August 8 – 23, 2014:  Jerry and Odette biked from Fairbanks to Dawson (over the Top of The World Highway) then continued on to Whitehorse and Skagway on the Klondike Highway.  A ferry ride to Juneau completed the tour.

Odette surprised me with a Christmas present of a bike tour in the Yukon.  I didn’t think that she would volunteer for camping way up north, but it was her idea.  She said she wanted to try out bike camping in a supported environment before we took off for a long self-contained trip. She remembered me really wanting to hike the Chilkoot trail and thought that this would be a way to see that country without the boulderfields.   Pedalers Pub & Grill, the company that operates the tour she chose, guides trips mainly in Asia but they run three or four trips a year in Alaska.  We put a deposit down early in 2014 and then started riding our tandem hard to train for it.  We wondered if the Ibis would be a better bike for Alaskan roads, but we were told the route would be all paved.  A few weeks before we were supposed to leave we got an email saying that the chartered plane from Fairbanks to Dawson wasn’t running any more, so how did we feel about being driven or biking to Dawson and could we start a day earlier to allow time to cover about 300 extra miles.  We responded that it sounded good to us, we were flying into Fairbanks a couple of days early anyway, and that we wanted to bike as much of it as we could.  Apparently at that point all of the other people booked on the tour backed out, because it ended up with just Odette and me with the owner of the tour company as our guide.

Here is a Google Maps diagram of the route

Here is my journal of the trip:

Friday August 8.

did laundry and packed,  decided to take winter shoes.  checked the weights of the bike cases and stuffed some more things into the lighter one.  took Shuttle Express to the airport – sitting interminably on Westlake waiting to turn left onto Mercer.  Luckily I-5 wasn’t backed up.  security had to rescan my laptop.  the agent at the check-in desk made us take our bike cases to oversize.  stood in line at Starbucks to get a sandwich.  boarding seemed to be a free for all.  plane ride was long and cramped.  still light in Faribanks at 11:00.  good times.

Saturday August 9

after a breakfast that wasn’t my favorite, assembled the tandem.  no issues – chain went together easily.  had to start over on the rear rack.  met Tom from Pedalers as I was finishing the bike.  talked for a while about the tour and about his business.  rode around the block with Odette to confirm that shifting worked then took a shower.  rode to the University and did the museum – which was fun.  watched a movie about the aurora borealis then had lunch there.  tried to ride to the big animal research station but kept going exactly the wrong way.  had trouble remembering that the stoker is always right.  got there too late for a tour.  forget to turn on my cyclometer for the ride back to the motel.  the bike wasn’t shifting right so I fiddled with the cable runs and got it slotted in the right places.  rested for a couple of hours in the room then rode to pioneer park for the salmon bake.  the bike was shifting okay but we had some more 180-degree off experiences before eventually getting there (Fairbanks is just figuring out bike lanes – google maps kept sending us back and forth between frontage roads on either side of Airport way and they all seemed to end on sidewalks signed “no bikes.”  pioneer park was signed “no dogs or bikes.”  the food was okay but over-priced.  Odette got us a pitcher of beer and that was actually quite good..  we improvised a route back to the room which was better than the route out.  it sprinkled on us but we had raincoats.

Sunday August 10

same breakfast process as the day before, then hauled bike and bags out to the street.  had to unpack to retrieve the bike lock keys from yesterday’s pants pockets.  drove to delta and walked around a roadhouse – got mosquito bitten.  exceptional views of the Alaska Range and of various big braided rivers.  drove on to Dot Lake, had lunch and started our ride.  the van waited for us every 15 miles.  The   terrain was rolling hills with lots of stunted spruce.  played tag with rainclouds but never got wet.  about 12 miles out of Tok we picked up a bike path.  it had a lot of gravel on it and I couldn’t decide whether it was better or worse than the road.  ended up riding just under 50 miles but it didn’t really feel that far.  got to the campground and Tom suggested we go into town before setting up the tent.  We checked out the visitor center, emailed Will and bought some fudge before returning.  pitched the tent, had dinner, charged phones.  ate more than I should have

Monday August 11

lots of bacon at breakfast.  packed up and got in the van for a ride toward Dawson.  mlles of stunned spruce burned over by forest fires.  lots of badly maintained unpaved road.  Saw the town of Chicken and the mining relics (including a dredge.)  started biking where the new pavement started.  pavement ended at the border after a long hill.  the Canadian customs guy gave us a little bit of  a hard time but let us in.  lots of ups and downs on mainly unpaved roads.  we got tired after 45 miles and rode in the van for 20 mostly flat miles, then biked on into Dawson which was another 20, mainly downhill.  last segment was really muddy & slippery .  crossed the Yukon river on a very small ferry.  showered, had a very big burger for dinner.

Tuesday August 12

late breakfast.  walked around Dawson and visited museums.  City/federal places were really good; Holland America attractions, not so much.  skipped lunch and rode out to Dempster Junction and back.  flat, paved, pretty scenery lots of dredge tailings.  I’d like to drive up the Dempster and see the Ogilvie mountains.  got rained on coming back and then had a flat. tried to just pump it up but pump wouldn’t work so used c02, that lasted five minutes.  changed tube and used another co2 cartridge – that lasted ten minutes.  mad it back to town on the third co2 cartridge.  borrowed a pump and figured out that both of the flat tubes were pinch flats – then discovered that I also had a flat on the rear tire.  changed that and patched all three flat tubes  – still not sure exactly how I did that but know that R+E didn’t put new tubes on when they changed tires.  Ate dinner at the HAL restaurant and were the youngest people in the place.  I had liver & onions.  tried to get decaf but the power was out for the whole town…

Wednesday August 13

breakfast at the hotel then rode in the van to Dempster junction.  10k of roadwork that they wouldn’t let us ride so we shuttled most of the way through the construction zone.  in the next 10k we had three more flat tires and definitively broke my pump.  After that the ride picked up – no more flats for the rest of the day.  saw lots of poplar, lots of big vistas, low mountain ranges and far off rivers.  no people.  very few cars.  some up and down but no really steep hills (only got into the big ring a couple of times and only got into the small one once all day long.)  started to rain just before we go to the Moose Creek campground.  kept it up all through dinner.  climbed into the tent early.

Thursday August 14

woke up to no rain but cold.  had breakfast then rode to Stuart Crossing.  hit some construction and rode several small sections of gravel – got to a longer construction site and they wouldn’t let us ride and said they couldn’t shuttle a tandem.  we waited for the van and missed about three miles of our ride.  for some reason my gps kicked out at that point.  rode on to Pelly Crossing for the night.  lots of poplar, lots of spruce, lots of big vistas.  not a lot of traffic and not a lot of people.

 Friday August 15

after a warm night with lots of drive buys and barking dog packs we rode from Pelly Crossing to Carmacks.  headwinds all day.  spectacular views of the Yukon River.  at this point we’ve moved into forest and away from tundra – it feels more familiar.  played tag with a german sleeper-bus.  had several stretches of unpaved road – 10k of recent chip seal with one fast descent…  one bridge rebuilding project where the road was exceptionally rocky.  overall a slow day because of the winds but a good ride and no rain.  one flat tire – a quarter mile after the 10K stretch.  camped in a commercial campground with boaters and RVs.  shower felt really good.

Saturday August 16

rained a little over night and was cold in the morning.  started off with lots of clothes on and left most of them on all day.  forgot to start my cycle meter.  had a headwind again for most of the afternoon but only a little rain.  the riding was easier than the last couple of days but the wind still made us slow.  one section of construction but the loose gravel really didn’t make a lot of difference in our speed.  lots of lakes today,  out of tundra and into northern forest.  huge vistas, little streams and tarns that never stopped, cat & mouse with the Yukon River, historic sites, still very few settlements which made the ones we did encounter (Braeburns) seem more memorable.  low mountains across the lake still have snow patches.  got cold as soon as we got off the bike – had dinner and then crawled into the tent at 7:00

Sunday August 17

started raining during the night and was going good in the morning so we delayed breakfast.  got up, packed, rolled up a wet tent, ate a Braeburns Cinnamon Bun, then biked to Whitehorse in full cold-weather rain gear.  stopped raining after about 10 miles and midway I shed a layer.  it was really interesting to come back into cultivated fields and civilization after several days of wilderness.  the Alaska highway has more traffic and more shoulder (even if it was more cracked) than the traffic lane.  took the bike trail down 2-mile hill.  got to the motel before 2:00 and found we were already checked in and our stuff was in our room.  the showers felt good.  the bike store in town was closed for Yukon Days but we found the local sporting goods store and bought a patch kit, two tubes and a blackburn airstick.  ate too much for dinner.

Monday August 18

Discovery Day in the Yukon so we didn’t ride.  most stores were closed, most restaurants, too.  had lunch at Tim Hortons.  Dinner at the Klondike  Salmon Bake, again.  walked around the shipyards trail and out to the SS Klondike.  visited the McBride museum.  walked to the Yukon Brewery, but no tours or tastings.  didn’t start to rain until about 7:00 in the evening.

Tuesday August 19

raining at breakfast but mainly stopped by the time we took off.  Alaska Highway out of Whitehorse has good shoulders but a lot of traffic; Klondike highway is chip seal.  interesting collection of buildings at Robinson Roadhouse.  miles of dense northern forests and the beginnings of mountains with patches of snow.  rain off and on, but never had to put on rain pants.  got to camp at Carcross at 2:00 –  missed the turn and got cross-chained so I had to fix it by hand.  Set up tent and then went into the old town, did part of the walking tour and looked at the burned steamboat.  rained some more at dinner time.

Wednesday August 20

sprinkles at the campsite but quickly took off rain gear.  rolling hills with dense forest out of Carcross.  miles of lakes and then views of peaks and snow.  lots of avalanche area signs and evidence of rockfall.  broad valley that reminded me of the Enchantments with exposed rock and subalpine vegetation and little tarns and streams – went on for ten miles.  one more flat and I booted a slit in the casing with an inner tube patch. skipped the log cabin for big views at Fraser then a climb to the actual border.  rained on while stopped but not enough to interrupt a fast descent to the US Customs.  Then more winding descent into town.  dodged tour ship passengers to the motel and broke the bike down and packed it.  Then walked the main street and looked at the shops.  Skagway is a tourist trap – themed like Winthrop or Leavenworth but without their charm or integrity. (for some reason it was full of jewelry shops selling loose diamonds)  dinner at the Skagway brewery and a short sleep before a 5:45 AM wake-up (for an 8:00 ferry)

Thursday August 21

early trip to the ferry and then all day on board.  Alaska state museum is closed until 2016. walked around Juneau and had dinner at a Tracy’s Crab Shack – best food on the trip.

Friday August 22

good breakfast at The Sandpiper. walked to Juneau city museum which was closed because of a power outage.  took the shuttle out to the Mendenhall glacier visitor center and walked to the falls.  had lunch then killed time until we could get a ride to the Alaska Brewery tour.  visited the city museum which featured a tow-gripper from Meany.  went back to the room and repacked, then had dinner at the Wharf.

Saturday August 23

flight back to Seattle at 8:20 was notable for the early check-in time and the views of the water and islands around Juneau on takeoff.  had remarkable views of the BC Costal Range as we got further south.  the word “reservation” doesn’t mean what Shuttle Express thinks it does – the trip home from SeaTac took longer than the flight from Juneau to Seattle.

Here are the GPS maps of our rides:

• August 9 – Fairbanks
• August 10 – Dot Lake to Tok
• August 11 – Top Of The World Highway
• August 12 – Dawson – Dempster Junction (out & back)
• August 13 – Dempster Junction – Stuart Crossing
• August 14 – Stuart Crossing – Pelly Crossing
• August 15 – Pelly Crossing – Carmacks
• August 16 – Carmacks – Fox Lake
• August 17 – Fox Lake – Whitehorse
• August 19 – Whitehorse – Carcross
• August 20 – Carcross – Skagway

Here are some materials scraped from the Pedalers Pub & Grill website.

• trip description pdf
• final email
• Klondike
• equipment
• camp rules
• checklist

Here are my photos and here are Odette’s

Here are the Garmin records

• August 9 – Fairbanks
• August 10 – Dot Lake to Tok
• August 11 – Top Of The World Highway (partial)
• August 12 – Dawson – Dempster Junction (out & back)
• August 13 & 14- Dempster Junction – Stuart Crossing – Pelly Crossing
• August 15 – Pelly Crossing – Carmacks
• August 16 – Carmacks – Fox Lake
• August 17 – Fox Lake – Whitehorse
• August 19 – Whitehorse – Carcross
• August 20 – Carcross – Skagway (recorded, but not retained)

 

Lessons learned from 600 miles and 35,000 feet of elevation gain:

The highlights of the trip for me were the Top Of The World Highway with its huge velvety treeless expanses and the summit at White Pass – the beginning and end of the trip.  Doing it over I’d spend less time on the touristy stuff and more time on the wilderness.  The ferry to Juneau was a great experience but I could have done without the second day in Juneau – and probably could have done with less time in Dawson & Whitehorse as well.  However, we got tired after three or four days and a rest day was welcome (as were motel beds and restaurant meals.)  Charging batteries is something I need to pay more attention to – the laptop worked fine but we used it up after a couple of nights.  Also need to pay more attention to tires.  We had nine flats in twelve days, six of them coming within 20 miles.  My theory is that I got a cut in the tread of the tire in gravel on that first out & back and if I had booted the cut at that point I could have avoided most if not all of the rest.  I need to rethink frame pumps, too.  a broken pump left me unable to figure out where the hole in the tube was and I had a limited number of CO2 cartridges (cartridges which Odette woke me up in the middle of the night in Juneau to make me throw away because she felt guilty taking them on the airplane.)  The bike did well but Odette and I both need to work on bringing less stuff.  (It’s like backpacking, you need experience to know what you can get along without.)  The camping gear the guide supplied was not sexy but it did a very good job – I was impressed by how dry and warm we were able to stay in the tent compared to what we would have experienced in my climbing gear.

We drank a lot of beer on this trip – one or two a day while in camp and more than that in town.  I think that everything we drank was either from Yukon Brewing or Alaska Brewing and they are both pretty good.  I prefer stouts and porters that taste stronger than theirs do, but in the circumstances I wasn’t complaining.  A midnight Sun after a long day of riding hits the spot quite well.

