San Francisco Crosstown and Double Cross Walks

I had a little epiphany recently where I thought to myself, "People from all over the world pay lots of money and fly into San Francisco. We live right here. Maybe we can do a few excursions just like a tourist would and see whether it's any good!" With that, I found the San Francisco Doublecross and the San Francisco Crosstown walks and decided to tackle them over a couple of Saturdays.

Both these walks start at free parking lots in San Francisco (Fort Funston and Candlestick Park), which is important because you're going to be gone all day. Despite San Francisco's reputation, on neither days did our cars get broken into. On the return you're going to have to Uber/Waymo or take public transit back. Since San Francisco public transit sucks, you're probably going to have to Uber or Waymo. Of the two ride hailing services, Waymo actually will refuse to deliver you to either Candlestick Park or Fort Funston, but on the Doublecross it can deliver you to Lake Merced and by pushing the "Pullover" button at a judicious time you can keep the walk back to the parking lot to less than a mile. Of course, the price of these ride hailing services is such that this is far more expensive than any of the other hikes in the Bay Area where you can loop back to the car. On the other hand, you're basically pretending to be a tourist who's paid at least a few hundred dollars for the flight to San Francisco, so you can still pretend to come out ahead.

The nice thing about doing a walk like this in the city is that you pretty much only need to carry a small water bottle and your wallet (or phone with GPay/Apple Pay) and walk. There's plenty of places to buy food, refill your water bottle, and in the case of the Crosstown, there are even many designated restrooms along the way. There are also plenty of distractions, so even if you're a fast walker (we're not), do not expect either of these walks to take less than a day.

Of the two walks, the Double Cross is actually a much better route. It starts at Fort Funston and ends at Pier 29, so you have a tail wind most of the way, which makes it much more comfortable. It also shows off more of the iconic San Francisco neighborhoods, taking you through Stern Grove, Twin Peaks, China Town, Little Italy, and Embarcadero, Coit Tower, and of course the San Francisco Exploratorium. The Crosstown by contrast does take you through the Presidio and Golden Gate Park, but neither feel as iconic. The DoubleCross also shows you the homeless situation in San Francisco while the Crosstown strictly avoids homelessness.

Both routes have about 2000 feet of climbing, and would never take a route around a hill when it can take you directly over it for maximum chance of views. I chose to do both walks in the summer so we would have maximum daylight despite relatively late starts, and also because summer is when hiking in the south bay would be extremely hot while San Francisco is nice and cool, providing a nice break from the summer heat.

Both Candlestick park and Fort Funston close at sunset, so there's a deadline for the hike --- you must return to your car by the time the parks close, so you must finish by around 7:00pm in the summer. Candlestick park is nowhere close to good dining, but Fort Funston is conveniently located near Soul Rice, one of the few good Chinese restaurants you can find easily that never has a wait and serves food quickly. In both cases we finished the walk within about 7 hours of starting (including a half hour or so for lunch), and our kids are 14 and 10, so this should be well within the capability of most non-sedentary adults.

Both walks showed me aspects of San Francisco that I'd never made a point of visiting before, and also provide iconic visits to the city's many varied parks. The best time to do this hike if you're capable of getting up early is in the Spring or Fall, when the views wouldn't be obscured by the heavy fog. Nevertheless, I enjoyed both walks as a respite from the heat as well as an idea of what causes people to travel to visit San Francisco.

Review: Hileen replacement nosepads for Oakley cycling glasses

 One of the most annoying things about cycling with glasses is when they keep sliding down your nose. I've tried stuff like nerdwax which works for ordinary glasses, but those absolutely do not work with cycling glasses like my preferred Oakleys.

I did notice that Amazon sold replacement nosepads by various Chinese manufacturers, and the Hileen one advertises that they make special Asian-fit nosepads. I bought them and installed them and used them all throughout the tour this year. They alleviate the problem, but don't make it completely go away. It turns out that the most likely cause of glasses slipping is your helmet being a bit loose and rattling down on your glasses and causing them to slide down.

After I got back, I decided that this wasn't helping, and then switched to the original pads that came with my glasses. Wow, the originals were so much worse that I immediately switched back after one ride. So these are effective. Recommended.

Review: Wolftooth Encase Hex Wrench Kit

 If you have a minimalist toolbag on your bike, you probably at some point run out of space. One alternative is to stow your tools into your handlebar, but then it would rattle. The Wolftooth Encase system solves that problem by wrapping the tool in a rubber sleeve that slips into your handlebar end so it doesn't rattle.

The wolftooth system comes with a spoke wrench, 2, 2.5, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8mm allen wrenches, a collection of torx wrenches, a spoke wrench, and both flathead and philips heads screwdrivers. The handle features a swivel head so you can place the tool in the right place. Cleverly, the swivel happens in only one plane so you can still rotate the tools when screwing or unscrewing something.

The penalty is that all wolftooth systems stuff is extremely expensive. I bought it only as part of a scratch and dent sale and it was still expensive. There's also a corresponding encase sleeve with a chaintool, but since one of my two handlebar end spots is taken up by a bar end shifter, I only bought the wrench set.

