Octopus Overlords

I'm sure I'm worrying needlessly but my wife is driving me crazy. We're going to Vietnam in a couple of weeks. Part of the trip will be out in the country in a flat river valley (Ninh Binh province if it means anything to anyone). It should be beautiful and relaxing. But the question is how do you get around? Everything is fairly close (10km at most).

Neither of us wants to hire a driver for the day. She really doesn't want to rent motorbikes. So I figured that we'd just get bicycles but now she is quietly bringing up the fact that she tends to do 15 stretches at most when she works out on her friends stationary bike. We both walk a ton and this will be easy, flat riding but now I'm worried that it will be two days of not getting anywhere.

How fast is a nice casual pace on a single speed cruiser bike that has seen better days?

I want to say...10-12 km/h?

Damn, maybe 15 km/h? I should know this.

Don't go locked into one option. That's all I can say. You don't want a driver but don't completely rule one out. Don't marry the idea of renting bikes. Plan but plan flexible.

I took a short bikers vacation from New Orleans to Vicksburg once. I got a little carried away and the trip up and back took only one day each. Then while there I biked to all the civil war sites. It was very enjoyable.
The mileage was like 150 miles each way. Took me about 10 hours. I was in excellent biking shape at the time and had often taken trips of over 100 miles a day.
Depending on the terrain and the sites you should be able to do 20-30+ a day I would think.

I would recommend you get some conditioning done before your trip. As someone who bikes a lot (or used to, pre-children), I often over-estimated the ability of non-bikers to cover even trivial distances without complaint. Case in point: I was in Austin once and the two people I rented bikes with struggled to make it all of 2 miles.

A leisurely walking pace is 2.5 mph. I'd think a very leisurely biking speed should be at least 3x that fast, or 7.5 mph. But as JeffV said, do some minimal training first. You use different muscles for pedaling than for walking.

Id say talk her into what everyone there uses from what Ive seen..scooters.

I can just see this scooter convoy with everybody wearing backpacks and carrying luggage.

dbt1949 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 13, 2019 1:36 pm I can just see this scooter convoy with everybody wearing backpacks and carrying luggage.

In the Philippines, there was 1 motorcycle, 4 people and baggage for a 10 mile trip over occasionally paved roads.

dbt1949 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 13, 2019 1:36 pm I can just see this scooter convoy with everybody wearing backpacks and carrying luggage.

Nice image but it is just the two of us. I'd go for the scooters but she doesn't like the idea for some reason. Most'y I think she is worried because she hears motorbikes and thinks somewhat bigger (even though we saw many scooters in Cambodia).

The driver thing is more of an us issue. We like to be flexible and hate changing plans/discussing plans in front of others. Combine that with the fact that a car and driver feels expensive (50 buck for the day) compared to other costs in the area and its a pretty hard no unless it is raining.

Madmarcus wrote: ↑Thu Mar 14, 2019 12:18 am

dbt1949 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 13, 2019 1:36 pm I can just see this scooter convoy with everybody wearing backpacks and carrying luggage.

Nice image but it is just the two of us. I'd go for the scooters but she doesn't like the idea for some reason. Most'y I think she is worried because she hears motorbikes and thinks somewhat bigger (even though we saw many scooters in Cambodia).

My mom and dad rented scooters in Bermuda, as one does. Dad promptly crashed his into a signpost and landed in the hospital. For the rest of his life, we had to hear about his motorcycle accident.

dbt1949 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 13, 2019 9:16 am Depending on the terrain and the sites you should be able to do 20-30+ a day I would think.

Dead flat terrain. I'm hoping for 10 miles max spread out over a couple of periods (4k to the boat ride, 4k back after a couple of hours, 4k into town and 4k back later).