Back in the USA

Miles from Home - 1734.7
Firsts / Highlights - Hearing English, driving a car for the first time in 2 ½ months
Miles Ridden - 0 miles
Vertical Feet - 0 ft.
Route - No route today
People - Just me.

This post is from July 12-16, 2009.


View Falls Village in a larger map

I assumed that a plane ride across the Atlantic would solve all of my challenges with being a mono-linguist. I forgot to consider that my first stop would be New York City where one language is barely adequate.

Getting back to U.S. soil was a long process, but fairly uneventful. I took a train from Lausanne to the Milan, a bus from the train station to the airport, a plane from Milan to JFK, a bus from JFK to Grand Central, a train from Grand Central to Wassaic and was picked up in Wassaic by my sister to go to Falls Village by car. This was my 8th and final time passing through Milano Centrale train station on this trip. Although I did not spend much time in the city, it was certainly the hub for all of my travels.



I will be spending 4 days visiting my Mom, sister and niece in Falls Village, CT before heading back to Steamboat. Since I planned to spend one day in NYC and one day visiting a college friend in a nearby town, I decided not to assemble my bike. In retrospect, I think that was a mistake to miss the exceptional riding in this part of New England, but this stop was more about catching up with people than riding.

I tabulated my bike stats for my time in Europe. My miles per day decreased a bit after the first month, but my climbing per mile increased. The totals for my 2 ½ months were:

Miles ridden – 1,974.44 (3,178 km)
Elevation gained – 155,257 feet (47,322 meters)
Time in the saddle – 160 Hours, 30 Minutes
Calories expended – 120,288 (software over-estimates this a bit)
Riding days – 46
Travel / Rest / Tourist days – 20
Days driving a car - 0
Rain days – 0
Flat tires – 1
Mechanical failures – 1 (broken chain link)



Of all that information, the one I have the most difficulty wrapping my head around is the vertical feet (elevation gained). I tried to put that number in context by visualizing a single hill that climbed to 155,000 feet. Of course, no such hill exists, but if it did, it would climb through the Troposphere and Stratosphere, pass the ozone layer and begin to enter the Mesosphere (the atmospheric layers where meteors burn up). It is a little over half the elevation required to achieve low earth orbit and is 1/6 of the way to the International Space Station. I’ve always wanted to travel into space, but Italy may be the closest I will ever get.

I will be flying from Connecticut to Steamboat on Friday where I will decide how I will spend the remainder of my sabbatical.

Thank you to everyone who has followed along and participated on my adventure so far. I will make a blog post when I decide what is next.

Switzerlandy

Miles from Home - 5242.7
Firsts / Highlights - Gruyeres, Gruyere & ham sandwich at XXX, a last visit to the Montreux Jazz Festival.
Miles Ridden - Fri – 21.06, Sat - 64.06 miles
Vertical Feet - Fri – 1,685, Sat - 4,828 ft.
Route - View Friday’s Route Here, View Saturday’s Route Here
People - Just me.

This post is from July 10-11, 2009.



Yesterday, I took a short ride back through the steep Lavaux vineyards between Lausanne and Montreux. The vineyards are inspiring, but it was a fairly light day for riding. I have posted a couple of additional pictures of the vineyards, but this post is really about Saturday, July 11.



I waited until my last day of riding in Europe to discover a brand new beautiful area. I had ridden in the direction of Gruyeres twice before, but never gone all the way there. Today, I did. Since I had ridden the farm country leading up to it before, I did not expect it to be as pretty as it was. It is located right at the foot of the Alps.



I discovered along the way that one of the roads I selected for my route is going to be part of the Tour de France a week from tomorrow. You can bet the tour organizers would not include a road in Switzerland unless it was plenty Switzerlandy. Since that’s my word, it can mean whatever I want it to. It had a castle, mountains, green fields. You know, Switzerlandy.



If I had my Lausanne stay to do over again, I would use the train to get up to that area and start a ride from Gruyeres rather than use it as a turnaround point. For future reference, the road that will be on the Tour de France looked very inviting. You can see a little stub on my GPS data where I rode out and turned around. I suspect it lead to a substantial climb. It’s going to have to wait for next time. Watch next Sunday’s stage and find out what I missed.







In the town of Gruyeres, I thought it was appropriate to try a little cheese. I couldn’t buy a pound to carry back on my bike, so I found a place where I could order a sandwich. This was the strangest bar I have ever seen. The town itself is typically quaint Switzerland, but right in the middle is the HR Giger Museum. Giger was the Visual Effects artist for the movie Alien and created the creatures in those movies. Actually, Giger used some of the money he won from his Oscar and bought the Chateau St. Germain in Gruyeres. He now uses it as his museum and bar. He has a scary imagination. Across the road from the museum is the bar that he designed. It was a little like walking onto the set for Alien and ordering a grilled cheese sandwich. A bit surreal - partially mechanical, partially biologic. The pictures don’t really show it very well, but you can tell it isn’t your normal corner bar. The sculpture to the left is called “Birth Machine” and the other must have been one of the prototypes for the Alien creature.