Breaking the bike down and packing it is not nearly as big of a deal as people think it is.  For what it is worth, here is an MKV file of the instructional tape Rodriguez provides for customers.  It is 30 minutes long covering both parts of the process for a single bike, but you’ll get the idea.

I would do this trip again. I would do the Alaska Highway or the Dempster Highway, too.   I would do a tour with Pedalers again (we talked about Tasmania.)  I would seriously think about a van-supported tour for less exotic routes, like the west coast or transamerica.

 

I thought that it would be fun to turn Will’s little red Novara Amiga into a bike that was actually useful. I went to Recycled Cycles to see how much a full-sized used frame would cost and found a new 18 inch Raleigh aluminum frame for $20. I bought it and took everything off of the little red bike. I soon found that the stem on the front fork had been cut down and that I needed a longer stem with the new frame. I went back to Recycled Cycles and bought a $15 rigid fork. I cut it down to the right length and then found that it wasn’t wide enough to accommodate the knobby tires on the rims. I went back and got a $45 “rock shox” fork that was pretty much like the one originally on the bike but with a longer stem. I had trouble figuring out the head-set because it wouldn’t seat tightly. I finally took it off and switched the race I had on top with the one I had on the bottom and it worked better. I bought a $30 bottom bracket tool and then cracked the plastic sleeve getting the bottom bracket installed. I mail-ordered a new clamp (about $25) for the handlebars to position them higher and further from the saddle. When I put the handlebars on I discovered that with the longer frame and the extended stem I needed longer cables on the brakes and the rear deraileur. I pieced together guides for everything but the rear brakes but I had to buy about $10 worth of cable. I also got new handlebar grips (YetiYeti) and a water bottle cage for another $25. I got both brakes to work and both deraileurs to shift, although I wasn’t happy with the way the rear one worked and the cable I’d used was too long and looped out funny. The saddle from the little bike was a wide, soft, kiddie saddle so I bought a used Avocet saddle (another $25). As I was finishing it up Recycled Cycles was having a sale so I picked up a pair of 26 X 1inch Specialized slicks (which would have worked with the rigid fork) for about $40.

I was taking all of the bikes in to a bike shop for tuning, so I figured I’d get Will’s mountain bike overhauled (for like $80) and see if they could adjust the detailer better than I had been able to. They called me to say that the headset bearings were bad and that the headset itself was in upside down and did I want to replace it. I said yes, sheepishly. They called again later to say that they were having trouble getting the bottom bracket out, and then called back to say that the bottom bracket had threads that went different ways on the two sides and that it had been installed backwards cutting out the threads in the frame. They were able to rethread it. They also replaced all the cables. When I picked the bike up they told me that that they built bikes up with customer-provided components for $125. Riding it home from the shop it skipped gears – a lot. I really didn’t want to take it back in. A few months later I was trying to adjust the deraileur to keep it from skipping and I saw that one link on the chan was open and bent and probably causing the problem. I took the chain off and carried it to Recycled Cycles. They sold me a breakable Shimano pin (less than a dollar) and told me to take the link out. I popped the wrong pin and ended up having to take out two links and then couldn’t shift above the middle of the cluster in the large ring. It also still skipped. I took it in to Recycled Cycles and asked them to put a new chain on (for $20). When they were done I asked them to adjust it to eliminate the skipping. It hasn’t skipped since.  Finally, a few months later, I bought a pair of twist-grip shifters at Recycled Cycles and traded out the thumb levers ($50.)  It fits my hands better now and makes shifting a lot easier.

Here’s what the bike looks like now:

It now as a wedge tool bag under the seat, a specialized cyclometer and an REI handlebar bag.

Here’s what I like about Will’s mountain bike now:

• It’s light
• The narrow slick tires have very little rolling resistance (they inflate to 100 psi)
• The saddle is comfortable
• I like the lower gearing for hills (especially early in the season)
• Odette thinks I built it myself and that it was a bargain

Here’s what I don’t like about it:

• The brake levers are made for kid-sized hands
• I don’t like the geometry of the frame
• I don’t like the cleatless pedals
• I wish it had a higher end to the gearing range (the top gear is about the same as the second-to-highest gear on the middle chainring of my touring bike)

The experience reminds me of the old story about the guy using his grandfather’s 100 year-old axe: the axe-handle had been replaced half-a-dozen times and the axe-head at least a couple times. Now I still have Will’s mountain bike but I have to figure out what to do with the short forks, saddle and the little red frame in the basement.

 

 

Rail Trail Memorial Day

 

Over a long Memorial Day weekend in 2008 Odette and I went to Vancouver Island and rode 200 miles to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary.

On a wet Friday morning we drove to Olympia and rode the Chehalis Western trail to the junction with Yelm – Tenino trail.  It rained pretty good for about half of the ride.  We turned left and rode to Yelm and then back to the car.  Odette got lost where the trail detours by the railroad tracks.  My cyclometer fell off on the gravel as I was retrieving her.  All of the gates that were on the trail the last time I rode it have been replaced with single bollards.  What a difference!

We drove on over to Port Angeles, clipped on the panniers, and took the Black Ball ferry to Victoria.  It was an uneventful ride.  We rode over the Johnson Street bridge and then followed the bike route signs to Craigflower street which has a bike lane.  We rode that to the Galloping Goose at the Transcanada highway.  It was a pretty good climb with our heavy panniers.  We got to the bed & breakfast at a little after 8:00.

The next day we rode into Victoria on the Galloping Goose (via the Esquimalt Lagoon spit and the Ocean Blvd. hill,) went to a book store where we got a bike guide to Vancouver Island, and then biked the Lochside trail out to Sidney.  I recognized the second half of the ride from our previous visit in 2003 (our 25th wedding anniversary).  We ate pastry in Sidney and went to a bookstore, then rode back to Victoria.  Odette’s heart-rate monitor wasn’t working and she really missed her mileage and speed. She made me carry the books.  We went to MEC and bought a cheap cyclometer for her bike and then walked around downtown Victoria and worried about leaving our bikes with just cable locks.  We finally went to an outdoor restaurant on the water and parked the bikes where we could see them.

On Sunday we biked the other way on the Galloping Goose ending up in Sooke.  We met neighbors (Noel & Eileen) from our block in Seattle on the trail (they were riding a borrowed tandem.) We ate lunch at Serious Coffee in Sooke and then rode on out to Sooke potholes and back to the B&B.  We stoppped at a mall on the way back to buy chinese take-out and ice cream and then ate in our room.

Monday morning we loaded up the panniers and biked the Galloping Goose to downtown Victoria and the ferry terminal.  The boat was crowded and I stood up most of the way to Port Angeles.  The customs guys waved us through (maybe because our bikes weren’t going to work very well in their maze) saving us at least half-an-hour in line.  We threw our stuff into the car and then rode the Port Angeles Waterfront trail to Morse Creek and back, remarking on the headstones under the park benches.  We weren’t quite finished when we got back to the car so we rode the other way on the trail, out to the end of Ediz Hook.

Then we drove home in Memorial Day traffic with a loose bike carrier shifting around on top.  (I got sleepy and made Odette drive from Sequim.)

All in all a very good trip.  Here are some images

music

December

November

• Will’s Kickin’ Tunes
• Stevie Ray Vaughan
• Johnny Winter

October

• Suede
• Lollapalooza ’92

September

• Calexico
• David Bromberg
• Sound Tribe Sector Nine
• Tom Waits
• Yo La Tengo
• Robyn Hitchcock

August

• Nine Inch Nails
• Will’s Spring 2008 Collection

July

• Alejandro Escovedo
• Bruce Springsteen
• David Bromberg
• Frank Zappa
• Jerry Garcia
• Poi Dog Pondering
• Rilo Kiley
• Robyn Hitchcock
• Warren Zevon
• Laura Nyro
• Depeche Mode
• Devo
• The Pixies
• The Posies
• Bela Fleck
• Neko Case
• The Residents
• Donna The Buffalo
• The Replacements

June

• Scott’s Music
• Asian Dub Foundation
• This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb

May

• Van Morrison
• Guided By Voices
• Blues Traveler
• Neil Young

April

• No Neck Blues Band
• Bob Dylan
• Dead Can Dance
• Gil Scott-Heron
• Santana

March

February

• Rolling Stones
• Donna The Buffalo
• Songs The Cramps Taught Us
• Funky New Orleans

January

• Motion City Soundtrack
• Bruce Springsteen
• Death By Jefferson Starship

Will’s Fall Term Music

The Waiting Is The Hardest Part

(or how I ended up with three tandems in my garage)

Di2 Back story

After we got back from the Danube I focused on riding and didn’t spend a bunch of time or money on bike projects.  When the chain gauge said it was time, I took the Fuji and the Centurion in for seasonal tune-ups, without addressing the seized seat post on the Fuji.  I bought a pair of Paul Component Engineering Touring Cantilever brakes for Odette’s Stellar, but I kept procrastinating on installing them.  I kind of had this idea of a blog post poking fun at the MAGA / America First guys by describing my American-made bicycles – but somehow when I thought about it some more I realized that it wasn’t actually funny.  Mainly I was just waiting – for the weather to change, for Amazon to deliver, for the bike shop to finish up, for Odette to agree to a ride, for every day to bring one more card.

The fall shaped up to be pretty uneventful, a trip to Long Beach (memorable mainly for squirrel bridges) being the only excitement.  I went out to the garage on a Monday after lunch to put fenders on the Ibis.  Odette likes to ride on Tuesdays and the forecast was wet.  The fenders went on easily but at some point the bike fell over and although I caught it and it didn’t hit the floor, it did make contact with the stand.  I finished the installation (stripping out the socket on the head of one screw on the front fork) and went for a ride around the block to prove that there were no rubs.  And… the bike wouldn’t shift up.  I kept trying and it “gave” – the shifter moved further than it should and then had no resistance at all.  I got back to the garage and removed the hood – the cable was broken and the lever was no longer ratcheting.

I was really upset about this failure.  For one thing, it was the fourth or fifth time the right-hand shift cable had broken on me and I don’t feel like I can ride very far from home for fear it’s going to break on the road.  For another thing, we’d only ridden the bike two or three times since taking it in after the last failure.  I don’t really blame the Polkadot guys but I don’t feel like they fixed what I asked them to work on.  Finally, I was pretty close to getting the Di2 tandem and if I were to sell one of the three it would be the Ibis – only I can’t really sell it if it’s broken and I’m upset about spending money that I won’t recover on a bike I want to sell.

I spent a bunch of time thinking about options and preferences and decided that I’d take one of the handlebar sets from my bar-swap project and mount  Rohloff twist-shifters on them.  I kind of remembered getting a pair of twist-shifters in the process of converting either the Franklin or Ibis, but I wasn’t certain.   If I already had the bars and the shifters I could probably hook them up  myself, and if I needed to go to R+E or Polkadot it wouldn’t be for a big deal project.  I was suspicious that the bars wouldn’t be the right diameter but I knew that I had mounted thumbies on them, and those ought to be the same size as a twist grip.  I scoured my parts boxes and found some Rohloff parts, but no shifters.  I figured that I could go to eBay or Amazon for shifters, but I’d need to know what else I needed to switch back to Rohloff.  I spent some time online reading Rohloff installation guides and realized that it was probably beyond my level of competence.  I also realized that the Rohloff twist-shifter moved the gears both up and down so that you only had one shifter, not a pair.  I dug out those handlebars – butterfly bars and Velo Orange crazy bars – and remembered that I didn’t really like the way either of them looked when I had them on the Fuji.  I remained upset and continued to try to figure out a plan.

On Tuesday (10/28) R+E was open and I needed to drop off the brakes for the Di2 tandem that had arrived while I was focused on the ibis.  I stuck the brakes in my handlebar bag when I went for my daily ride and stopped at the shop on my way home. The Di2 bike looks great – they were done installing the Di2 hardware and said that they just needed the fork to finish it up.  The battery mounts to bottle cage rivnuts on the stiffener tube.  The wires are taped to the down tube and are almost invisible.  The 40-T big cog in the cassette is huge.  The BCD on the FSA crankset was too big to mount 50/34 chainrings so they went with 52/38 – and I’m guessing that a 38-40 granny gear will be fine.  They had already taken off the chunks of housing hung on the brake cable to protect the top tube, replacing it with cable doughnuts. That’s probably a better approach than the housing liner I was proposing.  They were familiar with the ProblemSolvers downtube shifter boss covers and offered to order them for me but I took them up on the offer to remove the barrel adjuster from the outriggers – I think that will be lighter and look just as good.  I got to see the Zipp bars with no tape.  Alder said that there was no need to update the belt drive until it broke.  I asked Alder about timing and he said “a couple of days – maybe a week” which was pretty exciting news.

As I got ready to leave I told Alder about my Ibis dilemma.  He told me that he had a box full of Rohloff / Gebla parts because the Gebla-modified shifters broke a lot and a bunch of people ended up deciding to remove the Gebla and go back to straight Rohloff. He said to bring the bike in and he’d see what they could do.   I told him that I was pretty sure I wanted to go back to the Rohloff twist-shifter that the hub was made for.  He offered to order a shifter for me and said that they could fix me up with a doohickey.  I said that I’d gone with Gebla to be able to keep the drop bars because I didn’t like the way the doohickey thing looked (that plus bad memories of twist shifters on cheap mountain bikes.)  I said that I had a couple of sets of handlebars at home from a previous project and that I was thinking about mounting the shifter on one of them – and I mentioned the butterfly bars.  Alder said that he also had a bunch of butterfly bars because people migrated to them when Gebla was an issue and then decided that they didn’t like that style of bars.  He said that they often ran into issues of cable clearance between the bar end and the stem.   I mentioned my other option and he pulled me over to see an extreme travel bike he was finishing up – S&S, Rohloff, heavy duty tubes – and a Jones bar.  I don’t exactly like the dimensions of the Jones bar but it validated my thinking about moving away from drop bars.  I told Alder that I needed to think about it some more but in fact I pretty much knew where I was headed and just had to figure out some details.