I was skeptical of how easy it was to get the entire toolkit flush with the handlebars, and indeed it doesn't sit flush, but that's a good thing --- when you need to extract the toolkit, you still need a bit of extra grip so you can pull the tool out.

Identifying the correct sized wrench is a bit of a headache --- the labels aren't quite easy to read, especially in the dark, but after a bit of fumbling you can get it out. With magnetic attachment systems each bit fits right into place with a satisfying snap. However, the magnetic attachment system is not very strong. I left a bit in a hex socket once after tightening when I removed the body but the bit remained in place. No problem, as soon as I reached to put the bit back into place I discovered the problem.

Everything is held together with rubber bands that you have to slip off when you need to extract a bit for use. It's a bit of a hassle, but I have yet to lose a bit.

Compared to the regular multi-tools, it's light and saves a lot of space. But it's also too expensive for me to deploy on all my bikes, so it only gets used on my light day-riding/commute bike. I can recommend it if you have only one bike, but I suspect a bigger saddlebag is a better (and cheaper) option for most.

Review: Beguilement

 Amazon showed me that Beguilement was for sale for $2. The library didn't have it in electronic format and I found myself thinking: "Wait, a Lois Bujold series I haven't read?" And I bought it and read it in 3 days or so.

This story is a romance (a lot of Bujold's stories are romances), about the meeting of Dag and Fawn. The world they're in has a lake and Dag belongs to the Lakewalkers, a semi-militarized group of patrols whose job is to seek out "malices" (essentially evil spirits) that occasionally wake up and take over mammals or humans and start attempting to take over the world.

The story starts with Dag rescuing Fawn from one of the local malice's minions, and through a series of mishaps and misadventures Fawn ends up killing the malice. They fall in love and the rest of the story in-clues you into the milieu through their integrating their disparate lives together, and demonstrating what the major superpower the patrollers have (called "groundsense") are.

The characters are great (Lois Bujold's characters always are). They're not as well formed as Miles Vorkosigan was, but they're relatable and Bujold's writing always makes you care about them. This being the first of a 4-part series, the world isn't as fully fleshed out but you get some hints of what should be upcoming reveals --- Bujold always plays fair in that anything that she reveals probably got some useful hints earlier on in the narrative. That's what made her such a good SF writer, and that rigor carries over nicely to her fantasy fiction.

Even mediocre Bujold is good reading. Contrasting her writing with Murakami makes me feel that the world is unfair. In a more just world, Bujold would get just as much attention from mainstream outlets as Murakami's novels get.

Long term review: Waxing Chains

 I've been waxing chains on my family's fleet of bicycles for about 18 months. When I first started doing this, I considered it a hassle (and to some extent it's still a hassle). First, I had to clean the drivetrain fairly thoroughly (I didn't do a perfect job). I also made the transition during a winter where it actually rained quite a bit and found myself having to rewax the chain after each rain.

Over time, I transitioned first the tandem and when I built up Xiaoqin's Ritchey Road Logic and Bowen's Roadini I started them both on waxed chain. The tandem wore out a SRAM 1101 chain after only 1000 miles despite my waxing it, making me question whether the wax was helping a lot. But my custom single bike had gone over 6000 miles without the chain wearing out, which made me think that the tandem experience was due to my using a $10 chain instead of a $30 chain. I switched that bike over to a Shimano CUES chain just before last year's tour and sure enough, despite the tandem load and two tours, the chain is still going strong.

Xiaoqin had the same SRAM 1101 chain fall apart in the wax port, something that I couldn't attribute to any wear. I decided she rode enough to have two chains waxed at the same time, and would just swap chains whenever one needed to be waxed. This makes the process much easier and you're never at risk of having a bike out of service because the chain is being waxed.

We also tried the Silca Endurance Chip. I was skeptical that it would have any benefit, but this winter, Bowen went through fairly rainy commutes, and his bike was always outside exposed to the rain when he was at school. Despite that, the chain was still good, and he toured on the same chain (with a wax job both before and after the tour).

During the tour we exposed the bikes to rain on a somewhat frequent basis, and the bikes also rode through substantial gravel. In all cases, we only added liquid wax lubricant after a rainy ride. When the tour was over I measured all the chains and none of them had worn!

We now have only 4 bikes in the fleet that have not converted to wax lubrication. My Roadini, Boen's Salsa, my MTB, and Xiaoqin's MTB. All of them will get converted when their existing chains wear out. The implication of waxing means that chains are no longer consumables, and it's justifiable to buy chains that match the color of the frames for instance. It also means that I'm willing to run more expensive cassettes going forward as those will also not be consumables.

To my surprise, I'm now a chain waxing advocate. It's a hassle, but it does seem to provide benefits commensurate with the hassle involved.

Review: Gabaruk 11-50 11s cassette

Gabaruk's 11-50 11s cassette can be gotten for $211. For a weight savings of approximately 300g, it handily beats the $1/gram of weight savings metric that most cyclists use when considering equipment. I bought two, one for Xiaoqin's Ritchey Road Logic (getting that bike under 8kg with pedals!) and one for Bowen's Roadini after watching her experience with it.

The obvious benefit is that the cassette is lighter. It achieves the light weight by replacing the giant 50t steel sprocket with one made out of aluminum. In theory this means that sprocket will wear out faster. However, since we wax our chains, cassette wear is now minimal on all our bikes.