After leaving Gruyeres, I had a surplus of elevation that I had built up from the earlier climbs. That made for an enjoyable ride back to Montreux where I was able to carry some speed, but still enjoy the spectacular day.



I decided to make Montreux my final stop so that I could take one more pass through the festival and get some economical food like this enormous vat of paella.

With about five miles to go on the ride today, I started checking off my European “lasts”. Finished my last water bottle. Descended my last hill. Rounded my last traffic circle. Turned my last pedal stroke. It was over. Given such an invigorating 65-mile ride, I was sad for it to end, but thankful that it ended on a perfect day and a great ride.

I will be leaving tomorrow wanting more. Just as I had hoped.

Coming Home

I mentioned in a previous post that I thought my time in Europe was coming to an end within the next 7-10 days. Jeff Daniels was able to find me a return flight that was a little earlier than I had planned, but I decided to jump on it while it was available. Like Jeff and I discussed, it is better to leave wanting to stay a few days more than to be be here a few days too long.

I will be heading back to New York on July 13 and will stay there until July 17 visiting my mom, sister and neice. After that, I will head back to Colorado for some R&R from my R&R. Once I have a few breaths in my own house, I will decide what comes next on the sabbatical adventure.

I feel a little sad that tomorrow will be my last ride in Euope, but I'm looking forward to deciding what comes next.

What’s in a Name?

Miles from Home - 5242.7
Firsts / Highlights - Saw Geneva
Miles Ridden - 45.93 miles
Vertical Feet - 1,521 ft.
Route - View Today’s Route Here
People - Just me.

This post is from July 9, 2009.



The destination of my ride today was a city called Geneva (in English). It sits on a lake called Lake Geneva (in English). Seems logical. In French, the city is called Geneve. So wouldn’t you think the lake would be called Lac Geneve? No, It’s called Lac Leman. Come on! Someone is just trying to make this difficult.

Consider this. A city in Italy is called Genoa (in English). The Italian spelling is Genova. If you thought the status sign was in English (they sometimes are) and got one letter wrong, you could board a train thinking that you were going to Geneva and get off in Italy. One letter and a language shift would put you in the wrong country.

I had no such problem on my ride today. I made it to Geneve without incident.

The route I selected was unfortunately uninspired. There was very little rural land anywhere along the lake in that direction and the scenery was nothing special except for several views of the lake. I know I am getting spoiled by the great roads I have ridden, but I hope to continue to be spoiled throughout the rest of my stay.



When I arrived in Geneve, I found a lively post-work gathering down by the lake. It was 7:30 pm on a Thursday, so I don’t think it was anything special. My sense is that this goes on every day after work. All of the young professionals were sitting on small lawns having drinks and smoking cigarettes. I wonder what happens on Fridays. A trio of 2 clarinets and an oboe provided improvised music as they roamed the lakefront (I was most interested in photographing the oboe player).



Due to the late hour when I arrived, I took the train back most of the way to Lausanne, then got off and rode the final 6-7 miles.

Jeff Daniels is doing research now to determine when I can get a return flight to the U.S.. I think I am getting close to the time to wrap up this chapter of the adventure. I’ll continue to ride and explore until I know when I need to start working toward an airport. I expect that I will be here another 7 to 10 days. I have to keep reminding myself that 7 to 10 days is usually called a vacation. I still have plenty of time to see new things.

Wine & Cheese Ride

Miles from Home - 5242.7
Firsts / Highlights - First flat tire (in my hotel room), first ride in Switzerland, walked my bike down a 22% grade cobblestone street, rode to tiny ski area Les Paccots.
Miles Ridden - 49 miles
Vertical Feet - 3,800 ft.
Route - Lost by Garmin again.
People - Just me.

This post is from July 8, 2009.



I got back on the bike today for the first time after 11 days off. It felt great, but it was noticeable that I had lost a bit of fitness over that time.

I started the day riding along the shore of Lake Geneva. I actually saw my GPS read 0% grade for a couple of miles. That has not happened much on this trip. The lakeshore was flat, but to my left, an 800-year-old terraced vineyards climbed steeply up a hillside. This wine region is called Lavaux, and is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The monks who built these vineyards did not have a thought of maintaining the vines with mechanized equipment. With such a steep slopes, a lot of labor must go into every bottle of wine.



After a nice warm-up along the lakeshore, I decided to head inland to see what this part of Switzerland looks like. Immediately, the GPS went from 0% to 14% and stayed there for a while. The views quickly got better with each switchback.

At one point during the ride, there was a closed road due to construction and the alternate route took me up the steepest paved road I have ever seen, much less ridden. It was 27% according to the GPS. Not very long, but it was a battle for each pedal stroke. The interesting thing about climbing a hill that steep is that you have to decide whether you can make it before you start. If you get bogged down half way up, you may or may not be able to get your foot down to stop yourself. I now know that I can ride 27% for a little while, but there has to be a limit to what they will pave around here. I also encountered a 22% descent on cobblestones. I lost my nerve on that one and walked down. That was a first.