While waiting to go on my ride on the red tandem on Wednesday I took the crazy bars and held them up against the rando bag I use on the Ibis.  They looked like they were made for each other and I knew I’d made my choice.  When i got back from the ride I removed the bar tape and bar-end shifters from the crazy bars.  (I dropped one of the bar-ends and didn’t get it back together right but it’s just going to sit in the parts bin for a while anyway.)   I had to change stems because the one on the bike wouldn’t clamp down tight enough for the crazy bars.  They are from the same manufacturer (Profile Design – the one from the crazy bars has a longer reach) and they’re supposed to have the same clamp dimensions, but only one of them works.  The straddle cable attached to the bars was for a narrow 700C wheel while the Ibis has a wide 26-inch wheel. I had to replace the straddle cable to hook up the front brake, otherwise that cable was ready to go.  The crazy bars were set up for a single bike and the cable for the rear brake wasn’t long enough.  I had trouble getting the stopper out of the reverse lever and had to remove the pivot screw and take the lever out to remove that cable.  The new one went in just fine and after some fiddling with the cable splitter I decided that it was good enough. I replaced the stripped fender screw and tried (without success) to manually shift the Rohloff into a higher gear.  In order to make sure the cables got split I wanted to attach both pieces of the cable splitter to both cables – but they split in different places so I had one long and one short cable under the keel tube.  I put a short cable end into the shorter splitter and then matched it with a very short cable end in the longer cable.  I wrapped a piece of velcro around the tube to hold both cables in place.)

My plan was to take the Ibis (now sporting crazy bars with no tape) with me when I went to pick up the Di2 tandem. Despite the fenders I figured I would put it on the car because without a shifter it isn’t rideable. (That’s actually not true, I’ve ridden it home with a broken shifter more than once – it would be rideable, just not shiftable.)   If Odette drove me over I could drop off the Ibis to get a doohickey and bar tape, have her take the parts that came off the Di2 bike and I could ride the new bike home.  If I rode the crippled Ibis to get there I would just need a knapsack to carry the redundant parts home on the Taliani.

I wanted a quick lesson on Di2 shifting (somehow I’ve got to learn about automatic progressions vs. the left-hand lever, etc)   and I needed to figure out charging and displays and probably ten other Di2 secrets, but I figured that  I could ride it home more easily than I could connect with Odette on Ravenna – and maybe I could  even sneak in a lap around Green Lake.

I ordered a Brooks Sprung Flyer for Odette and will hold off on a fitting.  Amazon shipped the wrong saddle – a sticker on the box said “flyer with suspension springs” but inside was something with a short nose and no springs –  so I filed for a return and waited for a replacement.  The replacement from Amazon was also the wrong saddle – the same error as the time before.  The leather on the side was stamped “B 68” so I assume that’s what got put in the flyer box.  I returned that one too, but this time I requested a refund not a replacement.

It cost almost $50 more, partly because of shipping, but I ordered a flyer with suspension springs from Rivendale.  After really unhelpful tracking information from USPS, the Rivendale saddle showed up two days earlier than expected – they got the right one and I’m confident that it will fit.  Odette thought that the saddle on the Tuscany (that she doesn’t like) was a Brooks and we had a conversation about that.  If she hates the Flyer there are several versions (carved, soft, etc.) that we can try which might make her happier. Meanwhile, it’s been over a week and Alder still hasn’t called to say the bike is ready.

I waited another week and then (11/11) called Alder to check in.  He reported that the bike was basically done and I said I’d be right over.  I grabbed a stuff sac / backpack and set off on the broken Ibis.   I walked up the hill at 73rd and rode down the other side and around Green Lake as if single speed was the new normal.   When I got to R+E I realized I still had the frame pump and the tool bag on the bike so I stowed them in the backpack and went on in.

The Ibis was dispensed with very quickly – “I want a doohickey and a Rohloff twist-shift and some kind of grips on the bar-ends.”  Alder noted that the bar-ends had been cut down.  I didn’t ask him to adjust the brakes, but they seemed to do just fine coming down the hill on 73rd.  (I had a bag of Rohloff parts from th original conversion in my pocket but I forgot to give them to Alder – I expect that he already has plenty of similar ones.) I also forgot to explain the cable splitter thing to Alder and I imagine he’ll think I clipped the two cables instead of opening the quick releases.  .Without shifters to worry about I’m thinking about experimenting with other bars:  (Rivendale Albatross or Choco or maybe Bullmoose would be interesting) or maybe going back to drops.

The Litespeed, however, was more complicated:

Taliani spec sheet: original vs. Di2

Here are some notes from after I picked up the Litespeed:

• Alder says not to worry about synchronized shifting – people always come back and have it removed because you have to shift all the time in very small increments.
• You need to charge about every 150 miles or once a month – there are lights on the battery to show that it’s charging and lights on the front stem that show how much battery you have left.  (Those are the only displays on the system.)
• The battery should have been about half way charged coming out of the shop.  I left it plugged in for three or four hours and the lights didn’t seem to change.
• I forgot where the charger port was (but figured it out the next  morning.)  I pushed the shift button to see the battery light, and learned that the shifters move even when the bike is hanging on the wall.  I never did figure out how to interpret the battery light.
• They installed a body float which I wasn’t expecting.  The thud buster on the red tandem was always set in the lowest position and it looks like the body float on this bike will similarly be as far down as it can go.  (If it doesn’t work I’ll put it on another bike and we’ll start the process of getting a version of the Brooks saddle that she likes.)
• The body float works with springs and R+E says it’s better than polymer discs.   I adjusted it down to the lowest possible position and the distance between the center of the crank bolt and the nose of the saddle is about the same as on Odette’s Stellar.  That means it can go up by at least the distance that it compresses. so there is a little room for adjustment.
• One of the cantis was stuck to the post when they went to replace it, so they replaced the post, too.  Evidently the posts screw in.
• I didn’t get the old free hub body back – oh well…
• The chainrings are Specialties TA rings (130 BCD) 52/38.  They couldn’t use the rings that were on the bike (FSA 53/39 because the big one was too big for the Di2 presets.)
• Alder warned me to be careful about shifting in the front until I’m experienced with it:  it will shift even under load and you may be in a situation where you don’t want to shift up.
• R+E felt that I needed wider brake pads than what came with the neo-retros.
• I needed to get the bike on a scale before we weighed it down with stuff  – Odette got me a new battery for my portable scale and the Taliani weighed between 30 and 31 lbs with saddles & pedals.  After I weighed the bike I removed the body float for a net weight reduction – maybe as much as a pound.  Cutting down the steerer would reduce weight a little and the charger and front wheel stabilizer strap were on the bike when I weighed it – so 30 lbs is probably about right.
• As I mounted the new pedals I noticed that the cranks are 172.5.
• R+E didn’t see a serial number (but they weren’t looking for one.)  I need to give it a good going over, maybe with a pencil to do some rubbings.   Then we’ll think about paint remover.
• The shifters have two narrow buttons – the lower one seems to shift up, the smaller upper one shifts down.  Left is front, right is rear, just like on a mechanical bike.
• Shifting too fast seems to cause the chain to grind.  It only happened once (while starting out across Aurora at 83rd) and I’m not really certain why it happened.
• I’m not sure what to do about the steerer tube – I either want to raise the bars or cut off the excess tube because the stump on top of the bars isn’t a good look.  First, it appears that putting the stem at the top of the stack would be about the same height as the red tandem; as they came from the shop they are about the same height as the litespeed classic.   Second, it appears that only the front brake is going to be an issue (i.e. it looks like  there is enough slack in the rear housing.)  There is likely enough extra inner cable on the front brake  so that I wouldn’t need to replace the cable, and with a double-ended ferule I ought to be able to add three or four inches of housing without unwrapping the bars.  (I would still have to undo the brake and reset them afterwards.)  I’ll probably live with it for a while and maybe wait for the first tuneup to fix the steerer.
• Alder asked what I intended to do with the parts that came off and I told him about the Tuscany.  (I’m not sure if he was just curious or if he was interested in some of them.)  My current plan is to do the cassette first (like, right away) and then the derailleur, followed by the brakes on the Stellar.  I’ll replace inner tubes (at least on the Tuscany) while I’m at it. I would like to have both bikes done before R+E finishes the Ibis.  Then I’ll take the Litespeed to Recycled Cycles for a seasonal tuneup and somewhere in the process I’ll need to clean and lube the bikes I’m riding in the rain.
• I shifted way down to climb the hill on 83rd (but I don’t think I went  all the way down) and it felt like I had lots of room.  We’ll have to see how it feels with Odette on the rear.
• Based on my ride home, triple vs. double won’t be an issue.  I want to lay out a traditional gearing chart comparing the blue and red tandems but that will mean taking the rear wheels off to count teeth on the cogs in the cassette and that will need to wait for a day when I’m not nursing road rash.
• Dan Toole recognized the Ibis (and said that he was just looking at a photo of it)  and then went to interview a cleaning service, saying that he had many fewer workers and that they didn’t have time to clean like they used to.
•  I need to experiment with the carbon saddle I mounted. Maybe we won’t do  a fitting, but I need to fiddle with saddle height both front and back.  I’ve got to figure out what saddle will work for Odette (probably not the Sprung Flyer) but after  discussing it with her we’ll start out with that raggedy padded Serfas.  I kind of hope she ends up liking the Flyer – if that happens I’ll get myself a B-17 or something (and a Brooks saddle bag,) and cosmetically the bike will look better.
• I wonder if we should move to different bars for Odette –  some kind of upgrade for the Prima TTT 220 bars on there now?  Maybe a Rivendale Wavie (or maybe those cut-off FSA Wing-pros?) or maybe some bullhorns would give her a more upright position than the drops do, and there’s no reason to carry around a handlebar section that she never uses.
• I wonder if hanging it up by the wheel is a good idea with the carbon spokes.  (It seems to make contact with the hook on the rim only and it doesn’t touch the spokes at all.)
• Eventually I will want to replace the blackburn bottle cages with something sexier.  I know that there are bottle cage mounts for mini-pumps that might make the battery look more symmetrical.

Odette agreed to a short ride on Wednesday to try out the Taliani.  Then, after breakfast, it was raining and we blew it off.  This was the second time we bailed out on a ride around Green Lake on the new tandem – we talked about it the day before I first took the bike in to R+E but ended up deciding not to ride then, either.

After lunch on Thursday I swapped the rear derailleur and cassette on Odette’s Tuscany for the titanium parts that came off the Taliani.  The exchange was uneventful – the chain from the tandem needed a quick link so I kept the chain from the Tuscany and it seemed to work fine.  I needed to fiddle with the barrel adjuster to get it to go into the largest cog but no real problems.  The inner tubes I got have a 42mm valve stem which turns out not to be long enough for those deep-section rims.  I ordered some more with 60mm valves and will use the others on the Stellar.

I took a day off after hitting a pothole in the rain and messing up my face.  On Saturday it was still raining and I didn’t feel like riding so I installed the Paul Components Engineering touring cantis on Odette’s Stellar.  The install was easy and the brakes are much easier to set up than the Rodriguez “big squeeze” cantis that I’m used to.  (I don’t have the hang of the eccentric washers that you use to adjust the toe-in and pad angle, but trial and error got me close.)  I replaced the inner tubes on that bike with new Continental 650C tubes so the bike should be good to go. Those 42mm valve stems really don’t work very well with my floor pump.  (I exploded one tube probably by trapping it under the bead even though I manipulated it all the way around before pumping. )

Here are the details on Odette’s bikes:

I spent the afternoon cleaning and organizing the garage. and really didn’t make a dent.  I found some more Rohloff parts – including a shifter.  I discovered that I have a lot of old cantis.  I found some smaller outriggers and I may try to combine one of those with a light stub.  I didn’t find a side-loading mini pump bracket. I wasn’t able to rotate the right hand shift lever on the Centurion, but it still works despite the crash and actually may not have been twisted at all.  I still need to swap out the front derailleur on my Litespeed for the one from the Taliani and clean the three bikes with fenders.

Tuesday, I swapped the front derailleur on my Litespeed Classic for the one that came off of the Taliani.  I think that I need more tension in the cable but it shifts up and down and doesn’t make any chain noise while on the stand.  (I’m not certain that the old one was broken, but it was way   out of adjustment and I couldn’t seem to get it back in range.)  I found the springs for the body float and spent a little time trying to figure out how to replace them. I finally gave up and downloaded their instruction sheet.

Early in the morning before a ride I changed the body float springs to two purples.  The procedure was not as easy as I was led to expect and the instruction sheets were not exactly clear, but it seems to only go together in one way and it compresses like it is supposed to.  Odette can straddle the frame with both feet flat on the floor but if she sits on the saddle she can only touch with her toes – so as far as she is concerned it doesn’t work.  I mounted the sprung flyer and we took our maiden ride – a couple of laps around Green Lake.  We came back to the garage and adjusted the nose of her saddle so that it didn’t point down quite as much and we raised my saddle a couple of inches (and moved her handlebars up as far as they will go on my seat post. ) The second two laps felt a little more comfortable so we did two more. Climbing up the hill on 50th with Odette on the back feels remarkably like it does on the red tandem. I’ve got to get the saddles sorted out (that carbon Selle Anatomica isn’t going to work for me this time, either.)  I need to raise the front bars and I need to find a set of stoker bars with more rise.  I need to order bottle cages and set up a tool kit.  Otherwise, the Di2 bike is coming together.

After Odette got me more new batteries, I measured the clamping diameter on the rear stem on the Taliani and got numbers that didn’t make any sense at all.  I finally figured out that it helps to zero out the caliper before measuring and determined that I need 26mm bars.  I plan to order a set of flatish bullhorns and we’ll take it from there.   I finally got 650C inner tubes with a 60mm valve stem and I installed one in the front of Odette’s Tuscany and put the other one in her saddle bag.  I replaced the carbon Selle Anatomica saddle on the front of the Taliani with a beat-up old Selle Italia, (a Mundialita, I think.)  I don’t know where it came from but it must have been on some bike that I got used, probably the Centurion.  That will hold me until Odette figures out whether or not she can live with the Flyer.   Ordering the bottle cages means a call to Peter White and I’ll deal with that in the next few days.

