Follow up Mint.com Review

Yes, I kept my mint.com account, and still play with it on occasion, especially when I'm in Germany, where I haven't been able to keep tabs on my Quicken account as often as I usually do. Hint to Intuit: move Quicken to the web, as soon as possible, and stop trying to charge me $20 to store my data on your servers.

Recently, when they announced the new investments section of the product, I jumped in and signed up for the beta. So far, the feature is nothing to write home about. There's a portfolio view, which lets you look at your various accounts and transactions. But there's no search or filtering functionality, so if (like me), you use your money market account as a general transaction account, good luck hunting for that check you wrote last month.

The performance tab is bad. I don't understand why so many financial websites don't understand fundamental investment principles and effectively design for the day-trader. 6 months is a really short time for a long term investor. Having that as your longest possible period is really useless. Then, mint.com insists on providing me with a stock by stock comparison with some index, like the S&P 500.

But a good investor doesn't care about that stock by stock comparison. He wants to aggregate his portfolio, and compare it with a benchmark. As mentioned before, the S&P 500 should not be your investment benchmark!

I really feel that mint.com dropped the ball on this one. When introducing a product for beginners, you have an opportunity (and dare I say responsibility) to introduce best practices. Provide sample asset allocations. Allow the user to model different portfolios over long time periods (10 years is a good start. 50 years is even better. 100 years, and I might be ready to give up Quicken). Give the user a good interface for managing his taxable events, and paying estimated taxes.

As it currently stands, this first step just doesn't cut it. I'm sticking to my spreadsheet method of keeping track of my portfolio sales and taxable events. And I'm moving that data on the internet so that my stay in Germany doesn't cause me to lose track of that stuff --- but I'm using Google Docs and Spreadsheets instead of mint.com.

Riding the Frankenbike

For my short visit to California, I didn't bother lugging my custom bike over just to lug it back to Germany again, especially since this time I have to bring the tandem over. So I borrowed my brother's Frankenbike and used it to commute to work.

It's a great bike. The funny thing is I don't miss any of the gears. 5 speed drive-trains really don't suck, which makes me wonder why anybody rides 8 speeds, 9 speeds, or 10 speeds. Oh wait, because you can't buy any 5 speed cassette hubs, and cassette hubs are better than freewheels.

The only gear I could consider that I was missing was the 12 tooth cog --- if I were chasing Cheryl Prothero along Portola Valley and she cranked up to 30mph, I would want that gear. But that's strictly speaking only an argument for 6 speed freewheels.

Too often, in cycling, we always assume that the latest and greatest is the best. It isn't. 10 speed chains are weaker, cost more, and frequently the indexing goes out of whack in all but the best conditions. A woman friend of mine ripped teeth of her 10 speed chainrings, because they got shaved so thin that they don't last. Lisa and I have ripped apart 9 speed chains on our tandem. So all those advancements in technology that brought us 8, 9, and 10 speed drive-trains? Marketing. Pure and simple. And we only have ourselves to blame, because we suck it all up, and then ask for 11 speeds.

Review: Look to Windward

I remember reading Look to Windward a few years ago, and found myself re-reading it on the plane. This was in many ways Iain Bank's post 9/11 novel, and the themes reflect it.

The Culture has an unsuccessful intervention in another civilization (by attempting to remove the caste system). That intervention leads to civil war, causing massive numbers of deaths, and resulting in The Culture admitting their error, apologizing for its actions (it claimed a low probability of such a disaster), and making reparations.

Those reparations are insufficient for many of the Chelgrians, and that faction lays a plot to essentially send a suicide bomber to a Culture orbital to kill an estimated 5 billion Culture entities as retribution. The plot then revolves around the bomber (Major Quilan), his motivations, his cover story (an attempt to repatriate a famous Chelgrian composer), and an apparent race against time as the plot is uncovered in a different part of the galaxy.