The first part of the ride was dedicated to winemaking, but once I got away from the lake, I was in cheese country. I headed up in the direction of the town of Gruyeres, but didn’t get that far today. Obviously with that town as a seat, you know the region produces a good amount of cheese. I saw some dairy cows and production plants, but I suspect that if I get deeper into that region tomorrow I will see more.

A funny thing about Gruyere cheese. Swiss Gruyere is a solid cheese, while the same style in France must have holes. What we commonly call “Swiss Cheese” is actually French. I have not seen any type of cheese in Switzerland that has holes.



I ended today’s ride by going over to Montreux to see what the Jazz Festival scene looked like during the day. It was a fun festival atmosphere and the town was beautiful, but not as electric as my first visit at night. I think Montreux is best seen at night during the weeks of Jazz Festival.



I started to ride back to Lausanne along the lake, but some really ominous clouds rolled in. The great thing about riding along the lake is that the rail line also follows the lake. I just went to the next town with a stop and caught a train back to Lausanne before the rain started. That train saved me an hour of bike cleaning when I got back. It was nice of them to place it there for me.

Here is another addition to the WYLTBRTR collection.

Montreux Jazz Festival

Miles from Home - 5,181.1 miles
Firsts / Highlights - Montreux Jazz Festival, saw Stanley Clarke, Marcus Miller & Victor Wooten (S.M.V.), saw Eric Lewis (ELEW), saw Quincy Jones back stage, saw George Duke & Chaka Khan, saw 4:00 am for the first time in a while.
Miles Ridden - 0 miles
Vertical Feet - 0 ft.
Route - No route today
People - Just me.


View Lausanne in a larger map

This post is from July 6, 2009.



Today started as another long transportation day, but it turned into much more. It only took 2 trains to get from Finale Ligure Italy to Lausanne Switzerland on Lake Geneva. Now that I am traveling with my bike again, having fewer segments was a big benefit.

The first thing I noticed was how much cooler it was here. Lausanne is a little farther north and 1,500 feet higher than the Riviera. That makes a big difference.

There were three reasons I selected Lausanne as my next city to visit. First, Rick Steves recommended it highly. Second, the Montreux Jazz festival, only 20 miles down the lakeshore, was going on from July 3-18. Finally, I wanted to see Lake Geneva, and Lausanne is supposed to be one of the nicest cities on the lake.

I really did not know very much about the Jazz Festival, other than that I had been aware that it existed ever since my days of playing in high school jazz band. I sent an e-mail to my friend Cary Kocher who did some research and found that an exciting concert was going on Monday night (the night I arrived). The trio of Stanley Clarke, Marcus Miller and Victor Wooten (S.M.V.) were scheduled to play. It is always dangerous, and pointless, to use the word “best” about musicians, but all three of these bassists are near the top of most people’s list of favorites. I had no idea how 3 bassists could play together, but the idea was intriguing. I have listened to Stanley Clark since the 70’s and have heard Victor Wooten play with Bela Fleck a couple of times. I did not know Marcus Miller, but Cary said that he was also amazing. Two problems. I did not have tickets and I did not arrive at my hotel (20 miles away) until 7:00 pm.

As soon as I checked in, I took a quick shower and hopped back on a train to Montreux. I didn’t think I had a very good chance of getting into the concert, but I thought the festival would be fun to see. I arrived in Montreux a little before 9:00 and the concert was scheduled to start at 8:30.

I found my way from the train to the Mile Davis Theater venue. A guy approached me with a ticket available before I could get to the box office. He said it was a reserved seat and he wanted 100 francs. I didn’t know if that was good or bad, but the face value on the voucher he was holding was much higher. I told him to wait for a minute while I checked at the box office. I was told that the concert was sold out, but there were a couple of Standing-room-only spots available if I wanted one for 90 francs (those Swiss prices again). He told me that concert had 3 acts and the first one had just started. First up was Eric Lewis (Elew) second was S.M.V. and the late-night show was George Duke with Chaka Khan. The surprising good news was that I had options.

Now I had to decide whether to take the sure thing with the SRO ticket or take a chance with the scalper. I figured that regardless of whether or not it was a good seat, it was worth 10 francs if I didn’t have to stand for 4-5 hours. On the other hand, the home-printed voucher could be a scam, the ticket office might require I.D. to exchange the voucher, I could be arrested for scalping and I had no idea how the venue was arranged and whether I would be able to see the stage from this seat.

The motivation to not stand for 5 hours was strong, and I decided to take a chance with the scalper (although I’m not sure it is appropriate to call someone a scalper when they sell for below face value).

I went to the ATM machine to get some Swiss Francs and handed over his bounty. He took me to the ticket window and handed over the voucher and they put a band on my wrist. The ticket office cut out a portion of the voucher and gave it back to the seller, but I didn’t think anything of it at the time.

The seller ushered me toward the venue where he said, “have fun” and disappeared.

I wondered, “Okay, when is this deal going to blow up?”