I raised the front bars up to the top of the steerer tube and I’ll figure out where I want them before cutting housing or cable or the steerer.  I figured out that what determined the length of the housing was the position of the hanger, meaning that if I left the hanger the same distance below the clamp I wouldn’t have to add any housing.  I end up with a hanger that is really too high and a long exposed cable segment, but it will work for now.  The first time I have it serviced I’ll need to cut the tube or add some housing to the front brake cable.

I got a pair of Origin8 bullhorns and got Odette’s buy-in to try them on the blue tandem.  The weather turned wet and we weren’t going to be riding any time soon so there was no hurry to install them.  The bar tape came off the Prima bars intact, so I wrapped the bullhorns with the old tape just to have something to hang onto while we adjusted their position, figuring that I’d save the new tape until I was sure the bars were going to work.  The bullhorns were the occasion for a conversation about saddles – I read Peter White’s comments to her and we talked about cut-outs and shapes.  Here are the links I gave to her:

• https://www.peterwhitecycles.com/bersaddles.php
• https://www.brooksengland.com/en_us/flyer-carved.html
• https://www.brooksengland.com/en_us/b17-softned-short.html
• https://www.brooksengland.com/en_us/b67-softened-short.html
• https://www.brooksengland.com/en_us/b135.html
• https://selleanatomica.com/products/x1

Eventually we’ll select another saddle and give it a try.

Before riding on Black Friday, I had Odette sit on the bike and tell me if she was okay with the position of the bullhorns and to make sure that they weren’t bumping her knees.  She wasn’t really into it but said they were fine.  After lunch I replaced the bar tape on the bullhorns with a different  used tape – and I moved the posts a little further around the bend and tilted them back a bit.  It’s still a work in process but I think that they’ll be okay when we get done.  While I was in the garage I looked at cassettes and was able to find the number of teeth marked on most of the rings. Here is a basic gearing chart for the red and blue tandems.  As I expected, even with a 2-by setup, the range on the Litespeed is comparable to that on the Rodriguez (3.78 on the Litespeed vs 3.74 on the Rodriguez.)  At 0.95 the Litespeed granny gear is actually a little lower than the Rodriguez’ 1.07.

The Specialites TA bottle cages from Peter White came the weekend after Thanksgiving – I mounted all of them except the one that will fit over the battery.  I wanted to mount a Zefal side-loading mini-pump mount on there too, and even though it’s coming from California and even though I ordered it in mid-November, it’s not expected to get here until Christmas!  I hauled Odette’s Tuscany upstairs and put it on her trainer.  I’m not betting that it will get much use but I know she won’t ride it if it is out in the garage, and maybe it will help her decide on a saddle.  I’ve been taking short rides because of a couple of atmospheric rivers – which leaves me extra time for waiting.  I mounted clip-on fenders on the red tandem hoping that we’ll get out for a ride eventually.  There isn’t any clearance in the front with the current tires (30s) so I mounted a 23 on a spare rim and figured I’d ride with that until spring.  The front fender mounts with a single bolt through the fork crown and I’m not very confident that I’ll get away without rubbing, but there’s one way to find out.

The little mini pump bracket I ordered back in mid-November finally arrived – two weeks early.  The real story is that I didn’t realize it was actually coming from the UK, but  I wouldn’t have had to wait so long if it hadn’t gone in and out of the Seattle distribution center so many times.

Here’s what it looks like after mounting the bottle cage and the mini pump bracket on the same riv nuts as the battery:

 

The 15th of December was a Monday and R+E wasn’t open, so I planned to call that Tuesday, figuring that after a month I’d waited long enough that it didn’t look antsy and that I ought to check in to see if they could tell me when the bike would be done.  After a wet ride I was scanning email when the phone rang and it was R+E saying that the Ibis was ready for me to pick up.  Odette gave me a ride over and I rode home in almost dry  conditions.   The bike shifts really well.  It has always been geared too low and that is even more noticeable now, but with Odette on the back it likely won’t feel as light.   Its started to rain as I pulled into the driveway but I decided to take some photos anyway.

Now I need to take the Litespeed in to Recycled Cycles and take my trashed glasses in to Eyes on Fremont – two things I’ve been waiting to do until the Ibis process was over.

Here’s my “made in America” gallery:

 

Here’s a gallery of Di2 bike photos:

 

From August 23rd to September 10th, 2024, Jerry and Odette rode a couple of loops on the tandem in Denmark and visited Copenhagen with Will.

• why Denmark

Odette and I had talked for years about a trip to Scandinavia.  She’s never seen the northern lights and I’m curious about the fjords.  Last winter we started thinking about another european tandem trip, maybe starting from Berlin.  We thought about riding to Munich and maybe on into Italy.  We thought about Austria and Poland.  There is an established route from Berlin to Hamburg and a lot of options to loop back from the Baltic coast.  Eventually we realized that we needed to look at what we could get from a commercial tour agency, and the on-line places were selling trips on the Baltic coast from Hamburg, but not from Berlin.  If we were going to visit Denmark / Sweden it made more sense to start in Copenhagen than in Berlin.  So… we agreed to arrange a two-week ride in Denmark followed by a week off the bike in Copenhagen.  That would be all new territory for us and it would meet Odette’s requirements about distance and elevation during the bike portion.  We ended up settling on two off-the-shelf loops from ActiveScandinvia which let us see a lot of the island of Zealand but not much of the rest of Denmark:

• boot story digression

A year before the pandemic I gave up on boot covers and gaiters and bought a pair of Louis Garneau biking boots.  They had a Boa closure covered by a zippered gusset covered by a velcro flap.  They were warm, they were fairly dry, and there weren’t a lot of pieces to keep track of.   About three months after I bought them the Boas stopped releasing.  (Later I figured out that the ratchet mechanism  was fine and that I’d kinked the wire where it exited the guide-noodle.)  I could only open up the boot to take it off by pulling really hard on the gusset and eventually I broke the wire.  I knotted it and it worked well enough, but when the second one broke I pulled out the Boas and the wires and riveted in old fashioned boot eyelets.  As lace-ups the boots worked just fine (the snowboard boot laces I used looked like they were made for them) and I got three seasons of daily winter use.  This spring the zippers started to fail and the boots just felt wrong when the zippers gaped open.

I went shopping for new bike boots, looking for something without Boas.  (Odette has a pair of Shimano lace-up M-5 boots  that she likes, but they are six or eight years old and don’t seem to be available anymore.)  I decided to get a pair of Shimano EX-900 boots with Boas because they were marketed for touring and claimed to be designed more for hiking than for biking.

They come with two Boas on each foot – kind of doubling down since I started out looking for zero Boas.  They’re really light, about the same as regular bike shoes and much lighter than my climbing boots or even than my old Nashbar bike sandals.  They don’t have leather, the uppers look like really short pile carpet.  I liked them.

In preparation for the trip to Copenhagen Odette monitored the weather there and got increasingly anxious about rain.  We both packed full rain gear and planned to take our boots, but the question remained about what other shoes to  take?  I decided that the boots were the only bike shoes I needed and that since I wouldn’t have brown leather low-cut bike shoes I could bring brown leather low-cut street shoes.  The boots worked great for biking – we didn’t really get rained on so I didn’t test the water proof claims, but I didn’t have any complaints on the bike.   They were also great for walking – I wore them in a dozen towns and for a couple of days in Copenhagen and I walked a bunch and was really happy. The first day out I wore them with a pair of below-the-ankle socks and got a hot spot on my heel but I think that would have happened with any shoes.  I might not select them for really hot weather, but for touring I think that they’re a really good choice.

• tire story digression

Last year, in preparation for Portugal, we got the tandem serviced.  It had Schwalbe Marathon tires on it that had seen maybe 3,000 miles and which had lots of tread left.  The shop suggested new tires and I said I thought that the Schwalbes still had some life left in them.  When we picked up the bike after the service, Odette, true to form, wanted new tires and I didn’t want to argue with her in front of the shop guys so I said OK.  They  didn’t have Schwalbe Marathons in stock so they ordered them and we made a special trip back down the Leschi to get them installed.  (I made them fish the old ones out of the dumpster for me and I’m still riding them on my Fuji.)

This year the tires on the tandem also had about 3,000 miles on them, but the rear one looked “squared off” so I didn’t object when the shop suggested new tires.   They installed Vittoria RideArmor which were a lot lighter than the Schwalbes but promoted as very puncture resistant so I figured we’d be okay.

On the ride to Helsingør (the first real day of the tour) we got drizzled on and in the middle of a shower we realized that we had a flat!  I don’t exactly like changing tires in the rain, but I’ve done it a lot of times and it isn’t really a big deal.  However, this time I was simply unable to get the bead to unseat.  I guess that it was something about being tubeless ready but the tires just wouldn’t detach. I finally resorted to laying the wheel flat on the ground and standing on my toes next to the rim which broke it loose.  I found a granule of glass – not a sharp shard – in the casing and a matching puncture in the tube.  I replaced the tube and was pleased that it went on easier than it came off.  Unfortunately the standard length valve stem was a little shorter than the depth of the rim would have indicated and it was difficult to get our frame pump to latch on securely.  I got it inflated enough to ride and we made it to the hotel.  The next day the rear wheel felt soft so I pumped it some more and then obsessed for the rest of the loop about low pressure and puncture resistance.  I didn’t go to the trouble of swapping out the tube for one with a longer stem (under the theory that “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.”  (I figured that I’d wait for a flat at which point I’d have to take the tire off anyway.)  We got back to the hotel in Copenhagen without issue and I borrowed a floor pump and, still without switching tubes, pumped the tire all the way up.  (I had a gauge that I carried with me for the whole tour but I didn’t bother to dig it out and just relied on my fingers.)  There were no tire issues during the second loop, but when I got home and wanted to reassemble the bike I couldn’t get the rear tire off the rim! to install a tube with a longer stem.  My toe jam technique didn’t work at home.  I broke two tire levers and pinch-flatted a couple of tubes but I finally got the tire onto the rim and it now has a tube that has a longer stem.  I think I’ll buy new tires before we go on any long rides.  Now I need to patch a bunch of tubes…

• tour agency digression

The first indication that this was not your usual bike tour outfit was when they tried to tell us that the hotel wouldn’t store our bike cases (“liability reasons”) and insisted that we were locked in to a contract even if the case storage was a dealbreaker.  Odette called the hotel directly and the problem turned out to be the agencies imagination.  They didn’t do one-off routes – their only suggestion was to pick two of their standard routes and ride them sequentially.  They gave us GPX files, a printed tour book and a digital tour book for the first loop.  They also gave us an app with points of interest and turn-by-turn.  They insisted that we couldn’t have anything but the GPX files for the second loop, but actually gave  us a printed tour book as well.  Most of the time they got our luggage to our hotel in the early afternoon but when we came to count on that they didn’t deliver until dinner time.  In the end, it’s a case of “you get what you pay for.”  We thought that the cost of the tour package (routes, hotels and luggage transfer) was reasonable in Danish Kroner – but it was actually quoted in Swedish Kroner which made it much less expensive.

I kept telling Odette that this was the consequence of dealing with a big company instead of the “sole practioner” places we used in Spain and Portugal.  She is correct in pointing out that having the local rep be the person who drives around moving luggage kind of defeats that argument.  She  thinks that there were actually two agencies involved, one in Sweden and its’ parent in Austria.  (ActiveScandanivia and Radreise, respectively.)  I suspect that somebody just dropped the ball on the second loop.

• colonialism  / slavery digression

So,  last year in Amsterdam we noticed how preoccupied the  Dutch seemed to be about slavery and the role the Netherlands played in colonialism and the slave trade.  (Every museum we went into seemed to have an apology and to acknowledge that the wealth and cultural heritage on display came, in part,  from human trafficking.)  Then, in Portugal, it was interesting to see how the museums there put a distance between their colonialist history and the present day.  (There was no denying the slave trade, but no apologies and a subtext that there was an equivalence between life under authoritarian rulers and life in a colony.)   Maybe this is somehow connected with our impression that Portugal was more like third world country?   Danish museums seem to pretty much skip over the issue.  There apparently isn’t an automatic connection between colonialism and slavery in the Danish experience – the colony in Greenland was about resource extraction,  the one in India was about trade (likely including the slave trade, but we won’t dwell on that) and the colonies in the Caribbean, those got turned over to the US.  The vikings raided English and Baltic villages for slaves  (thrall) and much of the Asian and Turkish treasure on display must have been a product of the slave trade. Slavery happened in Denmark as recently as in the US (up until the 1850s.)  Perhaps the Dutch feel guiltier because they were more successful?  There is an opportunity here for someone to write a book about blind spots.    Meanwhile it’s amusing to note the little oblique references that are almost hidden away in the Museum placards.

• the flights

We flew Delta / KLM to Amsterdam and then on to Copenhagen and vice versa.  We checked our luggage all the way through at the first airport.  We had priority status thanks to Will.  We got to the airport in Seattle quite early and spent a couple of hours in the lounge.  We went through customs in Amsterdam and had plenty of time for our transfer.  I started to use the fully reclining bed position but got claustrophobic and reverted to the medium recliner.  I brought my wireless headphones and listened to music the whole flight.  We got to the airport in Copenhagen way too early and had trouble figuring out which desk we needed to line up for.  Once we got situated the process went very quickly and we had a couple of hours to kill at the gate.  We both checked our backpacks in addition to our bike cases.  We only had an hour and a half for the transfer in Amsterdam and we had to go through passport control but it worked.  Our luggage was nearly the first on the belt in Seattle, the Customs line was short,  and the Lyft ride home was uneventful.  (The driver was Venezuelan and wanted to warn us about the dangers of socialism in the US.)

• the loops

We got to Copenhagen at lunchtime and put the bike together that afternoon in the hotel courtyard.  There was no secure storage so I took the front wheel off and locked it and the frame to a low bike rack while also putting a U-lock through the rear triangle and rim.  (It was less of a risk than it sounds since there were probably 50 rental bikes also lined up in the courtyard.)  The hotel had two storage rooms that were accessible to anyone with a room key – we saw some full size bike cases in the storage and felt better about pushing the agency on that issue.  We had dinner at a restaurant close to the hotel called Sanchez.  The next day was a layover so we rode the first six or eight miles of our Day 1 route as an out-and-back.  Central Copenhagen is busy and not a simple grid and despite the extensive bike network and GPX files we found it hard to navigate. We had some arguments about curb cuts and advance warnings, but for the most part the city riding was out of the way quickly and the more suburban riding was easy.  We had lunch at a neighborhood place on our route and dinner at restaurant called Gorilla in the meatpacking district.

