It is one thing to transact business in a restaurant of market in large cities and quite another to get directions from a person on the highway who speaks no English. First aid for me or for my bike also takes some level of proficiency in the local language. It can be difficult even in the USA to get good directions as most people drive a car and use the freeways (and this applies even to cops and the highway patrol). I use a Garmin in Europe as it can route me based on whether I am on a bicycle or walking and provide route options not open to someone in a car, and no worries about cell service or data usage.
I consider it a matter of common courtesy to use the country's language as much as possible and not expect or depend on people to speak English.
We usually ride the non-touristy areas. I find it impossible, if you are riding through several countries, to learn 5 -6 languages. We have spent a total of 7 months touring in Europe. People don't expect you to know their language, and I don't expect them to know mine.
We have had several mechanical issues that we managed to handle. I had to go to an ophthalmologist in Paris to get some work done on my eye which took several phone calls from my doctor to the one in Paris. The time difference made it challenging but we got it fixed, and I can still see. My wife got a bad case of food poisoning in the Czech Republic,while in a tiny town. We got aid, and she was good to go in short order. "Doctor" is "Doktor" in Czech. My wife needed to replace the rear brake on her bike in Denmark. I needed to replace a broken Look cleat in France. Etc. . . . . .
It all depends on you comfort level. We have bike toured 22,000 miles in the last 15 years, and have found we can handle most situations whether we can speak the language or not.
We have been in a lot of places where no English was spoken. However, more English is being learned by the school kids. In a small town in Poland we were staying at a small hotel; and the owner, who did not speak English, assigned his school-age son to us for awhile when we arrived. I believe that English will soon be the universal language in most of Europe, especially for business people and people who need or want to travel to many different countries.
Sometimes the adults who don't speak English want their kids to practice their English on us. This is Maria in Portugal. Her dad wanted her to practice on us.