The big loss is in shifting performance. The Gabaruk simply does not shift as smoothly or as well as the Shimano m5100 or the CUES linkglide cassette. Just like older drivetrains, you have to ease up when shifting, and if you flub a shift, the cassette has a disturbing tendency to drop the chain and cause the drivetrain to shift all the way to the smallest sprocket, which usually is the complete opposite of what you intended to do. As a result, I do not recommend this cassette to tandems, heavy people, or the kind of people who want to (or need to) shift under load without easing up on the pedals.

Both Xiaoqin and Bowen complain about the shifting performance. On the other hand, when asked if they'd like the old cassette back the answer has usually been a "no." 300g is half a pound, which is a lot when you weigh in under 100 pounds like Bowen, and both the Ritchey and the Roadini are at a point where I cannot easily shave more weight from either bike. I'll continue to accept the weight penalty on my single and on the tandem, given that I weigh more and the savings is not as important, and I do ride in situations where a bad shift could be very undesirable.

If you are light or have a light touch on the pedals and can ease off when shifting, the Gabaruk is a very nice weight savings for a relatively low price.

Review: Play Nice

 Play Nice is Jason Schreier's corporate history of Blizzard Entertainment. Written in a breathless manner that befits its subject, the book is fast paced and covers Blizzard from its origins as a 2 person startup to a corporation that was sold first to Davidson & Associates, then to Vivendi, then to Activision, and finally the sale to Microsoft.

For those of us who got their careers in Silicon Valley, this book is a reminder that the entertainment industry, particularly video game companies outside Silicon Valley, doesn't believe in sharing the wealth. Other than the two founders, the initial employees at Blizzard never got stock options or any other form of equity, so when Blizzard was first sold, only its founders got wealthy. This story repeated itself until the sale to Activision, whereupon some staff (not all) got some sort of profit sharing bonuses, but even that was computed in an opaque fashion. It's no wonder that game industry veterans are frequently so bitter.

The book does mention people I actually met (e.g., Pat Wyatt, one of the early engineers at Blizzard). Wyatt was actually as good a programmer as his reputation, though Warcraft (and later Diablo) had its share of bad code. Nevertheless, I remember Wyatt walking me through Warcraft's two player code over the phone and talking me through inserting an IP layer into it --- it was a very productive session.

The book does cover the various sexual harassment scandals that ultimately caused the Blizzard sale. It places it in context, noting that many various events could also be attributed to Blizzard's fast and loose culture and very young staff. It also covered the go-go years at Blizzard, when it could seemingly do no wrong, from Warcraft II to Starcraft to World of Warcraft, it seemed as though Blizzard's every product was a big success.

To the extent that the book has villains, its mostly corporate managers who had no passion for video games and themselves could never sit down and play video games or take it seriously as a hobby. The book attributes Blizzard's success to its own employees being enthusiastic games who would provide feedback and polish the product rather than release it early to make a fast buck. Taking down Diablo III's auction house, for instance, was also an unusual move for a company to actively delete a way of monetizing the product in favor of making the game actually better for players.

Of course, such dedication to product quality is very hard in a world where "enshittification" is the rule. Whether Blizzard continues to make good games after its acquisition by Microsoft is very much in doubt. I enjoyed the book and found it entertaining. Well worth your time.

2025 Tour Epilogue

We woke up early at Das Ludwig and packed up. We walked down to the dining area of the hotel and it was closed. We realized then that the hotel didn't offer breakfast by default and we didn't order any. Well, we were already up, so we brushed our teeth and then left the hotel, not being able to figure out the self-checkout kiosk. I would later e-mail the hotel and get back an invoice for paying the city tax.

The train station was just a couple of blocks, past the supermarket (which wasn't open). Once inside the train station, we found a snack store/bakery open. To my surprise, the ticket machine would not take "tap to pay" and only took cash! Fortunately, the bookstore was open and was willing to exchange my large notes for smaller notes that the machine was willing to take.  In Germany, as long as you're traveling within the state of Bavaria, you can buy a single group ticket for up to 5 people that will let you take unlimited regional express trains and double as the local municipal transit tickets as well. Unlike in Switzerland, the tandem counts as only one bike instead of two, making German trains far cheaper than Swiss trains. The ticket is non-transferable, as you have to sign it to make it valid. We bought snacks, ate and then went to the platform to wait for the train.

When the train arrived, we discovered that the bike car was large enough for the single bikes but just a tad too short for the tandem. This was no big deal and the conductor never gave us a hard time about it. The train ride was smooth and easy, though it stopped frequently in the Lindau area and then became a true express as it got closer to Munich, stopping less and less frequently until it got to downtown Munich.

Rather than deal with the main train station, we got off at Donnersburgerbrucke to transfer to the airport S-bahn. The single bikes could transfer using the elevator but the tandem couldn't. Fortunately if you're willing to violate the restrictions against using the escalators it's no big deal. Just roll the tandem onto the escalator and hold both brakes as the escalator ascends (or descends). The S-1 was late and very full by the time we got in, so we had to be in separate compartments. Fortunately, under those circumstances you're also unlikely to have to get your tickets inspected. 

