April 11: Cap Formentor and Cami de Boquer

We woke up at 6:30, ate some granola, and then rode out with lights on as it was still dark at 7:00am. The ride through town was beautiful in the early morning with no traffic and surprisingly few cyclists. By the time we got to the first pass, we had two groups of cyclists pass us. They were faster than Xiaoqin on the climb, but on the descent I caught and passed most of them—they were clearly English cyclists who were not used to the kinds of speeds you can regularly approach in the Bay Area or Mallorca.

Riding up past the tunnel, a pair of male goats started fighting each other in the middle of the road in front of me. I stopped to take a quick picture and then Xiaoqin caught up and we kept riding with vim up to the lighthouse. It was so nice at the light house with no cars, and just a few cyclists. We took selfies and admired the scenery and then descended.

At this point, I wanted to get back to the hotel to ensure the kids could eat—they had been denied entry to the dining room when not accompanied by an adult at one point during the stay. So I put in a burst of effort and set PRs all the way back to the hotel. I worked hard enough Garmin to re-assess my FTP at 187W, which was a downgrade but perhaps understandable given that I was coming down with a cold and of course was fatigue with a week of fairly hard riding.

The others had already started their ride by the time I got to the hotel, where I parked my bike and started gathering food at the breakfast room. Xiaoqin showed up after a bit and we ate a leisurely breakfast before going back to the room and changing. We packed some water into our backpacks, and then took the bus towards Port Pollenca downtown, where a 10 minute walk took us to the trail head for Cami de Boquer.

The trail took us up high and granted us views of the seaside town before weaving amongst the hills. The terrain was a lot like a desert, wind up and around the hills, but when you saw the mediterranean it was glorious, with cliffs falling straight down to the sea. Even though the forecast was for rain later that day, it was sunny and warm. The thing about hiking in Europe is that you can’t expect a wilderness experience except in a few select places, and Mallorca was not one of those select places. There were lots of people no matter where we went, and on the beach even though there were buoys marking off the swim areas it was quite clear that the water was not yet warm enough for anyone to want to jump in and swim.

We hiked back to the bus stop, and once there, rather than getting of at the hotel, we took the bus all the way to old town in Alcudia, and explored the old town, stopping at a tapa place for Bowen and Xiaoqin to sample their Tapa platter, buying ice cream and eating it before taking the bus back to Club del Sol.

We got back to the hotel early enough to start packing bikes. We started with Bowen, this time with myself being smart enough to not remove the stem but instead remove the removable front plate of the face plate of the stem. As I took  his seatpost off his bike I noted that he had an inch or so left before the minimum insertion line. We had raised both kids’ seats during this trip. We packed his bike, and then started work on mine, which was straightforward and easy --- not having paint on the titanium bike meant that I didn’t even bother wrapping the frame with pipe insulation, trusting the hard metal to resist any scratches from the softer aluminum and steel parts stored in the same box.

After that, we did Xiaoqin’s bike, which also took in the chain oil and liquid wax, as well as any tools not needed to pack Boen’s bike, which we would save for the next day. When we were done we had all the bike boxes back in the luggage storage and the balcony was free of bikes except for Boen’s.

It was Mark’s birthday, and we scrambled around trying to find a birthday present for him in vain, until Arturo had the smart idea that he could sweet talk a waitress into finding a candle and presenting him with a cake.

So it was that at dinner we sang Happy Birthday to Mark, along with the rest of the dining room as a cake got served! I gave Arturo the wine that was in our room that was untouched. It was going to rain the next day so we had no regrets about having the bikes packed so early that there was no chance to ride the next day.

April 8th: Emita de la Victoria

We all woke up late and had a leisurely breakfast. Before getting organized for the hike, I replaced Bowen’s front tire. I also took the time to rewax my chain and Xiaoqin’s chain rather than replace the chains with freshly waxed chains we’d brought with us. For the hike, Arturo was so impressed by Emita de la Victoria that we booked 2 taxis to do the hike. This was an out and back hike to the summit of the peninsula, which granted us a nice view of the area. Unfrotunately, Benjamin’s stroller couldn’t get up the super step stuff, so when we had all regrouped we elected to walk back to the bus stop at Bonaire.