As a novel, this lies squarely in the mediocre part of Banks' work. It's not as good as Player of Games, but is at least more accessible than Excession (especially in the characters). There is a bit of fun as Banks produces a page after another of ship names that are perhaps amongst the best characteristics of the Culture universe. The misdirection part of the novel doesn't quite work, and of course, one wishes that the counter-intelligence portion of the Culture's real-world counterparts are as effective as the Culture's.

Nevertheless, even mediocre Banks is still excellent fiction. Recommended if you can get it from the library.

On ipods and cities

I've had an ipod in one form or another since 2005, but aside from the occasional non-cycling trip, it never found its way to any kind of regular use. It was only until I got to Munich that I realized that I'm in this unique category of commuters --- the cycle commute at suburban speeds doesn't make it desirable for me to listen to music on my commute. The rest of the world either drives, walks, or take transit, and when I was in Munich, walking or taking transit, I would actually use my ipod for the 20 minutes (each way) that I would walk to work, or the 15 minutes it would take to use transit. (I never used transit to save time, but to avoid poor weather, or to carry lots of baggage) Yes, cyclists in Munich actually do use ipods, but they also aren't cycling at suburban commute speeds.

Speaking of transit, Munich's transit is incredibly complicated, with three fare systems, one for buying one-use tickets, one for buying day tickets, and one for buying weekly or monthly passes. As a resident, you can figure it out, but boy, non-German speaking tourists who don't read guidebooks before they show up are going to have a massively hard time with it. The optimization function for using the transit isn't even easy for a resident to gauge, let alone figure out.

Basically, if you're going to be here within a calendar month, one round trip to the airport on different days will make buying a monthly pass worth while. But of course, if you're jet-lagged and don't speak English, good luck figuring out the machines! Now that answers are completely different if you're traveling in a group, or if your trip spans 2 months, or if you have to be some place before 9am. I have no idea why it has to be so complicated --- like almost all transit systems, the one in Munich is run at a slight loss, and revenue generation should be secondary (since many residents who use the transit just buy the passes and are done with it).

Raising the Bar Revisited

My brother bought the kindle edition of Raising the Bar(dead tree edition) after I told him about the book, so when it showed up on my Kindle (yes, my brothers and I all share the same Kindle account for sharing convenience) I read it again.

I reviewed this book last year, but re-reading it reminds me that it is such a great book and that I really like it. If you're a touring cyclist, you owe it to yourself to read this book. It really highlights the huge difference between the guided tours, the heavily loaded tours, and the spirit of adventure.

I've alluded to all that in the past, but I'll say this for sure: most people, when given the opportunity, will turn down adventure. That's why guided tours and packaged vacations are so popular, even though they cost 3-4 times what a white road adventure tour costs, to use Gary Erickson's terminology. (That's right, for the cost of one of those cycling vacations, I can tour for 3-4 months!) Given the choice between being cocooned in a bubble of America, with other English speakers to talk to, with a cue sheet given to you every morning, and all meals and snacks taken care of, most folks would rather do that. On my tours, I have to pick my own route (with input from others in the group of course), talk to people who don't speak English, buy food, select restaurants, select hotels, all on the fly. But the entire package is what's appealing --- the freedom to go where I please, stay an extra day, and tailor the ride to my needs is worth the effort. And the people you meet know that you're vulnerable, and because of that, go out of their way to help you. If you don't put yourself in that position, you will never really get to know the people of the country you are visiting.

The same thing applies to events like Team-in-training. Most folks would get a much better program by either joining a cycling club or doing their own rides themselves. Both options are much much cheaper than the typical TIT pledge (take the difference and donate all that money to charity, rather than paying for the typical charity ride overhead). But for some reason, to join a cycling club would stretch most people beyond their comfort zone.

Then again, the fact that most of the world is like that means that people like Gary Erickson, Jobst Brandt, and to a lesser extent, myself, get the advantage of doing what we enjoy doing without an avalanche of other cycle tourists descending on our little country hotels driving prices up, so perhaps I should not talk up this way of life too much.