I got to the front of the line and was asked if I had a reserve seat ticket. I said, ‘Oui’ (I'm multi-lingual, you know), but then realized that my wristband was generic and had no indication of a seat number. I thought, “Ahh, that didn’t take long, this is when it blows up. Oh well, at least I can get in for SRO and I only wasted 10 francs”.

Rather than give up right away, I went back up to the ticket desk and found the woman who had given me the wristband. She remembered the transaction and started looking through the trashcan for the voucher that had the seat number. She had a couple of urgent looking conversations with co-workers, and then signaled for me to wait a moment. She came around the desk and started leading me back toward the venue. I think she was planning to give verbal approval for me to go in, but when we got back the entrance, the seller was standing there with the voucher that included the seat number. Apparently, it was an honest mistake that he forgot to give it to me.

With the voucher in hand, I entered the venue. Eric Lewis was already performing, so I had to wait until the end of the song in the SRO area. It was a pretty cool auditorium because they were doing Hi-Def recordings of all of the shows and they had large screens on either side of the stage showing live feeds of the 2 fixed and 2 mobile cameras. It gave the visual experience of a DVD concert with the audio of a live show.

The voucher was in French, so I wasn’t sure exactly what it said. I could tell that it was seat #9, but I wasn’t sure what the ‘1’ meant. Was it a section number, level number, or what? It couldn’t be row 1, could it? When the song ended, the usher took me toward my seat. We walked to the front of the auditorium until we got to the front row. I thought, “wow, front row, not bad for a poached ticket. Seat 9 though, I’m sure it must be at a terrible angle”.

Actually, the center seat was #1 and they went up in even numbers to the left and odd numbers to the right. That meant my seat was forth to the right of center and stage was at eye level. Do you remember my definitions of luck vs. fortune? This was clearly a case of luck being on my side.

The rest of the Elew concert was an interesting new exposure. I could best describe him as a “primal” piano player. The band’s instrumentation was piano, drums, electronics and violin. The most distinctive physical characteristic for Eric was that he did not use a piano bench. He played standing, kneeling, crouching, everything but sitting. He was a very powerful player, although highly non-traditional. I really enjoyed it.



The S.M.V. trio came on at about 11:00. The question about how 3 bass players make a band was quickly answered. Very well. The full instrumentation was 3 basses (mostly electric, but Stanley played stand-up at the end), keyboards and drums. Marcus also played bass clarinet on a couple of tunes. They arranged their music with Stanley playing low bass, Marcus in the middle and Victor playing the higher end. They each had a different approach to playing the instrument, but all three were jaw dropping. You rarely hear bass as a lead instrument. You never hear 3 basses together



Stanley Clarke went to the microphone to greet the audience after the first couple of blow-your-hair-back songs. He gave the usual welcoming comments, then asked, “How does it sound out there? Up here, it’s sounding a bit ‘heavy’”. Considering the instrumentation, that got a good laugh.

The entire set was a thrill to watch.

From my seat, I could clearly see the wings on the right side of the stage. About half way through the set, there was a little commotion that took my eyes off the stage for a moment. The reason for the movement was that Quincy Jones had taken a seat to watch the concert from the wings. Apparently, wherever Quincy goes, some serious ass-kissing follows. I saw Chaka Khan and George Duke working him pretty hard, then a parade of other people trying to get a word with him. His presence was never announced, but I could tell that the musicians were aware that he was there. As they left the stage, they lined up behind each other to pay homage to the “Q”. Victor actually bowed as he shook his hand. Apparently Quincy is royalty.

S.M.V. has released an album called “Thunder” recently. If your sound system can handle it, you might want to add it to your collection. As a live concert, the bass was chest thumping. I’m not sure how many home sound systems could create the same effect.

I finally left Montreux at 3:00 am and got back to the hotel at 4:00. It was a late night, but a memorable one.

BTW – Since I have taken all of the pictures on this blog, I have to disclose that these are not my pictures. They were taken by the person sitting to my left with his iPhone and he was kind enough to e-mail them to me. I did not have a camera with me.

Tour de France

Miles from Home - 5343.0
Firsts / Highlights - Tour de France Stage 1 & 2, saw Paul Sherwin and Phil Ligget, got pictures of most of the race contenders
Miles Hiked - 0 miles (actually, I walked a number of miles on the time trial course, but did not capture any GPS tracks)
Vertical Feet - 0 ft.
Route - No route today
People - Jeremy & Jenn from Wisconsin


Monaco auf einer größeren Karte anzeigen

This post is from July 3-5, 2009.



10 Hours, 5 Trains, 4 Countries, 3 Languages, 2 Currencies, 1 Day

I don’t even know what language I do not understand any more.

Getting to Monaco didn’t happen easily. I passed through 3 different languages starting with German in Switzerland in the morning, Italian in the afternoon and ending with French in Monaco in the evening. In addition to the usual issues, this created a few minutes of intense travel confusion. Upon arrival at what I thought was my final train stop, I got off and found nothing that looked like the area where my hotel was supposed to be located. Nobody was around the station, so I eventually decided that I needed to backtrack 1 stop. A little lost time, but no big deal. When I looked at the train schedule to figure out when I could get the next train back, the previous train station wasn’t there. I examined the schedule for the rest of the day and the whole next day – there were no trains going back to the previous stop. How could that be?