The bus stop at Bonaire, however, turned out to be decommissioned, so we had to order taxis anyway though the taxi was cheaper this time since w’d walked a couple of klometers off the fare! Back at the Club Del Sol, Mark suggested going sailing on the Hobecat rental he’d seen in Pollenca. Boen was at first excited but as soon as they mentioned they were going to ride there Otto mysteriously got a headache and Boen decided not to bother. The kids definitely took the “rest” part of the rest day seriously.

Xiaoqin and I had spotted that there was an Assos Outlet and I determined that we could visit the Outlet by bus. It was a 40 minute journey, but once there I found what I had never found before in the US, which is size medium Assos men’s half-shorts (no-bibs) at 75 Euros. I actually test wore both the medium and the large and they both seemed to fit fine, but the staff there looked at me and said, “You’re a medium. Large is too large.” Xiaoqin had found some shorts, a nice jersey and a jacket as well. We spent our money and made it back to dinner.

At dinner, we discussed the next day’s route. I walked through all the options, including Ruda Cuda, which was an 82 mile ride. With fresh memories of the 83 miles the day before in mind, nobody was excited about that. I’d also suggested doing Cap Formentor again—in fact, everyone agreed that Joe who hadn’t done the lighthouse ride chose the next day to do so, and to do it early. With an e-bike, he could leave at 7:00am, bike to the top of the lighthouse, and get back to the hotel before the breakfast room was closed and avoid all the traffic we had seen on Monday!

We eventually decided on a short loop I’d designed to climb Col Feminia, and then descend to Lluc. I’d laid it out so that folks would have a chance to ride up Col Feminia which was the designated descent for Friday’s ride, where Sa Calobra would eliminate any desire to take the harder route back to the hotel if ridden at maximum intensity.

Point Reyes Coast Campground

Point Reyes has two fantastic campgrounds, one of which is Wildcat, the other is Coast Campground. (the other campgrounds are either only accessible by boat or inland) We've been to Wildcat on the way to Alameres Falls but never been to Coast Campground. I saw that someone cancelled their reservation for December 30th, and the weather forecast for the 30th was good, so I shifted my existing reservation from New Year's Day to that day.

Coast Campground is uniquely accessible by bike. It's only 3 miles from the Limantour Lodge trailhead along a mostly flat trail, so we brought our bikes: I put my gravel wheels from the Roadini onto Bowen's. Boen's Salsa Journeyman was already set up with 38mm Pacenti Pari-Moto tires, and I brought my ancient Airborne Hardtail as it already had a trailer attachment installed. Xiaoqin, of course, brought her newly acquired Ritchey Montebello. I had purchased Rhinowalk Fork bags for Xiaoqin and Boen's bike, but only 3 out of 4 bags arrived, and Boen didn't like the unbalanced feel of having only one side. We also packed our saddlebags. The Yakima bike trailer was loaded with the car camping oriented Wawona tent and a backpack with all the sleeping bags.

Driving from home, we bought lunch in San Francisco and ate lunch at a picnic table along the way. Arriving at the Limantour Lodge, we saw that it had vacancy, but since we already paid for the campground just got out the bikes and started riding. The bike ride wasn't completely flat, and with a load I actually needed to shift to the lowest gear for the final approach to the campground. You actually saw the beach pretty quick, but the trail took you to the campground where there was a bike rack. We had Site #3, and to my surprise when we pitched the tent we had an ocean view. I was disappointed when I saw we had no fire ring so our firewood was useless.

After pitching the tent, we walked down to the beach and walked around before heading up the Coast trail. It was already 2:45pm, so we didn't have time for an extended walk but we'd never been on this part of the Coast trail before so we just decided to treat it as an out and back. Along the way, we could see various bluffs, beaches, and gaps on the cliff side through which we could see the ocean. We even spotted Elk towards the 3:30pm turn around point. It was very windy. We had talked to some campers who were leaving as we were entering the area and they said that it had been very calm the night before so this was just a sign of the impending storm.