Exiting at the airport, we rolled the bike up the escalator again and walked over to the Hilton. It was too early to checkin, but we had 3 bikes to pack. We got out the bike cases which had been untouched for our entire time on tour, and disassembled the bikes. Outside the hotel as the staff had become picky about us doing disassembly inside. Xiaoqin took both kids to get lunch while I did the disassembly. It took about 3 hours to do all 3 bikes, but I got it finished and then got in line to checkin to the hotel.

By this time it was close enough to official checkin time that they didn't try to make me pay for an early checkin. I put all the rest of the bags into the rooms and we went out to get some more food for me. We then had to buy a replacement strap for the strap that had broken on one of the Trico iron cases. We still had time after that so we went back downtown and visited the official Lindt store. There, we bought almost 10kg of chocolate. Downtown Sendlinger Tor's subway had changed dramtically since I last visited, and now had Indian and Chinese food, all of reasonable quality --- Munich was becoming quite cosmopolitant!

Returning back to the hotel, we went swimming for about 15 minutes because the kids weren't allowed after 6:00pm. Then we bought dinner and breakfast for the next day and ate it. Mark texted me around 9:00pm that he'd landed in Munich from his trip to Ireland but it was late and we figured we'd meet up at some point back in California anyway.

The next morning, we leisurely took our bikes and carryon lugguage to the United checkin counter and checked it in. The flight was very full so we could checkin 2 of our rolling luggage as checked bags so that we could exceed the weight limit given all the chocolate we bought. The flight was uneventful and Steve Wang picked is up at the airport and brought us home. Our adventure was over.

Both kids swore that they wouldn't ride for at least 2 weeks after the tour, but Bowen attended just one day of Math summer camp before declaring that even riding up Grossglockner was less boring, so we took him at his word and made him ride instead of attending summer camp.

Looking back at it, we'd had been unusually lucky with weather, with rain coming in at night frequently and only having to ride a couple of days in the rain. We had only one flat tire which was amazing, and no other mechanicals. Indicating how much we'd ridden by the time we got to Pfunds we'd worn out all the power meter batteries. We'd succcessfully stayed high and avoided the worst of the summer heat. Having Otto Sr drove the luggage was instrumental in us accomplishing so much distance, even though I would have been even happier if he'd just chosen to ride with us on a bike the whole time --- he would have had a better experience! We also made several good decisions: using the train to Mittersil instead of staying in Zell Am See and using the bus to Livigno helped save half a day of riding each. 

Needless to say we're all very proud of Bowen for accomplishing this bike tour on his single. It wasn't an easy tour but he persisted!

July 4: Lustenau to Lindau (Germany)

The day started with cloudy skies but dry roads as we rolled the remaining kilometers down to Hard, a small town right on the Bodensee where the bike path deliberately skirts the edge of the lagoons before allowing you to cross the Bregenzer Ach.

Once across that river, the bike path finally allows you to visit the shore of the Bodensee, which we did. From there, I remembered that the bike path went past a playground with a zipline, but there was a detour which bypassed that and dropped us straight onto the path to Bavaria.

At the crossing, we stopped for a quick photo.  Riding across the bridge onto the island of Lindau, we had to start mixing with traffic. I was grateful that we were early as the traffic was light and what traffic there was had to deal with low speed limits and therefore bike friendly.

Das Ludwig was at the outskirts of the pedestrain-only center of town, and we got lucky by arriving while the cleanup crew was still around. The manager showed up and agreed to let us into our rooms early and told us while there was no indoor parking for bikes we could lock our bikes next to the umbrella posts outside the hotel and assured us that it was safe even overnight. This would be unimagineable in San Francisco or nearly any big city in the USA but in Germany it was OK. The worst that could happen was that it could rain on our bikes overnight, but we weren't going to have much riding at all tomorrow.

Having settled into our room by 10:30, we decided to do the touristy things in Lindau island, walking around the harbor, visiting the lighthouse, visiting the lion, eating ice cream, and buying lunch at the supermarket. After that, I looked to see if there was availabe swimming area, and discovered that Google maps didn't think there were any. I would later discover that the park on the West edge of the island had a swimming entry. 

The obvious place on Google maps was Lindenhofbad, which was a bike ride off the island. Xiaoqin was fighting off a virus, so she took the opportunity to rest while Bowen, Boen and I rode our bikes over to Linderhofbad. The location was actually very nice but when we got there the kids declined to swim, and there was no paddleboard rental to be had. I wasn't going visit the Bodensee and not swim, so I did a swim without the kids anyway. A swan went by me as I swam for 20 minutes in the open water.

We rode back to Lindau and in the supermarket found some snacks, including sweets that were actually labelled as Bon-Bons. We then met up with Xiaoqin and walked around town before having dinner at a fancy restaurant I'd picked out and made a reservation at. I thought we would actually stay out late and enjoy the sunset but a short walk after dinner to the West edge of the island and listening to a concert for one song and eveyrone was tired.

I looked at the train schedules and decided we should go for the 8:15 train, and having folks get up early to catch a train was not a bad idea so we decided to go back to the hotel and turn in for the night.