The answer was a special case because the town I was trying to find sat at the border between Italy and France. Trains traveling west refer to it by its Italian name, and trains traveling east use the French name. In some cases, names are fairly similar, but in other cases like this, they are very different. By process of elimination I figured out where I needed to go and made it to my hotel. I wonder if this is how the city of Atlantis was lost to the ages.



On the “Where is Randy Going Next Sweepstakes”, it is now time to declare Kent Kirkpatrick the winner. He suggested that I augment my Giro chasing experience with the start of the Tour de France. At the time of the contest, his suggestion would have been an easy 2-hour trip, but my decision to jump up to Switzerland to catch a window of good weather made it far less efficient. Regardless of the extra travel, it was a great idea. How often do you get to see the start of the two biggest bike races in the world in the same year?

My plan when I left for Switzerland was to leave my bike and box in Finale Ligure (only 2 hours from Monaco). I would spend my week in Zermatt and Interlaken, then pick up my bike as I passed back through Finale on the way to Monaco. Having my bike in Monaco would be fun because I could ride the time trial course immediately before the start of the big race. It sounded feasible, but as I worked through the details, the final 15 minutes of the 10-hour journey proved unworkable.

Problem: The train for the final 15-minute ride into France did not accept bikes.
Possible solution #1: Ride the final miles – Not possible with all of my luggage.
Possible solution #2: Take a taxi instead of a train for the last short segment – not possible or difficult because taxis cannot transport you across the border between Italy and France. Even with that solved, I would need to disassemble my bike to fit it into a taxi, which was a big project for a small ride.
Possible solution #3: Rent a car – I’m not going to break down and rent my first car to drive 15 minutes.

As unlikely as it seems, I could not solve the logistics for the final six miles, so my bike remained in Finale and I went to Monaco.



How does the Giro compare to Le Tour? I’m sure there are more differences than meet the eye, but my observation is that they are similar, but everything at the Tour is just a bit bigger. The finish line bleachers are bigger, the sea of television trucks is bigger, the newpaper coverage is bigger and the overall hype is bigger.

I don’t know if they realized these numbers, but Monaco was expecting 250,000 spectators for “The Grand Depart” (opening ceremonies, Stage 1 and departure for Stage 2). With fans spread out over a course, it is difficult to estimate numbers, but whether or not the estimate is accurate, it is a big event.



My first full day in Monaco was the individual time trial for Stage 1. I arrived about 4 hours before the start of the race to get a feel for the city, wandered through the team bus/truck area and walked part of the time trial course. The bus/truck area was very similar to the final stage of the Giro in Rome with one big difference. All of the bike manufacturers were showing off the latest equipment that they would debut for the Tour. They were really only interested in showing off to the press, but spectators could see the bikes being prepped, so it was all out in the open. I didn’t see anything radically different, but there were some components that won’t be available to mortals for a while. Some of the headsets, in particular, looked more aerodynamic and integrated into the frames.

Monaco is a great place for the ultra wealthy. I am pretty sure that city (country) could absorb as much money as you cared to leave with them. I ended up leaving a bit more than I expected. One hour before the start of the race, my camera died again. Because of the issue with the image sensor, I was pretty sure that it was really dead this time. I found a camera shop with the Canon G10 in stock. It wasn’t as expensive as Switzerland, but still more than the U.S.. I didn’t see going without a camera for the rest of the trip as a viable option, so I am now the owner of a Canon G10. It is nearly identical to the dead G9 with a couple of extra megapixels and a higher resolution screen. Other than that, the biggest difference is that this one works.

With the new camera in hand about 15 minutes before the start of the race, I started walking the course to stake out my viewing location. Racers were still out doing recon on the course, but the energy was starting to build for the first competing rider. I decided that I would wonder this time rather than finding a single spot for the entire race. Since this was a time trial with racers going one at a time, I had more than 3 hours to work with. I walked the course (15k total) and watched each rider pass with his police escort in front and team cars behind. Whenever I got to a place that appeared to be a good location for photos, I stopped to shoot a few riders.

Unfortunately, I did not have a list of the start order for the racers. Typically, the order is determined by general classification standing with the top rider going last, but since this was the first stage, it was somewhat random. It appeared that the organizers put the leading contenders at the end of the start order, but that was not completely true. A Texan that you may have heard of was in the first quarter of riders to start after taking a few of years off from the race. Fortunately, I had stopped to take pictures when he went by. He was kind of busy and didn’t have time to wave, but I did manage to get another picture (see first picture in this post).



I got Lance, Levi, George, Frank & Andy, Mark, Fabian, Carlos, Cadel and quite a few others. Unfortunately, I only got a blur with the fading light when Alberto went past. He really was climbing well as he passed me, but apparently did not descend as well as Fabian who won the stage. I also saw Paul Sherwin and Phil Ligget (commentators) wearing shirts, ties and shorts after the finish, but couldn’t grab a decent pic.