Once again, read Raising the Bar, if you haven't already. (And yes, it's another company that gives employees free massages --- it's not just strange companies like Google that does it)

Holzkirchen Loop Ride (2)

Holzkirchen Loop 2

Today, I made the basic cycle touring mistake --- I forgot to bring a paper map with me on the trip to Holzkirchen. It wasn't too bad at first, since I still had my GPS unit, and had programmed in the desired route earlier. Chris and I found the 20% grade I had discovered on an earlier ride, and it turned out to be just as fun as I expected --- fully shaded, and very pretty. Zipping along into Meisbach, however, I soon discovered that part of the route had inadvertently been routed along a road with way too much traffic for my preferences.

As was my wont, I took a turn off the main road just to see if I could find a smaller one, but unfortunately, doing that confused the GPS, to the point I had to bring up the menu and hit the recalculate button. That reset the GPS, and it rerouted us back to Holzkirchen rather than attempting to follow the route again. That was no good, but at that point we had done about 40km, so decided that it was ok to have a 70 or 80km day.

Unfortunately, the return route also tried to follow the main route, and we soon decided to ignore that in favor of small roads. A few false turns, and we soon found ourself at a dead end. However, there was a small dirt path, and a road was seen on the GPS just in the direction the path was headed in, so we rode down the path and were rewarded by a river side track.

Soon, however, we were at a cross roads, and the GPS couldn't make up its mind as to which way to go, so we picked one at random. After a bit, however, I noticed that we weren't getting any closer to Holzkirchen. I stopped a man going the other way, and he said he was going to Holzkirchen and invited us to follow him. When in doubt, as a local, as it were.

Soon enough, we were cycling through by ways, a gorgeous bike path that led us through meadows and lovely lakes. We were soon in Holzkirchen where our guide told us that 300m before the train station was the best ice cream in Bavaria. So we stopped there for ice cream, and then hopped on the train back.

Not bad, 80km, and 1153m of climb on a hot beautiful sunny day.

Interesting Sights

Today I saw something interesting. I saw a girl riding a bicycle with a helmet in the basket behind the seat. Now why would you not wear that helmet if you're going to bother carrying it? A moment later I saw her boyfriend roller blading with a helmet on, and then noticed that in the basket was also a set of roller blades. The implications were obvious --- roller blading was so dangerous that you needed to wear a helmet, but cycling is so safe that a helmet is unnecessary. Irony of ironies, the helmet she was carrying was obviously a bike helmet.

Now some of that safety is real --- cycling in Germany is three times safer than cycling in the USA. But a lot of that has to do with a culture that would rather encourage cycling without helmets than no cycling. By increasing the number of cyclists (a lot of women would give up cycling rather than mess up their hair), safety for all cyclists is also improved.

Review: Market Forces

Market Forces (kindle edition) is Richard Morgan's novel about capitalism. It depicts a world in which corporations run foreign policy on behalf of corporations in order to keep labor costs low and sweat shops running.

The protagonist, Chris Faulkner, grew up in the cordoned zones after his father was killed for not having money to pay bills at he supermarket cashier. The result: the son grows up to become a corporate warrior in a world where promotions are determined by the results of duels on the streets where men and women fight it out in battle-wagons.

The novel starts with Faulkner joining Shorn Associates as a new executive. His boss hates him, and schemes against him at every opportunity. His new partner who becomes a friend is a blood thirsty maniac who shoots four car-jackers in "self-defense." Faulkner becomes successful despite their machinations, but at the cost of becoming a cold blooded killer in the model of Shorn Associates. His wife then begins a battle for his soul...

