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closeFor last year’s Bike to Work and School Day, Kelly Mielke, his wife, Muriel Handschy, and their son, Shea, took to their bikes and headed to his montessori on Yew Street.
Shea, 9, had mapped out the stops along the way, where the family would register for prizes.
“We had no idea that there was anything more than a Hershey’s bar as a prize,” says Mielke, 59, a self-employed upholsterer.
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Taken an interesting trip lately? Whether it’s business or pleasure, near or far, we’d love to hear about it. If you have a travel story to share, call reporter Zoe Fraley at 756-2803 or send an e-mail to zoe.fraley@bellinghamherald.com.
So when he got a call letting him know that he had won a prize, he didn’t think too much of it — until they required him to verify his identity. He thought it might be something a bit bigger than a bike helmet. It was a $900 gift certificate to a travel agency.
“Kelly came out with a very solemn look on his face and he said, ‘Muriel, you better sit down. I’ve got some news,’ ” his wife recalls of the day he told her about the prize. “We were totally flabbergasted.”
So they started saving up their money and their vacation time and they bought three tickets to Munich, Germany, where the family would start and end a six-week bike trip through central Europe.
“(The prize) really made it possible to do the trip,” says Handschy, 48, an employee at the Interfaith Coalition. The family left at the end of May, with a tandem bike for Kelly and Shane and a single bike for Muriel. After spending a night in Munich, they met with friends in Vienna, Austria, who were staying at a campground near the Danube River. The two families then camped and biked their way south to Budapest, through Slovakia, Poland and the Czech Republic before returning to Germany for the final leg of their trip.
“One of our favorite ways to travel is by bike,” Handschy says. “We all like being outside, so we get to be outside every day. And we like the speed and slowness. You really get to take in the surroundings.”
Not only were they outdoors during the bike rides — which were up to 55 miles in a day — but they also spent most nights camping. The campgrounds ranged from fields with no utilities or structures to neat spots with picnic areas and more.
“It’s nice to be self-contained, but sometimes it’s hard to get used to the European campgrounds because they’re just a field,” Handschy says. “It’s not as predictable in central Europe as it is in western Europe.”
They biked through cities and country villages, on proper lanes and mangled wooded trails.
“We rode some gnarly trails,” Kelly says, referencing a terrifying Czech trail that was cut between a rock slope and a drop into a river. “You could not make a mistake. It was a little nerve-wracking.”
Though the family is “still glowing” from the trip, and they need to build up their vacation fund, they can’t wait until the next time they can hit the road. Bike trips through Argentina or Asia sound particularly interesting. “It’s just an amazing thing to have a new adventure ahead of you that day,” Handschy says, “and to just let it unroll in front of you.”
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