipping burgers to pay for a summer semester in southern austria, and a flight
to luxemburg. decided against doing the eurail/backpacker thing, so picked up
a used schwinn paramount with triple and racks and old panniers, then
purchased a youth hostel membership and a used copy of "cycle touring
in europe" full of pictures of guys on 10-speeds wearing cotton shorts and
sporting porn moustaches.

my cycling before this? tooling around the neighborhood to the 7-11 on my
10-speed huffy. my actual training amount to one 15-mile ride. was trying to
get to my parents house in the country from my apartment downtown, but
only made it halfway.....rack bolts came loose and caught a ride.

learned a heckuvalot the first week, and wound up mailing back half my gear
from hamburg......front rack and panniers, clothing, 200mm camera lens....

turned out to be an awesome tour, and have been doing it since....now up to
maybe half a million kilometers...

recently moved by bicyle a few times when changing job locations......... mailing most of my stuff or sending by delivery service. yunnan china to
thailand, thailand to kunming a year later, and then kunming to hainan
island a few years ago.