Returning to camp, we made coffee and apple cider, then started making dinner. I noticed that there was a spot near the beach which was protected from the wind, so while waiting the requisite 10 minutes for the mountain house dinners to cook we walked there and admired the gorgeous sunset and ensuing light show. I'd forgotten to bring headlights, but between the two phones and my Garmin we had light.

The night was awful. The wind kept flapping and shaking the tent making it hard to sleep. Even the kids complained. By the time it was 6:00am Xiaoqin was up and in a hurry to go. "I'm not waiting for the rain!" We packed everything up and started cycling back to the car. To be honest, it wasn't very cold and I regretted putting on long underwear and wearing my jacket as I warmed up pretty quick.

We reached the trailhead and there was Yoyo Zhou and his daughter and son, whom I'd never met. We said hi and caught up while Yoyo helped us put the bikes back on the roof. Yoyo's wife showed up --- she had spotted us while we were riding and she was running and we'd never met either! We made brief introductions but since we hadn't had breakfast we were in a bit of a hurry to head home. I would only realize later that Yoyo's birthday was New Year's Eve!

It rained quite a bit on our way home, but when I got home I realized that the bikes weren't even really wet, indicating that all the spots on the windshield were because we were driving at 65mph. Nevertheless, it started raining in earnest so we were glad we got out with a dry tent.

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.

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!

June 29: Pontresina Panaromic Hike

We got up early, ate breakfast, and got onto the bus which looked like a small airport shuttle to the top of Bernina pass. The bus was a few minutes late, but in true Swiss fashion, it sync'd perfectly with the bus that would take us to Muttas Muragl, the funicular railway that would take us to the start of the hike. It was already pretty warm despite the early hour, and the bus delivered us just in time to miss the previous train, which runs every half an hour. That gave us plenty of time to buy tickets, and it turned out that they opened up the funicular less than 15 minutes after we bought tickets so we could get in.

The funicular took us to a beautiful location with a zipline, and swings, and a nice playground. It wasn't very crowded, being early, so we took our time and looked around. Far to the south we could see the St Moritzersee and the Silvaplanarsee, beyond which was Maloja Pass which defined the border between Switzerland and Italy.

Starting the hike, we were impressed by the views of the Bernina Glacier as well, and of cousre the many wildflowers along the trail. Whenever there was a river crossing, there was a nice bridge. The entire trail was well maintained and pretty.

To my surprise, there was even a tunnel on the hike. We knew we would likely miss the 12:00pm anyway, so we took our time, stretching out the walk. When we got to the finish, the location where the ski lift would take us back down, Boen used the bathroom while we sat enjoying the cool breeze.

Back down in Pontresina, all the shops were closed, but we could buy ice cream and there was a bakery with some snacks available, though all at Swiss prices. When the bus came, we boarded it and the afternoon bus had no transfers, taking us all the way back to Livigno.

In Livigno, all the stores were open, so we bought supermarket lunch, dinner to cook, and Xiaoqin replenished her supply of contact lens solution. For grins, I asked how much a Fenix was, since apparently Livigno had its own tax regime, so things should be cheaper. I was disappointed as the sale prices weren't any better than what I could get in the USA.

After lunch, I chatted with the land lady and asked for another pod of laundry detergent so we could do laundry, and then I took the kids to the swimming pool where we had several runs with the water slides. It wasn't as much fun as Mayrhofen and it cost a lot more, but it was a hot day and the pool gave us something to do.

We made dinner and then went to bed early. The forecast was for rain, so our plan was to ride to the tunnel, ride to Zernez and then towards Albulapass. La Punt had expensive lodging, but the village just before that was a lot cheaper. It was also a lot less climbing so the kids wouldn't complain.

June 25: Mayrhofen Panoramaweg

Arturo, Mark and I got out of the apartment at 6:50am, walking to the nearest supermarket. When you visit Europe, you're used to very indifferent customer service. Some service workers even seem to think that customers are a nuisance. This store, despite being part of a chain, was tiny and had the most enthusiastic customer service agent in Europe I'd ever met. We started by buying bread and eggs, and then I spotted Weiss wurst. We bought two packets of 6, reasoning that would be two each. The customer service agent immediately reached back behind her and grabbed the special mustard that goes with Weisswurst proactively!