The first day of the tour was cloudy and moist.  Odette wore rain pants.  The route was flat and without too many navigational issues.  We lost some time dealing with the flat tire but got to the Louisiana Modern Art Museum before lunch.  This was a really good museum with an outdoor sculpture garden and a couple of temporary exhibits.  We got to our hotel early in the afternoon. The GPX files took us to the ferry and the tour book expected us to use Google Maps to get to our hotel.  We understood that we needed to get across the railroad tracks and found the station we were looking for, only to discover that to cross under the tracks meant going down and up a flight of stairs.   It wasn’t that bad (some of the locals laughed at us) and we rode on up the hill to the hotel where we followed the signs for the bikeway.  We continued up the hill and couldn’t figure out where the entrance was – we ended up cutting through an apartment parking lot  because we could see the hotel building on the other side of a fence.  We took a dirt path that should have led to the back side of the hotel, but there was a fence between us and it.  We walked the bike a block or so on the trail before admitting that we were in the wrong place and heading back to the street, riding back down the hill, and taking the driveway next to the bikeway signs.  The hotel was nice, no bike parking but we could lean it up by the front door and immobilize it with bike locks.  Our room was great and the restaurant was very good.

The next day we rode to the ferry (avoiding the stairs under the railroad track) and rode a loop in Sweden.  Helsingborg is a relatively big town with impressive buildings and wide streets.  We started by riding up the coast to Höganäs – impressive views, sandy beaches and lots of cozy little houses.  Then we cut inland for maybe five miles and rode a big road back to Helsingborg.  When we got back to the Ferry terminal Odette was certain that I was heading to the wrong booth and got us into an exit lane and the attendant came out and redirected us.  Odette still couldn’t believe that we needed follow the bike signs and got us into a lane behind the wrong camper and the attendant had to come out and intervene once again.  The third time was the charm and we were the last vehicle onto the boat, just barely squeezing on and parking at the back of the pack.  I stayed with the bike for the sailing while Odette went up to the passenger cabin. Back in Denmark we found yet another way to the hotel and were not fooled by the bikeway signs at the entrance.   We ate at the hotel again and both the service and the food were as good the second night as the first.  When we left the next morning we forgot a pair of water bottles advertising Bike Holland.  Odette was certain she had also forgotten her underwear, but she later realized that it was all right there.

Third day we rode up the Danish coast a little past Munkerup and then cut inland to Hillerød.  The ride on the coast was pretty but we encountered a bunch of construction on the road.  The ride to Hillerød was mainly forest / farm land and was beautiful.  It was, however, mainly unpaved and neither of us had really anticipated ten miles on gravel.  The farm segments were more difficult than the forest segments.  There were a lot of railroad crossings – and a couple of trains – evidently commuter rail not freight.  The route eventually took us through the gardens of Frederiksborg castle which we returned to for a visit.  (There were lots of paintings of guys who looked like Frank Zappa, I was more impressed by the gardens.)  We had some navigational issues getting to the hotel which turned out to be a Best Western.  They had us park the bike beside the main entrance.  Odette was looking forward to dinner because the hotel restaurant was highly rated.  In fact, it was what you’d expect at a Best Western.

Fourth day we rode to Roskilde.  Much less gravel.  Still pretty country with big fields of grain and leafy vegetables.  On the way into town we stopped at the Viking Ship Museum for lunch and to see the boats.  The tour book took us to the Cathedral but we didn’t go in.  I sat with the bike while Odette tried to figure out how to get to our hotel.  I noticed that the housing for the disc brake was out of the cable stop and in the process of fixing it the bike fell over and put a scrape (and another dent) in the top tube.  It also stabbed my knuckle.  I got the brake back in order and realized that I probably ought to think about having the bike repainted – it’s been over ten years!  The hotel was a Scandia, they had covered (but not secure) parking and a decent restaurant.

On the last day of the first loop we rode back to Copenhagen.  We basically rode over to the coast and then followed the water back to the city.  We found  sand on the trail for a ways, but the ride was mostly paved.  There were some impressive underpasses and bridges by the airport but we managed the navigation in good form. We saw a lot of people in swimsuits (but not too many in the water.)  The route into Copenhagen was much easier than it had been on the outbound leg.  We stayed in same hotel (Absalon) and ate at the fish bar in the meatpacking district.

We had a two day lay over in Copenhagen so the next morning we rode a loop around Amager Island.  Odette selected the route from the public routes on Ride With GPS because it was about 30 miles long and because it was flat.  We found it to be both.   It revisited the final leg of our ride the day before – which would see again on our way out of town for the second loop.  It also had a generous helping of airport and related activities.  However, the bottom end of the island was spectacular.  We rode for several miles along a seawall that was pristine and wild (Odette thinks she saw otters.)  The villages on the return segment were picturesque.   We grabbed lunch at Tivoli Gardens and visited the Rosenborg Castle (more Zappa look alikes but this time with jewels.)  Dinner was at a place called NR.30 which left me with absolutely no impression other than remembering that it was in a former butcher shop.

The next morning we walked all the way from our hotel to Refshaleøen, cutting through Christiania on the way.  Christiania would likely be more interesting later in the day.  We sat on a bench and watched floatplanes and boats and bungie jumping from a crane.  We visited the Copenhagen Contemporary Art Museum where we saw an exhibit about light and color that was pretty disorienting.  The guide was amused by my boots / Boas.  We had lunch at the Refshaleøen food court and then walked back to the København Museum.  I connected with this museum as much as with anything in the city – the exhibit about small business on Amager Island was really on point and we sat through a documentary about squatters and alternative communities that put Christiania into perspective.

We started the second loop by returning to Amager Island and the complicated underpasses and bridges from our way into town a couple of days earlier.  We rode the sand along the beach again but didn’t wait for the Arken Museum to open.  In Køge our hotel was outside of town, beyond the miniature city attraction.  It did offer secure bike parking.  The hotel restaurant wasn’t open either for lunch or for dinner.  We walked to the harbor area and bought grapes and cookies in a grocery which we ate in the square.  The center of town is really attractive with a lot of handsome buildings.  The harbor area was where the action was, through.  We ate there in the evening at a place improbably called “Bossa Nova.”

The next day we rode to Næstved,  This was the day with the most climbing and the most miles of the whole trip.  Just before town we saw a herd of deer, presumably on a game farm.  We got to Næstved at lunch time and stowed the bike before eating at a restaurant a couple of blocks away.  (The bike storage involved passing through an elevator with doors on both sides to access a garage full of spare furniture.)  The town had a lot of impressive old buildings and twisty cobbled streets – we walked it twice.  There were half a dozen big churches that we didn’t go into.  Hotel Kirstine, where we stayed, featured a very nice modern room and a huge ancient lobby.  We ate dinner there and it was excellent.

Our ninth day of riding took us from Næstved to Korsør – except that we stayed in a hotel a few miles outside of town.  The hotel was weird – two parallel single-story arms stretching out from a two -story area with reception and restaurant in a mono-color beige brick.  (There were at least 100 rooms in each arm so our room clear at the far end was quite a walk from the front desk.)  The restaurant was not open for lunch but the front desk said we could get a burger or a salad at the bar.  Unfortunately there didn’t seem to be any staff around the bar (Odette offended a woman in a business group by assuming that she worked for the hotel.)  We got lunch although Odette had to compromise her vegetarian principles.  We were staying in what was probably a suite – our room was incredibly small and there was a similar room off a common hallway.  Further up the hallway was a living room / kitchen with glass doors out to a patio.  The other rooms seemed to be full of furniture and stuff and the patio was overgrown (and littered with an abandoned bikini) so our room must have been the only active bit – it should have been a great price given the size and position. Being at the end of the arm we did have a view out to the brush and the water beyond – and we had a great vantage point to watch the lightning during the thunderstorm that evening.  We parked the bike on the patio under the eves for partial protection from rain.  We put shower caps over the saddles for the only time on the trip.  For some reason I was nervous about the bike all night.  We walked down to the beach but it was pretty rocky and there were too many people for us to stay very long.  We walked a short trail to a dolmen in the woods.  We ate at the restaurant which had almost nothing on the menu apart from a burger and a salad.

In the morning we rode on to Korsør and then to Sorø.  We didn’t see any of the interesting part of Korsør since our route took us through the industrial district and the rain was threatening enough to limit our interest in side trips.  We did make a trip out to Trelleborg to see the Viking ring fortress, a really interesting museum without a lot restoration stuff.  Much of the rest of the route went through the same forest that we encountered on the ride to Hillerød.  This time we took a route requiring less navigation and no railroad crossings.  If Sorø had an old part or a downtown we missed it.  Our hotel was very nice and had a very good restaurant but the primary attraction was the reconstruction of the thatched roof that was in progress.  

The ride from Sorø to Roskilde was interesting in that we approached Roskilde from a different direction than before.  There was one section of unpaved trail where we stopped to inspect another dolmen.  That trail put us back on pavement at a golf course where we got held up for a few minutes by a motorcade with a very large motorcycle escort.  Odette thought the GPX files took us to the hotel and seemed surprised to end up at the cathedral again.  This time I waited with the bike while she went in.   We eventually made our way back to the Scandia where we had stayed a week earlier.  We parked under the covering again and dinner at the restaurant was about the same  (they didn’t have the brown ale that seem ubiquitous in the places we ate, so they gave me red ale which they claimed was about the same.)

For our final day of riding we headed for Copenhagen, but unlike the previous ride from Roskilde we avoided the coast and headed straight for the city.  The first part of the ride was bike trail next to a busy highway.  Then we picked up the C99 – a bike superhighway.  I was less than impressed by the C99.  At best it seemed like a standard trail and at worst it was obliterated by construction.  We made some wrong turns and  had to backtrack but eventually found the suburbs of Copenhagen and ended up on downtown streets we knew.  We parked the bike in the courtyard of the Absalom again and went around the corner to have lunch at a cafe called Apropos.  Our luggage showed up and we were able to get boots and non-essential stuff into the bike cases.  Will arrived late in the afternoon and we walked along the water at Peblinge So and had dinner at a neighborhood French place.

I loved the countryside and the coast.  The national park / forest was not super impressive.  My biggest take away was our navigation coordination which worked better than it has on most of our trips.  Basically Odette had the GPX file with turn-by-turn and I had the tour book with a higher level description.  (The turn by turn would have three operations ending with “left on Falligsvej” while the book would just say “go left at the church in Magley”.)   The tour books fit just right into the map holder on my handlebar bag. I think we finally got the conversion into RWGPS figured out and we agreed that if the two sources disagreed the route book would prevail.  .  We shared what was coming next in our respective queue sheets and if we missed on one source we would usually recover on the other.

• Comwell Hotels Digression

Comwell is a chain of about sixteen hotels in Denmark and a couple in Sweden.  We stayed at Comwell Borupgaard in Snekkersten the first couple of nights we were riding.  It was a really nice hotel with a big modern room and a really wonderful restaurant.  We noticed that we were booked in a couple of other Comwell hotels and that made us happy.  The Comwell Køge Strand in Køge was different.  While Borupgaard might have been a chalet in a previous life, Køge looked like it was designed to be a hotel – one story tangled arms, etc.  There were construction tools piled in the hallways and the restaurant was not open.   The Comwell Klarkskovgaard outside of Korsør was a step further down – interesting but impractical architecture, a room in an abandoned suite, and a barely functioning restaurant.   There is probably a story, but if you didn’t know better you wouldn’t think they were part of the same chain.

• Here are the maps:

8/24 – Copenhagen test ride – Vesterbro to Skovshoved OAB.  here’s the map.  16 miles

8/25 – Copenhagen day 1 – Copenhagen to Helsingør.  here’s the map.  31 miles

8/26 – Copenhagen day 2 – Helsingborg – Höganäs loop (in Sweden) .  here’s the map.  45 miles (approx 6 miles on the ferry)

8/27 – Copenhagen day 3 – Helsingør to Hillerød.  here’s the map.  37 miles

8/28 – Copenhagen day 4 – Hillerød to Roskilde.  here’s the map.  31 miles

8/29 – Copenhagen day 5 – Roskilde to Copenhagen.  here’s the map.  31 miles

8/30 – Copenhagen day 6 – Amager Island loop.  here’s the map.  30 miles

9/1 – Copenhagen day 7 – Copenhagen to Køge.  here’s the map.  36 miles

9/2 – Copenhagen day 8 – Køge to Næstved.  here’s the map.  38 miles

9/3 – Copenhagen day 9 – Næstved to Korsør.  here’s the map.  38 miles

9/4 – Copenhagen day 10 – Korsør to Sorø.  here’s the map.  39 miles

9/5 – Copenhagen day 11 – Sorø to Roskilde.  here’s the map.  38 miles

9/6 – Copenhagen day 12 – Roskilde to Copenhagen.  here’s the map.  29 miles

• Here are the tour documents:

First loop

Second –  loop

• Copenhagen

We spent three days with Will exploring Copenhagen.  It rained the last day.  We visited the National Museum (a big exhibit on colonialism and not too many Zappa look alikes) and the Architecture Museum (featuring a four story slide) the Cisterns (more light and color, this time with sound) and the botanical gardens.  We walked out to the Refshaleøen district again and walked through the meatpacking district a couple of times.   We noted the fancy  bridges and bike parking structures in various places, infrastructure that would have made Amsterdam proud.  As in Amsterdam, most of the  bikes on the street were not locked the way they would be in Seattle.  We saw lots of cargo bikes, including a lot with the Christiania nameplate.  We saw bikes with the Centurion nameplate – evidently a Danish brand and not related to my vintage Centurion.  We saw several  brands of rental bikes, some of which we recognized and some of which  seemed  Copenhagen-specific.  It seemed like every hotel had rental bikes with their name on them – something we didn’t see in Amsterdam.  We ate at La Bodega and at CoFoCo (both in Vesterbro, not far from our hotels) and at Alchemist.