July 3: Lenzerheide to Lustenau

The forecast was for rain today, but of course the weather in the morning looked fantastic. After a very full breakfast in which we had custom omelets in addition to the buffet specialties, we headed up to Lenzerheide pass which descecnded rapidly through Churwalden before hitting a bunch of construction, which we had encountered last year coming up from Chur. That time, the construction forced a detour through unusually steep alternates, but this time, at least the parts of the road that weren't under construction was super smooth and made for a very fast descent, granting us a max speed of 46mph.

Past the construction, we descended down the main road towards Chur rather than use the bike path. At downhill speeds the bike is at least as fast as a car and there's no reason to subject your brakes to the twisty bike path. In Chur proper, we followed signs to the train station and from there picked up Swiss Mobility route 2.

The route doesn't go directly along the river, but instead detours to Landquart where we had ridden through on the way to Davos in 2022.Here, the bike path actually goes up hill a bit before descending into Landquart where our luck finally ran out and a big storm blew through, forcing us to take shelter at the Migros in town where we had stopped in 2022 to have lunch. It was too early for lunch, but the storm subsided in a bit and we went on as soon as it became a drizzle.

From Landquart the route becomes easy as you get a dirt road next to the Rhine river that turns into an asphalted bike path near Sargans. From here, you're within an hour of Liechtenstein, and indeed we soon ran into a school trip. Boen and I rode ahead of them as soon as we could, since some of the kids were quite squirrely. They gaped at the tandem as we rode by.

We hadn't quite reach the head of the school trip when they took a turn right onto a bridge right across the Rhine. I surmised that this must have been the Liechtenstein border bridge, so we waited until Bowen caught up. We then crossed the border together and tailed the school group for a bit until Bowwen and Boen got hungry. leaving Liechtenstein behind near Haag, we crossed another bridge back into Switzerland to visit the huge COOP at Haag, where we could buy hot food and Boen got his supermarket ice cream. By this time the sun had come out and we could shed our rain jackets.

After lunch we tried riding on the Swiss bike path again, but the problem was that it was next to the very loud freeway, which drove us back across the border again at the next bridge, this time into Austria. I realized that we were making very good time because the storm had changed the characteristic headwind from the Bodensee up towards Chur into a tailwind at times, making this trip much easier than I had experienced in the past.

In Meningen we found the first zipline playground that we had seen today, and the kids took several runs on it while the adults looked for lodging. I looked for lodging in Hard and Bregenz, but they were surprisingly expensive and there was actually not that much availability. Lustenau, however, had plenty of availability, and was fairly cheap, including an apartment that had a washing machine ensuite, the savior of all dads on bicycle tours. Lustenau would also fulfill Boen's request do a metric century, so we booked it.

The rest of the ride was fairly unremarkable, though once again the weather started to rain as we got into Lustenau. We ended right at the apartment we had booked just as a storm came down again. I realized at this point that the SIM cards I had bought Bowen and Boen were no longer connecting to voice, despite the claim of unlimited calling inside Europe for 30 days, so I called using my phone and managed to get us the code to open the apartment and park the bikes into the bike locker. I got out our bottle of wax and rewaxed all the chains before moving up stairs to take inventory.

The house cleaners showed up and setup the kid's beds, and I discovered that the apartment was well equipped enough for coffee and even shampoo and soap, so all we needed to do was buy dinner and breakfast at the local supermarket.

We walked to the supermarket, dodging the raindrops and then came back to take showers, make dinner, do laundry, and eat. The after dinner walk was drizzly but by the time we got back tot he apartment things had cleared up a bit again. At least with the recent rains it wasn't going to be too hot to sleep.

Review: Flow Control Filter for Aeropress

 The aeropress is still my favorite coffee maker. Rather than use the "inverted" method, I always use the filter upright, but immediately pop the syringe onto the top after filling the barrel with coffee. By doing so, you still get some leaks coming off the bottom of the aeropress, but it's limited to just a minute or so. Then after an appropriate brewing time I push the syring all the way to the bottom.

The problem with this is if you are pressing into a small capacity cup, you may over-estimate the amount of water needed and then you end up overflowing the cup. Aeropress recently introduced the Flow Control Filter, which solves that problem. There is absolutely no drip whatseover when you pour water into the barrel. However, when you press down on the syringe it immediately opens up the valve and you get standard flow.

I didn't expect this to change the flavor of my brew but it does. It's a much stronger brew now, and I have to adjust how much time I leave the coffee brewing as a result. This results in much shorter brew time. The filter is expensive but it's multi-use and  looks so sturdy it ought to outlast the standard brewer basket.

Recommended.

July 2: Bergun to Lenzerheide

Once again, we had another beautiful morning to start our ride down the rest of the Albula pass. The descent was cool enough that we had jackets on, but once in Alvaneu, the road started turning up and down as it went through the small villagers of Surava before a decisive climb up to Tiefencastel. We shed our jackets in Surava, and by the time we started the climb up towards Lantsch it was warm in the full sun. 

Fortunately, while the traffic was briefly bad along highway 3 from the Julier pass, most of the traffic was headed towards Davos, so we were spared most of the traffic once we made the turnoff towards Lenzerheide.