We then visited the other grocery store for more pedestrian needs. We also bought more sunscreen, having ran out. The kids would forever complain about the icky sunscreen, since they were much more used than our brush on sunblock which we'd successfully used for years.

The kids hadn't had Weisswurst at all on this trip before, and so they chowed down like crazy. Boen ate 3, as did Bowen. "Boen has got to be half weisswurst by now!" remarked Mark. We then got water bottles filled and got ready to visit the cable car for the Mayrhofen Panaromic walk, which Arturo had identified and confirmed with Stephan was a good one. Stephan had spent time in Mayrhofen before, so he decided to take the day off and work remotely instead. I asked him to ponder on whether he wanted to do the Stelvio or Silvretta instead. Boen got Otto to start pushing for Silvretta, since he thought that Silvretta + Klausen was much prettier than the Stelvio. Xiaoqin speculated that Stelvio would end up being their preference because it was just much more famous than Silvretta.

We walked over to the Penkenbahn cable car station and bought tickets (I bought the wrong ticket which cost a bit more) and then took the cable car up. It is a measure of the spectacular nature of the places we were going that our initial impressions were of being underwhelmed. The place was pretty, no doubt about it. It just didn't stand up to Secada or Tre Cime. I was glad we chose to stay for only 2 nights instead of doing more hiking in the area --- the location wasn't high enough anyway to stay cool, though the apartment we stayed at was cool enough even without AC.

The hike did grant us views all the way into the Italian Border, on the other side of the St Jakob/San Giacomo pass laid Sterzing, the town where we had started so many days ago. We walked past several artificial lakes and visited a mountain top church before doubling back and hiking down to the lower cable car station and riding it back to town, where we bought quick snack lunches at the supermarket before going back to the apartment to relax, get hydrated, do laundry, change into swimming trunks and then walk to the swimming pool.

The Mayrhofen swimming pool offered special rates after 3:30pm, so we bought passes and then proceeded to talk our way into the indoor area where the water slides were. There were two water slides which were on a timed schedule. One would open, then there'd be a 10 minute pause, then there would be another that would open. It was because there was insufficient staff to keep both slides open at the same time.

One of them, dubbed crazy river was the oddest water slide I'd ever seen. It had a couple of intermediate stops almost designed to stop you so you have to stand up and get onto the next stage of the slide. This looked like it was guaranteed to cause one slide user to crash into another if the previous one was slow. This was probably of no consequence if you were a kid and light, but I didn't want to be the adult responsible for slamming into a kid at high speed in a water slide like this one so after trying it once I stopped using it.

The other slide was much better designed, a fully enclosed tube that sloshed you around from side to side at high speed. If you weren't careful water would get up your nose. We all enjoyed that one thoroughly and couldn't get enough.

Arturo noticed that the supermarket closed at 6:00pm, so we had to leave earlier than expected to buy dinner and breakfast. We bought Weisswurst, for breakfast, and prepared to make Spaghetti Bolognese for dinner. We also got word that Otto Senior was excited about driving the Stelvio on the RV, so we started looking at train schedules and forecasts.

The forecast for the next day was for pleasant morning and a thunderstorm in the afternoon. We could take the train to Jenbach and then to Landeck where the climb to Reschen pass started, but that would forfeit riding in good weather. I decided to split the difference and proposed riding to Jenbach first thing in the morning, and then taking the train to Landeck and then riding up towards Reschenpass as high as possible. My preferred goal was to make Nauders, but Pfunds was also plausible. Nobody disagreed, but Stephan had a complication which was that Otto Jr really wanted to ride the train while he and his dad would do the drive to Landeck. He would have to meet us at the train station on our unpredictable schedule and then entrust his 7-year-old to the bad influence of our 13 and 10 year olds.

While dinner was being made, I checked the flat tire on the front.