Alchemist was maybe a little over the top.  They are clear that it is not the right place for an evening of business discussions or for a first date. The experience involves 50 food “impressions”, a drink pairing (chosen from a variety of price levels) and a lavish multi-media show.  It lasts four or five hours.  The foods served include sheep brains and insects – mainly for the bragging rights I suspect.  They have a large staff and don’t seem to be in any hurry to move diners along.  Will arranged it for us and treated us to something we would never have done for ourselves.  I got carried away and ordered an expensive champagne at the start, but I controlled myself the rest of the evening.  Truly once in a lifetime for us – and I totally enjoyed it.

• thoughts:
  • we do okay with the S&S cases as long as it is just to and from an airport
  • it works well to check our backpacks on the return flight
  • we need to work on lunch on the bike
  • we need to venture out from the hotels for dinner
  • we can probably do more than 30 miles a day
  • you can’t assume that every hotel in a chain will be up to the same standard
  • the biggest Parkinsons issue was having to carry a bunch of pills
  • I’m more likely to get dizzy on stairs than on the bike
  • the places in Copenhagen that we liked the best (Refshaleøen, and the Meat Packing district) were repurposed industrial zones
  • maybe instead of repainting the tandem I’ll just get a new bike

Here are the photos

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From September 26th to October 17th Jerry and Odette rode the tandem on a loop in Southern Portugal, followed by a week of sightseeing in Lisbon 

Odette wanted to go to Portugal.  It seemed like everyone we knew was going there this year.  She settled on Elsewhere (the Lonely Planet product) based on their website and reviews and a referral from a friend of Will’s.  The “local expert” that she worked with was a guy named João Daniel who evidently is an independent guide using their tools and getting referrals through their service.  There was some negotiation about degree of difficulty and about highway bridges before he sent us GPX files of the route.  I had no problem importing those files into RidewithGPS, converting them to routes and tracing them so that we could get turn-by-turn.   Here’s the full trip we planned:

We hadn’t really ridden the tandem that many miles since we’d had it serviced for Amsterdam, but I prefer to take it in before any serious trip and returned to PolkaDot Jersey in early September.  I asked them to take a look at the tires and they didn’t think it needed new ones.  When we picked up the bike Odette got upset with the old tires and the shop was only too happy to order her a pair of new ones.  We stopped in to have them installed and they dumpstered the old pair (which pissed me off because they still had plenty of rubber left.)  In any event, I broke down the bike and packed it and the helmets and shoes and we flew out on Air France using tickets that Will had gifted us in the spring.  The flight to Paris was business class and even through I didn’t sleep much it was pretty comfortable. Customs was quick but we departed from a different, distant, terminal and from the gate we took a bus out to the plane.  Paris to Lisbon was economy plus, but not a super-long flight.

We met João, at the airport and he drove us across the bridge to Palmela (a rural suburb of Setubal.)  The place we stayed (Biovilla) was interesting with a steep dirt driveway, a bike washing station, and decor featuring OSB plywood.  I reassembled the bike with no issues, Odette helped mount the bottle cages.  We used João’s floor pump to inflate the tires.

When he dropped us off João discovered that Biovilla had discontinued their dining room so he volunteered to take us someplace for dinner. Odette wanted a couple more water bottles and she had forgotten her gloves so Joao took us to Decathlon in Setubal.  The restaurant we headed to next turned out to be closed, but the one down the block was really good.   The next morning, after breakfast at 9:00 we headed out on a test ride which was cut short by a road closure.  We rode an unanticipated climb and walked a long section of dirt road to get back to Biovilla. João took us out to dinner again that evening, going to the old part of Palmela for a look at the castle and a meal in a traditional place.

The next morning we set out on what was supposed to be the longest day of the trip – Palmela to Escoural.  Breakfast wasn’t until 9:00 so we didn’t get out until about 10:00 then we lost an hour with navigational difficulties in Setubal (Odette was only seeing the route, not the surrounding map.)  About half way through the planned ride Odette felt bad so we pulled over and rested for an hour.  Then she called João who came and collected her.  I rode on (solo on the tandem) for another 20 miles, finally giving up and accepting a ride at 6:00 in the evening with five miles left to go.  The main memory of the ride was that it was hot – in the upper 90s – and that while relatively flat the road had a lot of small ups and downs through farm lands.  I did a cool section of rail-trail alone.  After Setubal navigation wasn’t an issue.

Accommodations in Escoural were interesting – a very small bedroom with bath connected with several similar rooms to a communal living / kitchen area.  We couldn’t find the remote to operate the AC (Odette had piled stuff on it when she arrived) and we couldn’t figure out how to open the roll-up shutters, so opening the window didn’t accomplish much.  We walked a couple of miles to the only available restaurant and were the only diners (although there were a bunch of guys at the bar watching football.)  We locked the bike inside of the pool fence.  Breakfast was at the gas station next door, where we left the key so that João could pick up our luggage.

The ride from Escoural to Evora was scheduled to be our shortest day of the trip.  Mid-ride the front brake started making a horrible noise and when I went to adjust it I found that the spring was broken. I disconnected the brake and we rode on to our hotel (a Hilton Garden Inn) where we met João and explained the situation.  He took us to a couple of bike shops before we found one that was open on a Saturday.  They had similar springs, but not one that would work so I bought a V-brake and some cable and housing and figured that I could rig something.  We spent all afternoon disassembling the cantilever and mounting the MTB unit before remembering that the pull ratio on flat-bar levers is about twice that on regular drop bar levers.  I got the V-brake installed and re-wrapped the bars but even with the lever mashed all the way it didn’t have any stopping power.

We finally got out to see the town that was in some ways the high-point of the tour.  We saw churches and palaces but didn’t go in.  We admired the peafowl.  The narrow streets were really attractive but we hurried through them.  We had missed lunch but stopped and got a beer in the central plaza.  We had dinner in a hotel restaurant that was quite good even if not very innovative.  The two women next to us got lectured about cork trees.

The next morning we got out early and rode carefully.  Evora to Cuba was routed mainly on a busy highway and about halfway there bikes were prohibited and our route took to frontage roads.  Unfortunately those frontage roads were mostly dirt or really deteriorated surfaces.  In one case the road shown on the map just didn’t exist and we had to backtrack and hope for the best on the other side of the highway.

In Cuba we stayed in a big old house that was gorgeous on the inside.  We walked to a park for lunch and then spent the afternoon in the pool.  Dinner was in a wine cellar where we got too much food and Odette ate beans that later disagreed with her.

The ride from Cuba to Castro Verde was mainly forested with some fairly significant climbs.  Once we got to the town we got lost getting to our B&B – which is difficult to do considering how small the town is.  The B&B was operated by a couple that organized bike tours and birding expeditions.  (The guy was out on a trip but we spent some time with the woman who was very cool.)  We spent some time walking around the town admiring the view and the old church.  The restaurants recommended in the roadbook were both closed but the place we went to instead was really good.

From Castro Verde we rode to Salir.  The ride was again a mix of forest and farm. We saw lots of wind turbines.  Near the end of the ride I realized that I wasn’t going to make it up a switchback and hopped off the bike to rest for a while.  We stayed at a place called Casa da Mae which was really attractive and which had a nice pool.  There were only a couple of other rooms with guests, all of whom seemed to be women hikers.  We had quite a long walk to a kebob place for dinner, but it was well worth the trouble.

The next morning we had trouble finding breakfast and afterwards rode from Salir to Silves.  This ride was another highway / frontage road route but after a couple of unrideably steep pitches we dispensed with the frontage roads, ending on the wrong side of the river and having to ride back to our hotel.  The hotel was across the river from the town, looking at the cathedral and castle on a hill on the opposite bank.  Our room looked out at the parking lot.  We spent all afternoon exploring the town, visiting the archeological museum and the castle.  The moorish influence was obvious and the castle was impressive.  Somehow everything seemed to focus on cisterns and water supply. We ate at a seafood place that was incredible.

The next morning we set out from Silves to Monchique.  This day was arguably the best ride of the whole trip.  We got out early and the day was relatively cool.  Most of the ride was a gradual climb, not steep enough to get us out of the  big ring.  Unlike most of our rides, we saw a lot of other cyclists on this route – it is evidently a “classic” ride and we saw some big pelotons.  We had smoothies at Velochique and then poked around attempting to head back down without climbing some more to get out of town.  (It turned out not to be so bad, but the way out of town did involve another climb.)  We missed the sign for the turn to the thermal resort and ended up at the piscine and a different hotel.  We backtracked and found a sleepy collection of hotels around an old square.  We spent some time in the lukewarm thermal pool and did a quick session in a very hot sauna.  Dinner was at the resort but we discovered that the restaurant had been converted to a buffet which lacked not only service but character.

We started the next day with a speedy downhill as we headed from Monchique to Sagres.  The descent from Monchique was the first time ever that we’ve engaged the drag brake for significant distances.  As we approached the coast the road flattened out with little climbs over dunes.  Our map had us on frontage roads but we didn’t even try.  Sagres was busy but we didn’t have any trouble finding our place.  We spent the afternoon in the fort, a pretty good museum about the exploration that originated from the southernmost point in continental Europe.  (It was striking how differently the Dutch and Portuguese deal with their historic involvement in the slave trade.)  Dinner was at a newly-opened seafood place which was very good although the women at the next table were bullied into ordering green wine.

Sagres to Odeceixe was mainly headlands.  Much of the forest had been burned a couple of years before and much more recent damage was evident close to town.  We walked down a really steep pitch to get to our place in the bottom of the valley.  We headed to a grocery store for snacks and didn’t find the main downtown until we went out looking for a restaurant for dinner.  (It’s actually a pretty cool town with a lot of restaurants.)  We ate outdoors, the food was good, and the waiter told me that his dad had Parkinson’s.

From Odeceixe we rode to Sines.  Near the start of the route there were two places where the road dropped to sea level.  Both up- and   down-slopes were very steep and cobbled.  We walked.  (We admired the zebras part way down the first one.)  The route had us following smaller roads near the water but to get there involved dirt – or rather deep sand – so we bailed and rode the highway.  Sines is a large town with a substantial port and a castle in the center.     We stayed in a fancy hotel with a view of the water from our room.  We looked at the roman ruins (a fish factory) walked around town.  We had trouble finding an open restaurant but the one we chanced into was really excellent.

The next morning we set out for Palmela and a return to Biovilla.  Sines to Palmela is along the coast, just a little in from the water – mainly featuring tree farms.  The highlight of the ride was the ferry and the spit we rode to get out to the ferry terminal.  Setubal was much easier to navigate coming than it had been going.  It was the hottest part of the day when we got to the climb up to Biovilla, but we persevered. João caught us when we stopped to regroup just before the dirt driveway.  The hotel was exactly as we remembered it (both rooms we stayed in had standard kitchen exhaust units paneled in OSB over the vanity,  but no stovetop?)  This time they were planning to feed us (so that João didn’t have to wait around) but we were the only ones in the dining room.  Nobody said anything about the meal of stirred tofu costing extra, but the next day João called to say that they’d complained we’d left without paying.

From Palmela we rode to Costa de Caparica.  First we had to climb up to the castle in Palmela, then we got turned away from a gated community, after negotiating a stretch of dirt and fresh gravel we found a park trail and finally emerged at the beach.  Costa de Caparica is evidently one of the beach areas most accessible to Lisbon – lot of sand, lot of surfers, lot of beach town stuff.  We stayed in another fancy hotel and ate in their restaurant ( we were the only ones in the dining room again, but this time we paid.)  The next morning I disassembled the bike and packed it into the cases.  We had to check out by noon but we stored our luggage and settled down in the lobby with a youth soccer club from Toronto until João picked us up a couple hours later.  The bridge we went across to get into Lisbon was impressive and clearly not a bike route.  Our hotel was outside of the old part of the city but really central and close to a bunch of other hotels.

The first evening we walked to A Venda Lusitania, a restaurant that was top-rated on Google maps, but it disappointed us as pretty much a tourist trap.

The next day we walked the old downtown and and the central waterfront and visited the castle and its museum. We visited the  resistance museum (the victors write history) and tried to go to the  zoo  (we turned the wrong way at the subway and decided to just walk back to the hotel. ) We ate at Taberna do Lopes, a “steakhouse” where the meat wasn’t bad but wasn’t special, either.

The third day we took the bus out to Belem and visited the museum of art and technology (a low-slung modernistic building next to a decommissioned coal power plant.)  Will joined us that evening and we ate at Otro – a traditional Portuguese place that was much like the places we’d gone to while on the bike only classier.

On day four we went back to castle and walked around the the neighborhood on the hill next to downtown, managing to arrive at time-out market at lunchtime.  Will took us to eat at Al Taho where we had an exceptionally good steak outdoors.

The next day we went to the aquarium  and the greenhouse in the park near our hotel.  That evening (or really late that afternoon – Will got us a coveted reservation at 5:00) we at ate at Ramiro, a famous seafood place where we had some of the best and biggest shrimp I’ve ever eaten.

On the last day we were picked up by Joel, an associate of João, for a van trip to  Sintra.  This is apparently a mandatory activity for tourists and Joel had a well rehearsed itinerary with stops for coastal villages, rock formations, viewpoint from the westernmost point of Europe, etc.  It rained – the first time on the whole trip.  We had lunch at a seafood restaurant after walking on the beach for a while and it was a really good meal. Joel hit a pothole while driving us up the last section of the road to the Sintra palace so we walked the last bit and ended up blowing off the inside of the palace because our timing was wrong.  Joel had to have his car towed so he got us an Uber back to our hotel.  That evening we ate at Cevicheria which was good and a really cool spot.  A stand-in for Joel picked us up at 2:45 in the morning for 5:30 flight to Paris.  Customs were slow but better than we’ve seen on other trips. Economy plus seats on the long leg of the flight were fine even if they didn’t recline.