Maybe I've become inured to Morgan's novels, but the sex and violence don't seem all that explicit at this point. There is definitely something odd about Morgan writing about corporate-style capitalism, since the man has apparently never had a corporate job in his life. As it is, the corporate cut-throat behavior of executives does ring true (I've seen enough of it in my time), but the concept of executives ever bloodying their hands when they can have minions do it for them doesn't strike me as something true. In any case, like all of other Morgan's novels, it's a great read, just not as great as the Takeshi Kovacs series. Recommended at the Kindle price.
“I’d say a practicing free market economist has blood on his hands, or he isn’t doing his job properly. It comes with the market, and the decisions it demands. Hard decisions, decisions of life and death. We have to make those decisions, and we have to get them right. We have to be determined to get them right. The blood on our hands today is the blood of our less determined colleagues, and that says something. To you, Liz, to our audience, and most of all to our Cambodian clients, that blood says that when the hard decisions come, we will not flinch from them.”

Tips on using the Garmin 76CSx

Now that I've got more experience with the Garmin 76CSx, I can provide a few tricks:

1. Garmin Mapsource is a piece of crap. It crashes frequently, so when working with it, save early and save often. I'm unhappy that no one else has provided a reasonably good program.
   
2. The site for uploading maps data is motion-based. They're owned by Garmin, but don't seem to suck too badly. There's a very cool feature, which is after you've uploaded the data, you can download the Google Earth KML file and run the tour as a fly-by view. I tried Bikely, but because it's tied to Google Maps, it doesn't know what to do with routes that might not be on a known road.
   
3. Speaking of roads --- Mapsource includes most dirt roads in its database. This is very useful for planning routes, since every possible route is included, but be prepared to turn back if you don't want to ride dirt (usually, any dirt road on Mapsource is easily rideable by me).
   
4. There's a battery options menu deep inside the Setup menu. Setting it correctly can grant lots of additional battery life for NiMH batteries. I don't think it actually changes power consumption profile (how could it), but the reporting gets a lot more accurate (NiMH batteries start at a lower voltage than alkaline batteries), which means that the unit runs longer before nagging you about low power. The unit is extremely good about batteries, I am extremely happy with the battery life.
   
5. When routing, your best choice is to use MapSource --- it lets you pick exactly the roads you want to ride on. One thing to watch out for, however, is that the GPS unit proper can't deal with routes needing more than 50 waypoints (that's clicks on the map to you). So if you need that much, you have to split the route into multiple pieces. One alternative is to use auto-routing as much as possible (plug in the start and end points), and then insert way points to morph the route into what you want. This is very effective because the Garmin unit routes like MapSource. In fact, the few times I thought the unit didn't do so it was because of user-error --- I really did enter in a different route than what I ultimately rode.
   
6. For dynamic routing, push the "Find" button, then select "Cities". The menu will fill out with cities/villages within the next 10km. Now, this option is only useful if you already have a map with you. What you want is to find the city that's on the way to a destination. The trick here is to not use big cities, as much as possible --- in fact, when you need to navigate through a big city, what you should do is to select the city in the direction of travel just after the big city --- this ensures that the GPS unit will route you through the city as efficiently as possible. (This is assuming you want to avoid the city, which is my usual mode --- obviously if you actually want to visit the city, selecting the city will take you to the city center, which is exactly what you want) One interesting divergence between road signs and the GPS is that German road signs usually count distance to the outskirts of a city, while the GPS unit will compute distance to the city center, so don't get too happy when the road signs give you a smaller number than the GPS)
   

All in all, I have been very pleased with the data and output I've gotten out of the unit. As always, if you want all the features of the GPS, make sure you have a Windows machine. There's now a version of Mapsource for the Mac, but given Garmin's lack of software expertise, I am not at all confident that the Mac version will provide reasonable data, or even be compatible with routes designed by the windows version. I once told Pardo that he shouldn't buy a unit because he hates both Macs and Windows, but now that I've figured out the dynamic routing trick, I think I can withdraw this recommendation --- you still have to carry paper maps, but I think you should resign yourself to doing that anyway --- the screen is just way too small to rely on to make sure that say, you're heading in the right direction for the pass you want to do. The unit does make navigating cities and big town completely hassle free now --- not that I want to use this option often, but it's there when absolutely necessary.