On the way up the road, we saw a landslide come down the mountain. That was remarkable. We made Lenzerheide proper by 11:00am. While waiting for Bowen I sported the Hotel Seehof Valbella which had a good offering on booking. Given that they had a lot of room we were in no hurry, but ate at a SPAR off the main road before riding down past the lake to the Hotel Seehof. We could have kept going to ride down to Chur, but that would have guaranteed a very hot rest of the day. This was our last chance to stay high (Lenzerheide was at 1473m) and enjoy the cool weather before heading towards Lindau.

There, we showed the booking.com offering to the receptionist, who called her manager who immediately said: "Of course. We give them a discount for not using booking.com and showing up in person instead so we don't pay commission!" Our room was actually ready for us by the time we unloaded the bike and parked the bikes. We asked about the half pension but it seemed really expensive so we decided we would order a la carte instead.

Xiaoqin was pretty tired, so she opted to enjoy the beautiful hotel room while the kids and I walked to the Lenzerheide cable car. Lenzerheide is pretty famous for its bike kingdom, where it has a downhill lift assisted mountain bike course. The bike rental was no worse than comparable places in Canada, but Bowen opted not to do it because he didn't want to put on body armor. Instead, we took the cable car up and hiked back down, with a disappointment because the waterfall trail was actually closed. What I saw of the mountain bike park, however, looked impressive. The berms were well groomed and people in general looked like they were having fun.

When we got back to the lake we visited the watersport rental and rented two paddleboards, one for me, and one for the kids, and we made full use of the half hour rentals before returning it and hiking back to the hotel.

One at the hotel, we took showers and did laundry, before heading out to see if there were alternative places to eat. The supermarket didn't seem to have anything that was appealing, so we walked back to the hotel and ate off the (expensive) a la carte menu. The food was good, though perhaps not so good that it justified the high prices.

After dinner, rain came in and together with the shining sun, gave us an amazing lightshow, with rainbows and double rainbows in combination with an evening alpenglow. We congratulated ourselves for having the good luck to stay here. Looking at the forecast, the next few days were supposed to rain but we were also going to be low where the cool temperatures might be welcome.

Boen looked at the elevation profile and decided that tomorrow would be a good day to do a full metric century. He actually spent 15 minutes talking Bowen into it!

Review: 1Q84

 I previously bounced off 1Q84, but after reading about Harukami talking about it about his first attempt at a really long novel (over 1000 pages!) I decided to give it a chance and this time it stuck. I've complained about Norweigian Wood not feeling very Japanese because of all its literary and musical references. However, 1Q84 struck me as being very Japanese despite having similar literary and musical references to Western music and media.

1Q84 strikes me as being in the same sensibility as Weathering With You or Your Name. Both Japanese movies have male and female protagonists who are separated in time or space, and who live in an alternate world/timeline where fantastical events/circumstances can happen. As with those movies, there's no explanation, no rationality for why these fantastical elements exist, but it does, and the connection between the protagonists are very light, almost to the point of randomness.

Aomame is a female assassin (one who is dispatched to silently kill men who abuse women). Tengo is a cram school math teacher who's trying to write a novel on the side. The link between them was that they went to elementary school together, and Tengo showed Aomame kindness at one point in 5th grade.

The plot starts when Aomame discovers that the world she's living in is subtly shifted from what she's grown up with --- the police are carrying different weapons, there's discussion about a moon base, and intriguingly, there are two moons in the sky, but she appears to be the only one who sees the second moon.

The chapters in the novel alternate between Aomame and Tengo, though in the last 3rd of the book a 3rd viewpoint is introduced. We gradually see the two threads come together. The pace of the book is slow, and especially in the last 3rd, you wonder if Harukami is deliberately prolonging the book as though he's getting paid by the word. Most of the supernatural stuff is unexplained --- you're just asked to accept it. The characters' resolutions are satisfying, though the 3rd viewpoint near the end of the book seems superfluous.

I read the book to the end, and to be fair the resolution of the alternate world hypothesis was strongly hinted at all through the novel, and you come to the end of the novel and are not surprised by the ending and thinking that it was an unfair mystery. The book definitely could have been much tighter edited and a lot of the extraneous stuff felt more or less superfluous, or "inefficient" as Harukami would describe in his essays.

Still, any 1000 page novel that can get me to finish it in a couple of weeks is probably of above average quality.

July 1: Madulain to Bergun

Despite the rain last night, the morning brought us beautiful sunshine, giving us motivation to ride the Albulapass. It was a shortish ride today, so we got going only at 9:00am, and began by riding to the Vogl at the bottom of the Albulapass to buy bananas.

Riding up the Albula pass from the La Punt side has less climbing (less than 700m) but in exchange the initial switchbacks are at 12% grade. We gained elevation rapidly and the day was warm. We stopped at the trailhead which would have taken us to Madulain for water and snacks and a skiier with summer skis (essentially inline skates with long board) passed us. She must have been an Olympic caliber skier as she rapidly distanced us.

Boen worked really hard and soon we were at Alp Alesch where there was some sort of summer camp program for teenagers. Boen stopped to play with the goats while we waited for Bowen. It being warm, we refilled our water bottles after Bowen joined us and we kept going up the hill. The slope became more gradual once the road finished its series of corners, and the vistas opened up. Grand, wild, and desolate, Albulapass is one of the prettiest passes in the alps. Kids on mountain bikes went up the hill with vim as we waited for Bowen at one of the more photogenic spots. Once he joined us we went quite a bit faster and were soon at the summit where we took photos at the Albula Hospiz.