Our cases came off the conveyer with no problems and customs in Seattle was pretty good (they could still improve line management.)  The first cabbie in the line at the taxi stand couldn’t fit our cases in the back of his prius.  The second had a minivan but he didn’t want to take us – the dispatcher yelled at him and he opened up the car but made me load the cases – and unload them when we got home.  Odette felt that he wasn’t doing his job and stiffed him on the tip, something we remembered a few days later when somebody used our visa at Lowes.

We got home mid-day on a Tuesday,  got unpacked , organized ourselves and tried to get over our jet lag.  Wednesday morning Odette developed a pain in her torso which she tried to ignore but which ended up prompting a trip to the hospital and surgery to remove her gallbladder.  We consider ourselves lucky that it happened at home and not while we were in the air!

Thoughts:

• Southern Portugal felt more like a third world country than did Southern France or Spain.
• Lots of english speakers, even in rural areas.
• Who needs a front brake?
• My training was about right – I had dizzy spells but I think that was the medication I’m on, not conditioning.
• Odette should have ridden more hills and more hot days
• I did okay without drinking very much alcohol, but it is hard to imagine traveling in Europe without eating fatty foods
• We didn’t understand that João would be personally performing all of the luggage transfers.
• For us this was the closest thing to a  supported tour since the Yukon.

**************************************************************************************

O_BATIK ROADBOOK

**************************************************************************************

0/10 – Costa de Caparica.  Here’s the map.  29 miles

10/9 – Sines to Palmela.   Here’s the map.  53 miles

10/8 – Odeceixe to Sines.  Here’s the map.  54 miles

10/7 – Sagres to Odeceixe.  Here’s the map.  37 miles

10/6 – Monchique to Sagres.   Here’s the map.  41 miles

10/5 – Silves to Monchique.   Here’s the map.  25 miles

10/4 – Salir to Silves.   Here’s the map.  27 miles

10/3 – Castro Verde to Salir.    Here’s the map.  37 miles

10/2 – Cuba to Castro Verde.     Here’s the map.  42 miles

10/1 – Evora to Cuba.   Here’s the map.  38 miles

9/30 – Escoural to Evora.   Here’s the map.  18 miles

9/29 – Palmela to Escoural.   Here’s the map.  52 miles

9/28 – Palmela loop.  Here’s the map. 18 miles

**************************************************************************************

Here are Odette’s photos

**************************************************************************************

 

 

Between April 16th and May 8th Odette and Jerry rode the tandem from Amsterdam to Bruges (and back) and then explored Amsterdam for a week

 

Holland is flat.  Flatter than Berlin.     After our trip to Mallorca, Odette admitted that touring on individual bikes wasn’t realistic.  She went looking for someplace flat for our next trip.  Holland it was. She booked flights on Delta (first class on the way over!) and then set out to arrange a tour that fit our dates.

She talked to several bike places about self-guided trips to the Netherlands and wasn’t able to find anything in the pre-packaged offerings that would work for us without a train ride or two.  I expressed a preference for a loop starting and ending in Amsterdam, and specifically suggested a loop to Brussels and back. I figured we could do each way in a week without any long days.  Holland Bike Tours, one of the more prominent companies, was able to accommodate that although they didn’t think we should go all the way into Brussels.  We agreed and even though we didn’t get  tour material until just before our flight (and the turn-by-turn wasn’t in RWGPS format) we didn’t stress about it.

The weather in the Netherlands was about like Seattle this spring – cool and probably rainy.  I decided not to take rain pants and to wear sandals instead of schlepping my boots over.  I took a ton of heavy socks and a couple of wool base layers.  Odette went full arctic gear.  I took a bunch of extra inner tubes (thinking about Mallorca) and a tool to take the centerlock rotor off (thinking about Strausburg.)   Expecting to be riding in the rain, I brought the bottle of chain lube I’d bought years ago in Spain and never opened.  We’d been riding the Ibis all winter because it had fenders, so the red tandem wasn’t due to be serviced before we went.  I changed the chain and we rode it a couple of times to verify that everything still worked.  Odette admitted that taking her new roller bag would preclude her from hauling one of the bike cases around – so she bought a new travel backpack.  I bought a new frame pump since we’d destroyed our smaller one in Strausburg. I got a top-of-the-line Slica but didn’t realize that the wedge shaped head wouldn’t clear the couplers so that the XL pump wouldn’t fit any of the available locations on the frame.  I remeasured and bought a medium which proved to be just slightly too small.  Instead of going to third times a charm I mounted the clip from the smaller pump I was replacing and called it good.

The week before we left my sister emailed us to say that she and my niece were going to be in town while we were gone and could they stay at our place.  That meant leaving keys with the neighbors and cleaning the place up before the guests arrived.  Odette got the lock replaced on the front door and left a long note explaining how to feed the squirrels.

We took a Lyft to the airport late on a Sunday afternoon.  Checking in was smooth.  The flight was smooth – I slept a lot!.  Our bags came off early in Amsterdam and customs was easy.  Cab to the hotel was easier than it would have been in Seattle. The Fashion Hotel was conveniently located but kind of a bizarre place with mannequins all over the lobby semi-dressed in mylar.  We assembled the bike and met with the guy from HBT before eating in the hotel.  No surprises on the bike – other than difficulty getting the tires pumped full enough.  Odette mounted all of the bottle cages and the pump bracket and secured the drag brake cable with zipties which saved me a bunch of time.  The Sigma GPS unit HBT provided fit the Garmin bracket already mounted on the stoker handlebars.  Hotel food wasn’t anything special and they only had Heineken to drink.

On the first day we rode out of Amsterdam to Leiden with a stop at the Keukenhof flower gardens.  Routefinding wasn’t too bad.  Odette said the Sigma was better than Garmin or RWGPS.  The ride was easy and mainly on bike trail.  We spent a lot of time riding along canals and most of the rest was on small farm roads.  I was impressed by the amount of bike infrastructure in rural areas.  The stop for the flowers was at about half way.  There were big fields of tulips before we got to the gardens but they weren’t on a scale dramatically bigger than the Skagit delta.  The gardens were crowded and touristy,  (Bouchart Gardens is more impressive.)  Navigating Leiden, dinner at the Reubens Restaurant and our stay at the Golden Tulip Hotel were all pleasant but not particularly memorable.

Second day we continued on to Delft.  The ride was mainly in agricultural / forest land with an early segment along the coast.  It was a short ride that got us to Delft by noon.  The hotel was willing to store our bike and bags (luggage hadn’t  been delivered yet) while we walked to the china factory.  We killed most of an afternoon looking at blue on white china designs. Koophandel hotel was fine; Spijshuis de Dis for dinner was great (It was my birthday and they had a nice stout!)

Third day we rode to Hellevoetslus.  This involved more farm roads and a ferry crossing followed by dunes and beach stuff. The ferry was exciting in that there were no instructions on the automated ticket machine and no way to verify that the machine went with the dock that was a couple hundred yards away.   In the process of getting out to where the boat would collect us we lost the GPS and were lucky enough that the finder figured out that we were looking for it.  We went through Brielle, a star-shaped fortified town, but we didn’t stop to investigate. This was a short day which was good because our shifting was starting to deteriorate.  We checked into the Hotel Boutique de Oude Veste which was very modern and in a really cool building .  I looked at the bike and realized that the right-hand shifter cable was fraying where it bent under the bottom bracket and the strands had tangled in the derailleur.  We headed for a bike store hoping that they would replace the cable and adjust the indexing but they only guy in the shop said that he “wasn’t familiar with that system” and couldn’t promise to get to it that day.  We bought a cable and I did the honors and although it wasn’t perfect it shifted better than before I started which I guess qualifies as a success.  We visited the firefighters museum which was kind of “root with eyes” quality but very endearing.  We walked among the WWII bunkers and batteries and then had a really excellent meal at the Steakhouse De Buren (in our hotel.)  Pretty close to an American style steakhouse but with better vegetables and good wine.

On the fourth day we rode to Zierikzee which involved a lot of trails on dikes and a couple of long bridge crossings.  We had some problems with the GPS but work-arounds weren’t really a problem.  We went to a small museum about the port where the docents were really happy to see us and to show off their diesel motors.  We checked out the market and had dinner in the hotel.  Hotel Mondragon is clearly the fanciest hotel in town and was a very nice modern room in an old building cobbled together on several levels.  The restaurant was very good.

The fifth day took us on to Middelburg.  The route was almost all next to the water and included a long passage over a sea barrier.  We were in an old (but nice) hotel called “Loskade” across the canal from the train station.  We admired the bike parking.  The medieval city walls were still in place and the old part of town was full of interesting buildings.  We went to a chocolate museum that reminded me of of Speidel’s tour of Seattle.  We had dinner at Het Packhuys, which was really interesting.

Day six involved another ferry and a long ride next to a canal after we got into Belgium.  Bruges (Brugge in dutch) was a bigger town than anything since Leiden and more of a tourist attraction than anything we’d visited so far.  The old part of town was full of beautiful old buildings and imposing churches and municipal buildings that, for the most part,  have been turned into museums.  Streets were mainly cobblestone and were busy but getting to our hotel (BlaBla) wasn’t a navigational problem.  (We did, however, almost get smushed by a bus on a narrow one-way street but the only damage was a deformed handlebar bag that bugged me for the rest of the trip.)  It was a very small hotel and we had to take the tandem through the lobby to park it in the courtyard but the room was modern and nice.  We explored the old part of town and visited an art museum.  We spent two nights in Bruges and had dinner at Reliva one night and at Rose Red Cafe the other.   Reliva was a foodie place with five courses and a wine pairing.  Rose Red was informal with an incredible beer selection.  We got caught in a deluge getting back to the hotel from Rose Red.

Day seven was a layover day with a short loop ride out to the coast.  Unfortunately the main street we were routed on out of town was torn up and the GPS couldn’t let us ride a parallel street but kept routing us in circles.  After overcoming that obstacle we rode through an industrial /  port neighborhood out to a beach.  The return was more agricultural with a long ride along a canal and a much less anxiety-provoking entry into the city than we’d experienced the day before.   We visited a museum in the old city building which eschewed dutch masters for an excellent presentation of the history of the city and the region.

On the eighth day we rode to Goes.  The route started out by reversing our way into Bruges the day before – a trail next to a wide canal as far as the Belgium / Netherlands border.  Then it was farm roads back to the ferry we’d taken on the way out.  Then another ferry (a really small one) and more farm roads.  Our impression of the town of Goes was colored by our experience with the hotel Slot Oostende.  We arrived  at about 1:30 to find the door locked and a sign saying that they would reopen at 3:00.  Then a van showed up and deposited our luggage on the pavement.  When the receptionist finally opened the door she couldn’t understand why we were upset (“I posted a sign!”) and claimed to have called HBT and was told they had no way to get in touch with us.  The rooms were in a separate building from the front desk and restaurant.  The only place they offered to park the tandem was directly in the path of the pallets of production materials for the brewery.  I complained and after some more non-comprehension we were allowed to park the bike in the unused restaurant. The room was actually quite nice.   Dinner at Katoen went a long ways toward making up for the hotel.  It was a shame that we couldn’t leave our stuff and explore the town because it seems to be more diverse than what we’d been visiting and we could see a lot of tall spires.

Day nine took us to Roosendaal  Another long stretch beside the water including a segment on a very muddy hiking trail that we decided to bypass.  The hotel Tongerelo was old and comfortable and they had us park in the municipal bike parking a block up the street.  We visited the Tongerlohuys museum with its small-town enthusiasm.  Dinner at SinJoor neatly matched the atmosphere of the hotel.

On our tenth day we took a very short ride to Willemstad and spent most of the day walking the town.   Willemstad is a star-shaped fortified city with an interesting history and a lot of old buildings.  We explored the harbor and visited Mauritshuis – a polished multi-media museum on the lower floors and a village repository in the attic.  We walked nearly the entire fortification.  Our room at the Hotel Mauritz was very good and their restaurant was also very good.

Day eleven was Kings Day.  We rode on dikes and farm roads and through a big nature preserve.  We walked around  town to find an ATM and marveled at the crowds in the street.  We ate at Bistro Twee 33 which may have been the best meal on the trip.  The hotel (Steegoversloot)  had a bakery on the ground floor and was next to the old part of town but far enough out so that the noisy crowds weren’t an issue.

On day twelve we rode to Gouda with a threat of rain motivating us to ride fast.  Another ferry, lots of dike trails, waterfowl and sheep.   Halfway through the ride is a famous collection of 19 windmills (which is, in fact, pretty impressive.)  We stayed in the Best Western which wasn’t close to anything. When we got there the restaurant was closed (although occupied by a big bike tour group) and the front desk staff was not particularly helpful.  We walked around admiring the canals and the old buildings in the center.  We found the cheese museum but it turned out to be a shopping experience instead of an exhibition.  We ate at Koeien en Kaas – a steakhouse on the main square.  I was disappointed but it did match the Best Western for atmosphere.

The final, thirteenth, day on the HBT route returned us to Amsterdam.  The start was fantastic, winding along canals through wetlands and bird sanctuaries.  At Bodegraven the GPS decided to send us up the on-ramp to the N-11 and after that insisted on routing us in circles back to the highway.  Odette resorted to Google Maps and five miles later everything was working again.  The entry to Amsterdam was easier than we anticipated with a long stretch along the Amstel River followed by some big parks.  We checked in to the Fashion Hotel again and, after a thrash with the door to the parking garage,  claimed the clean shirts we had stashed in our bike cases.  We ate at the hotel again that evening.

The next week was devoted to sightseeing in Amsterdam.  After three days of walking and museums, Will and Ian joined us and we got a couple of bike rides – a repeat of our first day’s ride to Keukenhof as an OAB and a ride to the beach at Zandvoort.  We ate at very good restaurants, both before and after Will showed up.  The things I remember are:

•  Annapurna Kitchen (Indian & Nepali – too much food)
• Ron Gastrobar (good steak but insanely overpriced)
• Het Gent ann de Schinkel  (extensive beer list close to hotel)
• Blauw (multi course foodie place – Indonesian rice tables)
• Adam (multi course foodie place in storefront by tram)
• de Kas (multi course foodie place in greenhouse with parrots)
• Mediamatic ETEN (multi course foodie place with no bar staff – so we drank eau de vie)

After Will and Ian left for Berlin I disassembled the bike and packed stuff up.  We ate in the hotel again, this time aggravated that they lost our reservation.  The cab to the airport wanted a “special” fare (which was likely a ripoff.)  Check in was easy, business class this time.  The flight was smooth.  Customs in Seattle wasn’t as bad as I remembered, although they still have people inexplicably promoted to the front of the line.  A very small cabbie in a very old prius got us home just fine.