Is there an Edge 705 in my future? Now that there are reasonable power solutions (the link is to the kindle battery extender, but a $5 mini-usb trip will make it work with the 705), I am finding the Edge 705 less objectionable than before. However, given that the maps lock me into my current unit, I think I'll find the patience to wait to extract full value out of my current unit first.

One more thing: if you use the Garmin unit for cycle touring, try Piaw Routing and let me know what you think.

View of Munich

View from Top of Frauenkirche

Frauenkirche is the big symbol of Munich, and is taller than all the other churches. You climb up a flight of stairs to reach an elevator that takes you nearly 100m to the tallest view of the city (Munich is kinda flat, though on a clear day like this one, you get a view of the Alps!). For my money, Peters Church is probably a better view, because it's not enclosed.

My solution to my banking problems

I'm just going to go to my bank's ATM, use my American bank's ATM, withdraw money, and then go into the bank's branch and deposit the cash right into my bank account. Obviously, this can't be used to transfer huge sums of money, and I can do so only 4 times a month (which is how many times First Internet of Indiana will reimburse me for ATM charges), but at this point, it is the expedient thing to do.

International Banking: not for the faint of heart

Review: How to Rig an Election

How to Rig an Election(kindle edition) is a book by Allen Raymond, the Republican operative who went to jail for jamming democratic phone lines in New Hampshire during the 2002 elections.

This short book is written in a curt, cynical, condescending style. Though Raymond was a Republican operative, it wasn't clear that he didn't look down at the typical Republicans he associated with:
No offense to the true believers, but it’s hard to get any serious business done with someone from the God Squad twisting your ear about the evils of stem cell research while an NRA lifer demands your assurance that the black helicopters won’t be swooping down to deprive him of his twin-mounted .50-caliber Brownings.

More fascinating than the story of what he did to go to jail, was his story of what was perfectly legal and regularly used by the Republican party: using the voice of an angry Black man to call white democrats urging them to vote, for instance. The level of mendacity is quite incredible, and when Raymond helped run Steve Forbes' campaign, and the man refused to fight Bush's lies about him, Raymond concluded that Forbes did not really want to win and didn't deserve to win the election. The list of dirty tricks was quite extensive, and the cynicism accompanying them just so.

Perhaps the most telling was his reference to a study that people picked who they voted for for president based on his appearance. I guess with this level of intelligence in the electorate, perhaps I should be grateful for low turnout in elections. The book is recommended as far as the time spent reading is concerned --- it's quite a short book, and is very entertaining. I wouldn't pay full price, however!

The Perils of International Banking

Lots of people would believe that in this age of globalization, it would be easy for capital to move around. After all, with wire transfers, international networks, IBANs and SWIFT codes, one should be able to get access to his or her monies anywhere in the world, right?

If I had any illusions about that, they have all been shattered now. Over a month ago, I set up a bank account with Deutsche Bank. Now my co-workers had warned me that this was like asking for a permit to transfer nuclear weapons, and just as difficult. The process itself however, went smoothly for me, so I thought I'd skirted that particular bomb. At that time, I wanted to fund my bank account by writing a check. Oh no, said the bank representative. You don't want to do that. It's slow and would take forever. Better to use a wire transfer.

OK, my status with Vanguard was such that wire transfers were free anyway. So I worked through the details, including writing a paper letter, signing it, and getting it air-couriered to Vanguard. (Yes, there's a lot of safeguards in the process, so I wasn't worried about security) A few days later, the money was deducted from my Vanguard account.