Even though point and shoot cameras are better than they used to be, they still have annoying shutter lag. You press the shutter, and the camera captures the image about ½ second later. At one point, I was trying to catch some closeups at high speed around one of the curves. They would have been great pictures with my big camera, but it was hopeless with the point and shoot. In one case, I looked at the picture after the racer went past and there was absolutely nothing in the frame. Not the back of the rider, not even the blur of a back wheel. It was a complete wiff. That is the difference ½ second makes at the speed these guys ride.



The first stage ended with Fabian Cancellara in the Yellow Jersey. He was a member of the Swiss National team at the Bejing Olympics that were lead by Richard Steiner from Hotel Dory (I wrote about him in my “Easy Day in the Alps” post).



The second stage was on Sunday. It was a road race starting in Monaco, so I had an opportunity to watch them get started before I headed to Lausanne Switzerland. In a road stage, you never get to see the race for more than a few seconds. The racers are going for 4 to 6 hours typically, but spectators just get a quick glimpse. I took the train to one station short of Monaco and found a good elevated location on a switchback to watch them pass by. I staked out my spot for 1 ½ hours, then it happened. Police escort, helicopter, lead-out vehicle, peloton, team cars, more police and it’s done. With those 90 seconds taken care of, I was ready to fight the crowds to get a train back to my hotel and pick up my luggage.



The amazing sprinter, Mark Cavendish, from Team Columbia won stage 2. He is already a well-known name in cycling, but I suspect non-cyclists will hear of him before too long. He is racking up stage wins like few others have, and he is only in his early twenties.

Speaking of sprinters, here is a leg of a sprinter (Tom Boonen). Obviously a sprinter needs to have power to sprint to the finish line after a 130-mile race, but you can also see how many times he has crashed. All of these guys have battle scars, but sprinters in particular get involved in all kinds of nasty jostling as the pack sprints for the line.

Update - Sorry Tom - shortly after publishing this post, Tom Boonen crashed hard on Stage 6. Fortunately, he was able to continue, but the battering of a sprinter goes on.

I have decided that it is a very good thing I am doing this trip alone. Although there are plenty of people who spectate, it takes a certain type of person to spend most of a day to watch 90 seconds of action. Traveling alone, I don’t need to worry about anyone else being bored out of their minds.

The heat and humidity are really starting to build in the Mediterranean. My clothes were soaked just from walking the course. The trains all the way from Switzerland to Monaco (10 hours) did not have air conditioning. How hot was it? The chocolate I brought from Switzerland was fully liquefied in the train without being exposed to sunlight.

With the heat climbing and the European vacation crowds growing, I think the window of opportunity for visiting warm destinations is closing. I will head back up to Switzerland and decide how much longer to continue the European leg of this adventure.

Knee Status

A few people have asked about my knee since my posthole incident hiking in Zermatt. I haven't been back on my bike since then, but I think everything is okay. I don't have any new pain, so I think it was just a little scare with no real consequence.

Paragliding

Miles from Home - 5214.51
Firsts / Highlights - Paragliding, Hot chocolate at Shilthorn rotating restaurant, Swiss chocolate, riding in the engine driver’s compartment of a mountain train
Miles Hiked - 0 miles
Vertical Feet - 0 ft.
Route - No route today
People - Simon – Paraglider pilot.

This post is from July 2, 2009.



Today was to be my last day in Interlaken, so if I wanted to experience one of the adventure sports that people do here, this was my last chance. Rather than leave the possibility of being shutout by lightning again, I decided to get going first thing. Okay, “my” first thing. 10:30.



Of all the sports I wrote about last time, I decided to go paragliding. I chose it because I thought it would be a safe thrill with great views of the lakes and would be a variation on flying glider planes like I did a few years ago. I think I made a good choice. Like flying a glider, paragliding is “pure flying”. There are no motors or instruments involved, and you ride the thermals just like a bird. There is no parachute opening to worry about because it is already open when you take off. There is a reserve chute for emergencies, but use is extremely rare.

George, the owner of Hotel Derby, made arrangements for the tour company to pick me up and take me to the landing area where I met my pilot Simon. Simon was a good-natured guy from Bern. His “real” job was as a PC tech, but he had a pretty flexible schedule that allowed him to drive to Interlaken a few days a week and take people flying on his tandem paraglider. He told me that his company has 90 commercial paraglider pilots, and 30 of them make their full-time living giving rides. That doesn’t even include people who fly non-commercially and all of the other outfitter companies. As you might guess, there are gliders in the skies over Interlaken most of the time.

I just realized that I never even signed a release form. Can you imagine? Simon just rounded up a driver and we loaded his 55-pound backpack into the car and we were ready to head up the mountain for our launch. A good indication that we were launching for a picturesque Swiss hillside is that Ricola (the candy company) was up there filming a commercial.

Simon’s tandem rig was big enough that you really would not want to hike very far, but there are lighter solo kits that weigh as little as 10 pounds. Small rigs create some interesting possibilities. You could hike wherever you want to go, and then fly home rather than do the painful downhill hike. Sounds like a fun day.