The descent on this side of Albula is equally stunning, with distant views at the top and then twisty turns and corners as you coast through the famed "Glacier Express" train route which at the summit uses a tunnel so as a cyclist you wouldn't even know there was a train through the mountain at all!

We stopped at a waterfall to hike to it, walking a little bit pass a barn. Even though the forecast was for thunderstorms in the afternoon, we could take our time as it was still early and we had time and the sky still looked completely blue. My real destination, however, was Palpunogasee, a pretty alpine lake that I'd always wanted to hike around but never found the time to do so. As previously mentioned, on a climb it's a hard sell to take time to do an extra hike knowing you have more climbing to do, and the last time I descended in this direction Bowen was cold and didn't want to walk.

The circumnavigation of the lake was as scenic as I had hoped for and we took our time. When we finished, we rolled down to Bergun and Hotel Piz Ela which we had booked the evening before, having found that all the other hotels were full or outrageously expensive. The hotel's reception was empty, but a visit to the restaurant at the back found the owner who was receptive to letting us check in early, park the bikes, and leave our luggage in the room!

Lunch was at the Vogl down the street supplemented by ice cream and chocolate at the bakery across the street. After that, we pondered what to do. I looked at Alltrails and decided that the Railroad Adventure Hike from Preda to Bergun was doable in the time we had left. We walked to the train station in Bergun where the train was uncharacteristically 15 minutes late, and took the train one stop up to Preda, which in other places would have been a nice alpine village with lodging but despite the railroad company's attempt to grow a village there never developed.

Getting off the train station, we found the well signed tail with no problems, and it was indeed an exciting hike, taking 2 hours to do what the train did in 15 minutes. The trail follows the train tracks, but from below and above, and you get remarkable vistas that show off classic pictures of the Glacier Express railroad. Since there's only one track, the frequency of trainspotting on this track is twice the frequency that you expect, since you get one train in each direction per hour. It's even more than that because you see the same train multiple times as the track twists and turns at well below 6% grades in order for the train to make the climb without resorting to a cog railway setup. We saw more than one photographer standing in place waiting to get their perfect shot of the train as it negotiated those corners.

At this point, we were starting to get clouds around us. These escalated to an occasional raindrop here and there, nudging us to quicken our pace, which was not a problem as the hike was mostly downhill. This hike was definitely a highlight of our stay in Bergun and I was glad that we'd finally had a chance to stop there. The hike was also punctuated with signs providing a history of the railway construction as well as interesting facts about the area.

Finally, the trail dumped us out onto the main road which we could take into town. We would find out later that we'd missed the final section of the trail, but no matter. At this point rain became a light drizzle. As we walked into town thunder was heard and it was no longer a drizzle. We dashed to our hotel as we spotted lightning flashes and walked through the hotel door just as the thunderstorm came down! We had made use of every dry minute of the day!

We took showers, did laundry, and had dinner at the hotel restaurant, venturing out only for our after dinner walk. The day had cooled down a lot because of the rain and it was even a little chilly but Bergun was beautiful, justifying our spending the extra time here.

That night, I observed that we'd have to take the train to Munich on Saturday, necessitating that we be in Lindau, Germany on Friday night. It was usually not a good idea to book a hotel this far out, but it was a Friday and Lindau was an impacted destination. We booked the Hotel Das Ludwig near the Lindau train station so we could stay on the island proper for Friday. I did the math and noted that we'd be in Lenzerheide on Wednesday night, somewhere along the route to the Bodensee on Thursday night, probably in Austria as it would be much cheaper than Switzerland. The end of our tour was in sight!

Review: Ortlieb Saddlebag 4 liter

 I'd been using the old style Ortlieb mini handlebar bag. While it's satisfactory for most of my purposes, it had several drawbacks, chiefest of which was that by using the front of the handlebar, you have to find alternative locations for your front light. When you add up the bag, the bag mount, and the additional accoutements to mount the front light, it's actually substantial weight. On the tandem it doesn't matter, but on my single bike I really would prefer as light a setup as possible, while still making it possible to mount a radar tail light.

The only model I could find that fit all those requirements was the Ortlieb Saddlebag 4L. I ordered one and discovered to my dismay that the mount didn't fit the Ritchey WCS saddle! Fortunately, Pamela Bayley had sold/given me a smaller Ortlieb seatbag and that one came with a mount that worked. (I would later replace the screws that came with the newer bag with ones that work) Since all Ortlieb saddlebag mounts are cross compatible it was no issue to use them. My complaint about this design is that it's unnecessary --- I would much rather have had velcro wings which would have been less finicky.

The saddlebag slides onto the mount, and ties to the seatpost using a velcro strap. I was worried that I would feel the saddlebag with my thighs while riding, but to my surprise this turned out to be a non-issue. The drybag style flap clips off to the side and by tightening the straps it becomes narrow enough that thighs clear the saddlebag with no problems. One disturbing thing about the bag is that invariably there's sufficient air in the saddlebag to make it bulge a little, so sometimes it takes a couple of tries to get the air out. A valve would have been useful though that would have increased the weight. As a result of this air, sometimes that bag will rattle especially if it's not completely full.