2 weeks later, the money still had not showed up, so I asked Vanguard for a wire trace. Just 2 days ago, I got e-mail from Vanguard saying the Deutsche Bank had told them that my account did not exist. And get this --- at the same time I'd communicated with my Deutsche Bank representative, and they never got back to me. Not once! I went to the bank today in person to write a check to fund it. Again, I got that warning about speed. I told the representative: if I had written a check a month ago, I would have the money NOW.

And for all this lack of service, Deutsche Bank, like almost all other banks in Germany, charges 5 Euros a month, for an account that pays no interest. There's no consumer bank in the US that could survive doing business like that. (The bank that charges no fees is the Post Bank, but they don't have an English web-site, and when dealing with money, I want to be able to read every freaking word on the web page)

Now, in case you think I'm being an idiot, and am an out-lier, I checked with the office --- every prior transfer has had massive difficulties with the German financial system. 100%. No exceptions.

All this has taught me one thing: the USA still has the best financial infrastructure on the planet. It's no wonder the Chinese desperately want to give us their money, and it's no wonder everywhere else in the world wants to invest in the US. I take it for granted too often, but thank you Vanguard, Capital One, Wells Fargo, etc., etc. You guys work hard for my business, and I didn't know how good I had it until I had to deal with your foreign counter-parts.

Riding my gloves to destruction

 

I have a history of riding equipment to destruction, but I also have a similar approach to clothing --- I tend not to throw any clothing away until it's no longer functional, even if it already has holes in it. This isn't due to any kind of innate cheapness, but because old clothing just wears better and is more comfortable.

Well, this is the second pair of Specialized Body Geometry gloves I've worn out. Don't take this as any criticism of their gloves --- it took me about 2 years to wear this pair to destruction. (The symptom was that the hole in the glove would get caught in my bar end shifters) I didn't like my other gloves enough to wear them to destruction (and some get lost, etc). The problem is that this newer model isn't as comfortable as the old gloves I destroyed a couple of years back. The durability seems poorer as well. However, they are still the most comfortable gloves for long rides, by far. This doesn't mean I can wear them for 10 hours straight --- I sometimes have to take them off and ride bare handed on ultra long days.

I guess I'll just stock up on them when I next return to California.

Review: Science Fiction, The Best of the Year 2006

I bought this from Fictionwise's 25% off sale (limited time only). Way back when I still bought paper books, my brother and I were consumers of The Year's Best Science Fiction collections produced by Gardner Dozois. Then I noticed how many of those stories came from Asimov's Science Fiction magazine, and so I subscribed to that magazine instead.

Rich Horton seems to have a more varied taste than Gardner Dozois, but his selections work well. I liked all but one of the stories in this collection, and the one I didn't like was a super-short meta-piece that didn't rob me of too many pages of reading. My only complaint is that the page count seems a bit slim, but given the price of this book ($6 with the Fictionwise sale) compared to the Dozois book, I'm about to go buy a couple more of Horton's collections while the sale is on.

Recommended at the sale price.

Review: Skoody

I'll admit it --- I got my Skoody at a corporate function, so I have no idea how much it costs. Basically, it's a rain jacket with a hood and a micro-fleece liner. It comes with a neat little pouch that folds up. It's about the same bulk as a Carradice Raincape, and is about the same weight.

The difference is that rain capes absolutely will not work if you don't have fenders on the bike. I don't usually like to use fenders when touring because of the multiple hassles involved --- fenders break, rattle, and are just plain annoying. I used the Skoody on my Black Forest tour and discovered that the Skoody is much warmer than a rain cape. This is perfect if you're wearing short sleeve jerseys, and only put on the Skoody when you need the warmth.

So the Skoody serves 2 functions: a heavier weight jacket, as well as a rain jacket and a around-town wear. This lets me eliminate weight from my saddlebag (I used to carry both a heavy and a light shell --- now I carry the Skoody and a light shell). There's also a scarf mode, but I didn't bother trying it. In any case, it comes highly recommended! I don't know how much longer I will use the rain cape now that I have a Skoody. I don't see it on Amazon, but you can buy it direct from the manufacturer.