One of the things that made paragliding like nothing else I have done is the take-off. You don’t jump off of anything. You just run down a hill until the hill drops away from your feet. Simon’s strongest advice was, “don’t stop running, even when you think you have taken off, keep running”. That was good advice, because the first thing you think when your feet start feeling light is that you must be in the air. You really need to keep driving forward, however, to achieve flight.



Once truly off the ground, Simon told me to sit down in the harness. That was the only uncomfortable moment of the flight. I couldn’t get the harness to convert from the vertical running position to the horizontal sitting position. I could have safely taken the entire flight hanging vertically from the harness, but it would not have been very comfortable and it gave me the sensation that I was hanging on rather than being supported by the harness. It was a welcome feeling when I finally got situated.



Since I had previously flown gliders, Simon almost immediately turned over the controls to me. It was more fun for me and it allowed him to take more photographs. I took all of the scenery shots, but he was able to get shots of the two of us using a camera mounted on the end of a telescoping pole with a remote shutter release. This allowed him to get the camera far enough away from us that he could take really good pictures from all different angles. The photographs were a way for the pilots to have a little side-business apart from the tour operator. I was happy to help out Simon and ended up with some pictures that I could not have taken myself.

For the landing, I gave the controls back to Simon. We landed softly in a field right back where we started. A few feet above the ground, he stalled the chute and we set down gently with only a few running strides necessary. It was much softer than my previous parachute landings.



With my adventure sport objective satisfied, I still had enough of the day remaining for a trip into the mountains. Doug Allen had suggested that I check out the aerial tramway system leading up to Shilthorn. The destination was a revolving mountaintop restaurant that was made famous in one of the early James Bond movies. It is perched on top of a rocky peak with top-of-the-world views. It is impressive that it was possible to build a tram to reach such a rugged spot, much less construct a revolving restaurant. The tram gives access to a location that most people would never see in their lifetimes without.



The route to Shilthorn actually required 2 trains and 3 trams (Train from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen, Tram to Grutschalp, train to Murren, 2 trams to Shilthorn). There was some minor hiking between some of the stations, but this was not a bad day on the feet. The second train was almost like a hobbyist train set all grown up. I was able to sit in the front compartment with the engine driver. It was interesting to see that perspective on train travel after so many hours of looking only sideways.

I am starting to miss my bike, but all in all, this was a pretty great day.



Tomorrow is a long travel day to get down to Monaco for the start of the Tour de France.

Interlaken

Miles from Home - 5214.51
Firsts / Highlights - Near miss with riding a zip line, near miss with being hit by lightning, Grindelwald, Top of First, seeing Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau peaks, hike to Bachalpsee
Miles Hiked - 10.45 miles
Vertical Feet - 871 ft.
Route - View Today’s Route Here
People - Just me.


Afficher Interlaken sur une carte plus grande

This post is from July 1, 2009.



My second stop in Switzerland is Interlaken. I didn’t have any strong reason to choose this city other than lots of people saying that it is a fun place to visit. It is a little lower elevation than Zermatt, so it is a bit warmer, but it is surrounded by huge Alps like Eiger and Jungfrau.

I had heard that Interlaken is the adventure sport capital of the world, but I wasn’t really sure what that meant. Right away upon arrival, I started to get the picture. There are many outfitter companies here that offer excursions for sports you are unlikely to have ever tried, and some you probably didn’t know existed. Here are some of them:

White water rafting
Parasailing
Paragliding
Hang gliding
Canyoning
Bungee jumping
Canyon jumping
Skydiving
Zip line
Zorbing

All of these activities are on top of the independent sports you can do, such as hiking, in the high mountains. The comprehensive transportation system includes trains, busses, aerial trams and funiculars which makes access to the mountains inviting.



Combine specialized sports with the generally high cost of doing anything in Switzerland, and it looks like Interlaken may be a great place to have fun and spend a lot of money. I am going to attempt to do the former while keeping the latter under control.

You may not have heard of some of the sports that are done here.

Parasailing – is like water skiing, but you use the wind pulling a parachute rather than a boat for propulsion.

Paragliding – is like hang gliding, but you hang from a steerable parachute rather than a fixed wing. You take off like a hang glider by running off a steep hill or cliff. No airplane is necessary like skydiving.

Canyoning – there is no firm definition for canyoning, but it is a combination of several crazy things you can do in a canyon. They include rappelling down waterfalls, jumping off rocks into a river and sliding down rock formations like a water slide.

Canyon Jumping – is like bungee jumping with the added element of being inside a canyon.

Zip line – is another name for a Tyrolean Traverse. You connect to a steel cable with a harness and slide down the line. There is a particularly steep zip line here that covers ½ mile in 45 seconds reaching a top speed of 84 km/hr. It drops 200 meters over the course of an 800 meter run (25% grade).

Zorbing – is rolling down a hill inside a double-walled inflatable ball. The ball protects you like a Mars lander.

Some of these look intriguing, a few don’t.