When I go on a really lightweight ride, I replace this saddlebag with a mini bag that uses the same mount and has much less volume. It's little enough effort to switch that I do it as a matter of course. But for bay area riding the 4L bag is what you want: you can put in a windshell, arm and leg warmers, and snacks and tools for an extended ride while still having room for your radar. If you pack really light it might even suffice for an overnighter, though that's not in the cards for me as I would need to pack a CPAP machine and this bag just doesn't have sufficient volume for that.

For commuting, this bag will NOT fit any laptops. But bikepacking style saddlebags won't fit any laptop anyway. For carrying a laptop you still want the traverse style saddlebag.

The bag is a little expensive but it did everything I wanted it to do. Recommended.

June 30th: Zernez to Maudalin

It was cloudy as we had breakfast early on Monday morning. After we packed and started getting the bikes out, the landlady showed up and told us our room wasn't clean enough and I had to give her 30 euros as a cleaning fee to get her off our backs. It started drizzling as we left the apartment, and the weather was coming from Berninapass, so all hope of riding the Bernina pass were crushed.

Riding the road back to the tunnel was straightforward. To my surprise, we didn't find any pacelines to draft off of, so we had to do all the work ourselves. Racing a 8:45am deadline, we slowed several times to let Bowen get back onto our draft, and arrived just in time to find that the bus wasn't there. The bus driver was late! When the bus driver showed up after 15 minutes, he had to hook up the trailer first, and then we had to put the tandem into the van. Since we were the only customers for that shuttle this was not an issue.

Arriving on the other side of the tunnel at 9:21, we started the climb up to Ova Spin, which is an easy climb from the 1600m tunnel. At the top of Ova Spin, we met a British couple who complained that they were sick of climbing mountains, having come up via Grimsel, Furka, Lenzerheide, and Albula. They were eager to get to the Alto Aldige bike path so they could have flat riding to Turkey. Ova Spin is not a real pass, and doesn't even have a pass marker, just a bus stop to commemorate your achievement.

The descent from Ova Spin to Zernez is fast and easy. There was some construction, which put a damper on our top speed. But the rain had stopped completely so while the roads were still wet we didn't get a single drop of rain on our jackets. At the bottom we stopped at the covered bike path bridge where we took off our jackets and leg warmers and prepared for the climb up the Maudalin.

Disappointingly, the bike path quickly dumped us back onto the main road after bypassing downtown Zernez. We had plenty of food from Livigno, so we didn't need food, so that was of no concern. To our surprise, the day started warming up as the sun emerged from behind the clouds. We started getting concerned about our chocolate melting, so we stopped and ate all the chocolate before starting a series of climbs that would take us up the Inn river towards Zuoz.

The road gave us beautiful views of the Engadin valley, including the river at times. I'd never seen the road from this direction before, and when going downhill you don't actually have a lot of time to gawk, especially since last year we were doing it while being chased by a thunderstorm and a postbus.

Arriving in Zuoz, we found the Spar around noon and had a supermarket lunch. During lunch, we looked at lodging options and decided that the Madulain lodge was a good choice. We booked it online and proceeded to buy dinner and breakfast, since the Madulain had a shared kitchen and the village itself was too small to have a supermarket!

Loading up the bike, we rode towards Maudalin. Somehow, Google maps detoured us onto a bike path (I would keep learning that Google maps is bad news on a bike tour) that ended up on dirt. It was pretty and of course we had plenty of time so it wasn't a concern, but it was pretty warm. I was surprised that it was so warm at 1600m, but then I reflected that Livigno was at 1800m and it felt pretty warm there too! Arriving at the Madulain Lodge at 1:00pm, we realized it was too early to checkin and the place was unstaffed. Our solution was to go for a hike!

We locked up the bikes behind the lodge, switched to walking shoes, and Xiaoqin proceeded to find a hiking path for us to use. The Engadin is super steep, so was the corresponding climb. We took our time, knowing that we had until 4:00pm or so before the automated system would grant us access. The path led us to castle ruins overlooking the valley. The views were nothing short of glorious. Hiking on, we found the fork, one direction of which would take us to the Albula pass, and the other would take us back into town.

We would see Albulapass tomorrow, plus the hike back to town would be far longer if we went that direction, so hiked into town, where the route opened up (once the trees are gone you have a clear view), and we had expensive Swiss ice cream at the Hotel Chesa Colani before getting to the Madulain Lodge where we were finally given key codes to unlock. The clear skies had given way to clouds.

Inside, we were given two rooms in one wing. No one else was in the wing, but the kitchen was shared with the other wing. Since we were earliest, we took showers, did laundry in the kitchen sink, and prepared dinner and ate it. As we were in the middle of dinner, other people moved into the other wing and started using the kitchen too.  Soon, it started raining in earnest and we finally had the promised thunderstorm around 6:30pm. By 8:00pm, however, it had eased up a bit and we could take a short after dinner walk without being thoroughly soaked, though we did not dare wander far from the lodge.