Here is the HBT tour book:

2324-file_1-batik-2324-tour-details

Here are the Strava maps:

5/6 – Zandvoort  36 miles on the tandem with Odette and with Will & Ian
5/4 – Keukenhof   42 miles on the tandem with Odette and with Will & Ian
4/29 – Gouda – Amsterdam   40 miles on the tandem with Odette
4/28 – Dordrecht – Gouda  30 miles on the tandem with Odette
4/27 – Willemstad – Dordrecht   31 miles on the tandem with Odette
4/26 – Roosendaal – Willemstad   18 miles on the tandem with Odette
4/25 – Goes – Roosendaal  40 miles on the tandem with Odette
4/24 – Brugge – Goes  46 miles on the tandem with Odette
4/23 – Brugge Loop  30 miles on the tandem with Odette
4/22 – Middelburg – Brugge  32 miles on the tandem with Odette
4/21 – Zierikzee – Middelburg  31 miles on the tandem with Odette
4/20 – Hellevoetsluis- Zierikzee  32 miles on the tandem with Odette
4/19 – Delft ~ Hellevoetsluis  25 miles on the tandem with Odette
4/18 – Leiden – Delft  28 miles on the tandem with Odette
4/17 –Amsterdam – Leiden  34 miles on the tandem with Odette

Observations:

• 495 miles with only 3,480 ft. of elevation! in 15 days of riding
• It’s a lot easier to ride when you can follow somebody else and don’t have to navigate
• Bike infrastructure in Amsterdam is a good as its reputed to be
• The number of bikes parked on the street and at train stations, etc. defies belief
• People on the streets ride without special costumes, helmets or footgear
• For an American, The Netherlands is the least “foreign” feeling country in the EU – on the level of Canada or Britain in that regard
• Without segments on the train, travel with the bike cases isn’t bad
• Baggage Claim elevators at SeaTac actually make life better
•  The North Sea coast is pretty spectacular

 

Photos 1

 

Photos 2

 

Photos 3

 

(all photo credits to Odette)

 

 

 

On July 19th Odette and Jerry flew to Paris and caught a train to Strasbourg. After touring for seven days they took another train from Frieberg to Berlin  where they stayed with Will, rode for another six days and then caught a train to Amsterdam for an eventual flight home on August 11th.

At Christmas last year Will offered to get us tickets to Germany using his Delta status so that we could experience business class, lounges, etc.  It took us a while to get comfortable with the idea of traveling again but we finally settled on a self-guided tour in Alsace followed by a visit with Will in Berlin.  I rode pretty hard (7,000 miles in the first six months of 2022) – not exactly in preparation for travel, but remembering some of our past experience.  Odette prepared with extensive duo lingo  sessions.

I’ve previously written about my tandem service issues.  To make a long story short, I ended up taking the Ibis to The Polka Dot Jersey in Leschi.  They did a really good job on the Rholoff – but they took over two weeks longer than promised.  While waiting for them to accumulate parts I had them order a new Rolf wheel set for the Rodriguez and then got a complete service and had the new wheels installed.  They got me a center lock rotor on the drag brake, the front wheel has a disc hub, and they used regular brake pads instead of short blocks – but the bike worked fine and the creaking/clunking that had me worried went away.

A couple of days  before our flight I packed the bike.  I found that the 24-hole paired spoke pattern of the new wheels made packing much easier.  (Handlebars now fit inside the rim, I put both sets of bars in the same box!)  I didn’t have the tool to remove the center lock rotor so I left it on the hub and packed it with spare inner tubes and a roll of paper towels.  We were worried about lost/delayed luggage so we didn’t pack our helmets.  The flight to Paris was uneventful.  Delta business class is a whole lot better than coach.  (One could get used to the legroom and the reclining seat.)  In a first, customs in Paris was a well-managed line with almost no waiting.  We were early enough to catch a train to Strasbourg  originating at CDG, but after traipsing all over the terminal (with two big bike cases) we couldn’t figure out how to exchange tickets and decided to take a cab to Gare de l’Est.  (The first cabbie didn’t want to go downtown and turned us away because our cases were too big. The second guy, with a smaller car, didn’t hesitate…)  We waited there for two or three hours but figuring out which platform and which car was pretty straightforward.

There was no luggage storage rack at the entrance to the car so I managed to jam one case behind the seats there and we took the other one to our seats and fit our legs around it.  A couple of stops later we were able to claim a space on the rack at the other end of the car and the rest of the ride was easier.  We hailed a cab and checked into a very nice hotel, the Regent Contades.  The next morning I put the bike together in front of the hotel and had issues with the tires.  First, I was installing brand new Schwalbe Marathon Plus which would be difficult even at home with tools.  Second, once I got the tires on the rims I found that our pump was missing a piece of the head and couldn’t connect to the valve stems.  Odette went out to a bike store and came back with a Lezyne mini-pump that allowed us to determine I’d put pinch flat like punctures in both tubes.  Off came the Marathons and then on again, breaking a tire lever in the process.  We couldn’t get enough pressure into the tires with the mini-pump but it was rideable and we went back to the bike store and used a regular floor pump and bought a couple of new tubes.  (When I broke the bike down in Freiburg a week later, I realized that the stems on the new tubes were too short for the Rolf wheels – luckily we didn’t have any flat tires on the whole trip.)  We rode in circles trying to avoid cobblestones, had lunch, and ended up back at the hotel confident that we had a bike that worked.

That evening we had the customary meeting with the local agent for Discover France.  We didn’t realize that the meeting was set for a different hotel until he didn’t show up at the appointed time.  We weren’t looking for anything from him and it didn’t take him very long to run through the required warnings so it worked out fine and we still made our dinner reservations on time.  There was no discussion about the deposit on our Covid-aborted trip, though.

The next morning we rode to Obernai – about 30 miles.   The first part of the ride, through Strasbourg, wasn’t as complicated as Odette had feared.  The next section followed a canal and was cool and shady.  We saw a lot of farm land and didn’t have any big climbs – we got to Obernai in time for lunch,  We stayed at a place called A la Cour d’Alsace which was very nice except that there was a heatwave in process and we were in the part without air conditioning.  We ate at their restaurant  which was relocated out to the lawn and was quite pleasant.  It turns out that there is not a lot to do in Obernai in the summer.

The next day we did a loop  out to Mt. St. Odile and back to Obernai – only 21 miles but with a couple of significant climbs.  We saw a lot of pretty villages and impressive churches.  The monastery / retreat had an interesting back-story and picturesque architecture and the twisty descent was fun.  We had lunch in Obernai again and then walked out to a wine store and tasted Alsatian wines.  The store was friendly and able to ship wines – although like the wineries in Bordeaux they felt that their wine was too inexpensive to justify the amount of duties and tariffs levied on shipments to the US.  We bought a case of wine for shipment to Will in Berlin and the host insisted that we do a birthday / thank you card to put in the box as she couldn’t grasp an unprompted gift.  They also sold a variety of eau d’vie and a Ratafia – the first time I’ve been able to find that since my student days.

That evening Odette had a restaurant in mind but couldn’t connect with them on the phone or internet.  She got the front desk to call and they weren’t any help either, but a few hours later they called back to say that they had an opening in the hotel restaurant for us.   Odette declined (she was holding out for torte flambé) and we ended up at a place with more of a street-food vibe.

On the third day of riding we went to Riquewhir, revisiting several of the villages we’d seen the previous day and  navigating a climb on a narrow farm road just before the end of the ride.  We stayed at the Hotel du Schoenenbourg – a standard Best Western set down in a medieval village.  There was some confusion about the date and time of our reservation but we got a wine tasing at a winery and we were impressed by the wines to the extent that we bought another case and had it shipped to Will.  We ate at the hotel and it was surprisingly good.

The next day we rode on to Colmar, noticing (but not visiting) a bunch of Chateau on the way – 21 miles and we took the “long” option.  We saw more villages, more farmland, and a lot of wooded edges to the river valley.  The hotel, Hotel Turenne, was modern and quite a ways out of the center of town.  We ate at a restaurant on the church plaza and were happy with the food.  the next day we followed up with a 25 mile loop, retracing the way into town but seeing some different villages and vineyards.   Lunch was at the same place as the previous day (Les Tanneurs) and dinner was at a Brasserie in the old part of town – actually just on the other side of the church from the place we’d eaten a day earlier.  We found a winery in Colmar, tasted, and shipped another case to Will.

The final day of the planned tour was a 40 mile ride to Freiburg in Germany. The route was neither as complicated nor as hilly as Odette had feared.  We started with a long stretch along a canal, and eventually climbed a hill that got me down into the middle ring.  The main excitement was when we missed a trailhead on the left of a busy road and discovered that the next crossing didn’t go through – leaving us staring at a vacant lot with knee-high weeds next to a railroad.  We backtracked and got across the tracks and the  rest was much calmer.  We stopped at a Doner place for lunch and an old lady commented on our bike, then on her return pass (with groceries) she told us that her younger self had owned two tandems.  We stayed at a very nice place, Hotel Bierhausle, which was a 20 minute tram ride out of the center of town. (We went downtown for lunch the second day and couldn’t find the ticket machine so we rode back out to the hotel without paying.)  We ate at the hotel both nights we stayed there.  The next morning we rode through the old part of town and out to a ski area.  Odette didn’t turn on her cyclometer but it was a 16 mile ride that was impressively alpine in appearance.  The bike storage area (which had a full workbench) also had a bunch of snowboard stuff which should have been a clue.  After the ride I broke down the bike and packed it into the cases.  A guy in a wheelchair watched almost the entire process before he got rolled away.  In the morning we got a cab to the train station (back in the middle of town) hoisted our cases up to the second level  of the station, and caught a train to Berlin.

We didn’t have any luggage problems on this train segment.  We saw a lot of hilly farm country, really quickly.  Even so, the train got to Berlin an hour later than scheduled and Will had us get a cab instead of guiding us on the subway.  I had a brie & baguette sandwich which is apparently what one eats on German trains.

Will’s place is a conversion of a Berlin Roof on a pre-war East German building.  It is big and comfortable and modern – but the new elevator was still under construction so we got to walk five flights of stairs each time we came or went.    (When we showed up with the bike cases Will and Ian did the honors.)

I put the bike back together and Will and Ian led us out to Weissensee for lunch.  Odette and I spent the next few days on Museum Island.  We started with the topography of terror exhibits and then visited the Pergamon, the Bode and the Neues, topped off with the DDR Museum.  I was struck by the degree to which the narrative was focused on West German-centric concepts and institutions.  I guess that the victors really do write the history…

We followed our museum visits with bike rides to Muggelsee and Potsdam on the R1 (EuroVelo 2) bike route and then with a ride to Oranienberg on the D11 (EuroVelo 7) bike route.  Odette and I did a short ride through the Tiergarten (no squirrels) and Will led us on a ride along the Berlin Wall trail and across Templehoff.  The bike infrastructure in Berlin is impressive with signaled and well-marked lanes on most big streets and left-turn boxes at every intersection.  The downside is a lot of cobblestones and smaller pavers.

We ate out several times, mainly in the Samariter neighborhood (particularly around Boxhagner Platz.)  One night at a Japanese place was especially memorable.  I spent a lot of time in Will’s egg chair trying to make sense out of the buildings across the street.  (I think that most of the apartments in those buildings had four windows making them relatively large.)  We walked to a couple of grocery stores and to the Vietnamese market.  We bought 9€ all-you-can-ride subway passes.

The trip ended with a cab ride to the central Bahnhof.  We fidgeted around until they posted the track and positioning of the train and then got on the wrong car.  It didn’t matter, though, since there was no luggage rack by either door.  I got rushed and hoisted the cases into the overhead rack instead of trying to fit them under the seats.  They were too big for the rack and balanced precariously right over Odette – but they stayed up there all the way to Amsterdam.  The dining car was not in operation that day so we subsisted on a bag of vending machine chips.  After Hanover the train became a local and our compartment filled up.  It was a long day.

We caught a local train to the airport in Amsterdam (we were the only ones in 1st class) and found the Sheraton Hotel a few hundred feet from the platform.  Check-in was easy and the front desk agreed to store our cases.  Dinner was a buffet but it was surprisingly good.  We slept well.

We got up early for a 10:00 flight.  The woman at baggage drop off decided our cases were oversize and although she didn’t charge anything she made us take them to the oversize desk which we had trouble finding.  The flight back was uneventful and the food was actually quite tasty.  We deplaned in the new international terminal in Seattle.  Our cases came out right at the start of the flight – at which point we discovered that the line to passport control filled up the mazes and snaked around at least three of the luggage carousals.  An hour and a half later we were trying to figure out where the Lyft waiting area had been hidden since it clearly wasn’t where the arrows pointed.

Observations:

• S&S cases are for checking, not for carry-on.  That’s as true for trains as it is for airplanes
• Trains are easier than they were in the mid-’70s but they are still confusing and work a lot better if you can communicate with people
• the 9€ monthly subway pass made it much easier to get around and should be widely copied
• Urban cycling on the tandem is a challenge if you don’t know where you’re going
• If I bring the tandem to Berlin again I need to make sure I comply with the light/reflector rules.
• Berlin is amazingly flat
• It will be interesting to see what Schreinerstrasse looks like five or ten years from now
• You forget how much energy there is in a neighborhood where you can walk to a practically unlimited number of bars and cafes
• Delta business class is nice but you still have to deal with Karens – not sure I’d pay their list price ($12K?) for the upgrade.
• Seattle really needs to fix the customs process for international arrivals

 

travel book

 

Shakedown

Alsace day 1

Alsace day 2

Alsace day 3

Alsace day 4

Alsace day 5

Alsace day 6

Alsace day 7

Berlin 1

Berlin 2

Berlin 3

Berlin 4

Berlin 5

Berlin 6