I started the day by taking the train to the high Alps just outside Interlocken to a town called Grindelwald. From there, I bought a ticket for a gondola that went to the top of First (First is the name of a mountain, not “#1”). The unusual thing about this gondola was that it had 3 angle stations that redirected the line as it climbed up the mountain. Two were sophisticated decelerate/reaccelerate stations where you could unload, and one was a simple redirection with only a cable change (no decel/accel). Once at the top, it was my plan to do a hike to Bachalp Lake, then take the zip line from the top down to the next station before riding the gondola back to Grindelwald.

I was excited to try the zip line because we have talked about installing one at Steamboat for a number of years. This one was by far the longest, steepest and fastest that I had ever seen, so it was a chance to see what is possible with such an attraction. Other than being particularly steep, the other thing that made this one unique was that it had 4 parallel lines so that multiple people could ride at the same time.



As I was approaching Bachalpsee, I saw that some dark clouds were coming over the ridge and that afternoon rains were inevitable. Since I wanted to be sure to get the zip line ride in, I turned around early and headed back down to the top of the First gondola (top of the zip line). I beat the rain back and thought I was home free. I went to the platform just in time to see a couple of guys take off. It was a rush as they kicked open the retaining gates and quickly accelerated to over 50 mph.

I was to be next, but just before the harnesses could be returned up the line, the rain started. The operator told me that this happens every afternoon. She said that since they could not operate in the rain, I should go to the restaurant and wait it out. I did.

Returning to the platform after the rain, I found the operator looking confused. They had been unable to restore electrical power or communication after the rain passed through. If the top and bottom stations of the zip line cannot communicate, the system has a fail-safe that prevents it from operating. They eventually concluded that the line had been hit by lightning during the rain and that they would not be able to get it functioning for the rest of the day.

So close. One adventure sport attempt foiled. I was disappointed, but at least the lightning didn’t take out the gondola, which would have meant a 3-4 hour hike down in the mud.

Luck Interrupted

Miles from Home - 5242.7
Firsts / Highlights - Hiking on Zermatt ski resort, Running of the Goats, more views of Matterhorn
Miles Hiked - 11.99 miles
Vertical Feet - -4,089 ft.
Route - View Today’s Route Here
People - Just me.

This post is from June 29, 2009.



Score one for the superstitious. The day after I blogged about the good luck and fortune I have experienced during my trip, I was hit with a rash of bad things. Superstitious people would say that I was asking for trouble by acknowledging that so many things had gone well. I prefer not to consider superstition, but those who believe would say that today proves their point. All in the same day, I had the following things happen:
1. My camera sensor started to fail – more later
2. My iPod froze
3. My GPS lost the record of today’s hike (later recovered)
4. A hiking mishap nearly took out my knee with the damaged meniscus.

My camera failed to shut down properly a couple of days ago and it overheated. I think this damaged the image sensor and the camera now only works intermittently. Returning it to the factory is the only way to repair a damaged sensor. That would be a 3-week process that isn’t practical while traveling. It is clear that the camera is going to fail, but I don’t know when it will become unusable. Canon will not do a replacement from a retail store because it is 2 months out of warranty. I could purchase a replacement, but that is very expensive in Europe and U.S. companies like Amazon cannot ship here. There are no good options, but I am going to roll the dice and keep using it until it fully fails.

The most serious problem happened while hiking across a snowfield today. I unexpectedly broke through the snow and my left leg dropped down to my hip where it became wedged between two boulders. This caused my right knee to abruptly go into full flexion, which is the one position I need to avoid while I live with my torn meniscus. It was initially very painful, but fortunately, by the time I am writing this, everything seems to be okay. Like my camera and my shoulder, failure is inevitable, but I am trying to live with their frailties until they impact my lifestyle enough that more definitive action necessary.



I figured out today why Matterhorn is so striking. Its shape and angles are distinctive, but the really noticeable thing is its apparent size. It is a high peak even by Colorado standards at 4,478 m (14,691 ft) and rises out of the town of Zermatt that sits at 1,620 m (5,315 ft). That makes the exposed vertical relief 2,858 m (9,377 ft) which is much larger than anything in Colorado and is a lot of exposed rock rising straight out of a valley floor. As you can tell by the pictures, I was just as captivated by it today.

On the good luck side of the ledger, the weather held out for another day. Considering the rain and snow that have been happening every day in Switzerland, I have been very lucky (there I go again). I’m starting to think that the locals are publishing bad weather forecasts to keep the tourists away.



While returning from my hike today, I was passing through Zermatt on the way to the hotel. I heard a chorus of clanking bells, and then saw a herd of goats heading toward me. Apparently the goats are moved between fields twice a day, and Zermatt sits in the middle. Running with the Goats is considerable less risky than Running with the Bulls.

Two days of intense hiking have left my legs more sore than they have been at any point during this trip. Since I was exploring the lift system today, most of my hiking was downhill. Going downhill is much more likely to make me sore than cycling or hiking up hill.

My last day in Zermatt ended with dinner in the hotel dining room (cheese fondue). The view of Matterhorn at sunset from my table was a good way to end this stay.