A few months ago, we posted to Instagram promising our community that if we got 300 comments, we’d take the Cake Bikes, new Duffle bags, and one random Db Black member on a road trip. It didn’t take too long for that comment goal to be reached, so we started planning the roadtrip.
We asked the community whether they wanted us to do the roady in a cold or warm destination, and the majority voted for warm, but then we thought about arriving at the High Five Festival. It wasn’t exactly a ‘hot’ climate, but it wasn’t freezing either so we thought it could work. The timing couldn’t have been better - we could set off from Innsbruck the week before the event and get in in time to help out with the weekend in Annecy. All we had to do was pick our Db Black Member, and after a quick randomized selection, Michael was prepped to join us on the road.
The Cake Bikes were delivered to Innsbruck, our duffle bags were packed, and everything was ready for the roadtrip to begin. We had a rough idea of where exactly we needed to finish up each day, but other than that we were happy to be plan-less. After minimal admin, Philipp, our content specialist, Michael or ‘Mihi’ as we called him, and myself were ready to hit the road.
Tin speaking - This trip for me was one of the best work weeks I’ve had. It may sound obvious as my job was to be out of the office and on the road for six days, but I get to do that a lot in my role and this one was definitely different. Yes, we could have done this route a lot quicker - in a car, driving from Innsbruck to Annecy only takes eight hours - but where’s the fun in that? Instead, we decided to ride 792 kms on electric bikes, which needed two hours of charging every 80kms.
We weren’t able to take highways, we weren’t able to go over 45km/h, and we weren’t able to drive for longer than two hours before we needed to charge. Doing this for six days in a row sounds anything but ideal, but it turned out to be the opposite. On the way to the Annecy we discovered so many epic roads with crazy views, we met great people on our charging stops (which were everything from gas stations to restaurants to toilets), we cooked food in places you wouldn’t normally cook food in and ultimately got the chance to get to know each other really well. We did have a support van trailing us, which we took turns driving, where we kept our dry belongings as well as some things we had to bring to the festival, but that was the extent of our ‘luxury’.
At Db, we believe that traveling makes people better, but it’s so often connected to work and done in a hurry. Running from terminal A to terminal F isn’t relaxing, it doesn’t help you take in your surroundings or meet new people. This trip, for me, was a reminder that we get so much more out of our travels if we take it slow, take unknown roads, stop at random places, ask strangers for help, get caught by the rain, sleep in a tent when it’s 5 degrees outside, or in a van if you don’t have somewhere you can pitch the tent… It’s those kinds of moments that change us, connect us and remind us of how traveling can really be the best thing there is.
Now the question is, where should we take Cake Bikes, duffle bags and even more Db Black members next?
// Tin
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