Review: Farthing

I started reading Farthing(free kindle edition) because Scarlet mentioned it in a post. Since it's one of the many free books Tor has been giving away, I started reading it.

The novel is structured like an Agatha Christie novel --- a murder has happened within a noble family, and who has done it? The twist is that this novel takes place in an alternate England, a world where Winston Churchill was pushed out of office prematurely, and England sued for peace with Hitler, who wanted to open up a front with Russia without interference. America never entered the war. As a result, none of the stories of the holocaust made it to public consciousness, so anti-semitism is prevalent. And of course, homophobia was prevalent in 1949 in both histories.

The story alternates between Scotland Yard's Inspector Carmichael and Lucy Eversley Kahn, a child of the Farthing Set (the politicians who negotiated for peace) who married a Jewish banker. The murder takes place the night after a dinner party, and Scotland Yard shows up and starts gathering clues. We're given privvy to several things that Scotland Yard doesn't know at the start, and then the hunt is afoot.

I'm actually disappointed by the mystery. It didn't seem like much of one, especially when the reveal happens. The author seems much more caught up in extrapolating her alternate universe, and the characters who are our viewpoint characters seem out of place. There does also seem to be an unusually large number of gay and bi-sexual characters, which seems a bit hard to swallow, given the prevalent attitudes at that time. Ultimately, while I don't regret the time spent reading this novel, I can't recommend paying money for the book at full price. I'll wait for the Kindle editions of the sequels. (Strangely enough, even though the book was given away for free in Kindle format, none of the sequels are available in the sequel store --- not very smart in my opinion)

Black Forest Tour

Black Forest

Thursday was a public holiday, so I took the opportunity to add a vacation day and do a long bike tour. The original plan was to do Grossglockner pass, but with forecast for rain and snow, a lower elevation tour seemed safer. Besides, Karlsruhe had a forecast for sunshine all weekend, so Chris and I bought train tickets to visit the Black Forest. Due to a train reservation snafu, we ended up with different start times on the train, but with the cell phone, I expected to have no problems linking up. Besides, Chris wasn't so sure he wanted to do as many big hills as I did, so it would be great for me to get a ton of climbing in before he showed up.

I didn't sleep well at all the night before, for whatever reason, and showed up on the train a little tired, but despite that couldn't sleep on the train at all. Once in Karlsruhe, I turned on my GPS unit and started to head out of town towards Ettlingen. This part was really boring, and I was starting to queston my desire to save a few bucks by riding. But soon enough, my GPS beeped and sent me off towards some hills towards Schluttenbach and Volkersbach. The road headed up steeply and I was soon having to stand up to turn the pedals. The views weren't great and the weather was looking iffy, but I saw enough cyclists that indicated that this was great. I had called Chris a few times on the phone, but he wasn't responding. We had agreed to meet up at Gernsbach, so I headed down that way after tooling around, and then visited both train stations there. No sign of him. I observed that the next train from Karlsruhe was due at 1:15pm, and it just started raining, so I decided to have lunch.

Chris didn't show up after lunch either, so I took off up along the Murgtal. With the impending rain, I decided not to take in any of the high routes. Sure enough, whenever I looked up, it looked like it was raining in the hills. The forecast was definitely not working.

At around 3:30pm, I found the bike path next to the Murg, and started riding alongside it. What a beautiful area this was --- green trees, a stream, and lovely cute little houses. I wasn't making great time, but I was having a great time. At 4:30pm I started looking for lodging, and encountered a full hotel which made me take this lodging search more seriously. At Heselbach, I tried a hotel but it wanted 60 Euros for one night. I rolled down along the main street and found one for 30 Euros. It was next to the street, but it didn't look like a noisy street, and the entire package was great --- dinner, breakfast, and lodging cost me 42 Euros.

I woke up the next day expecting rain, but found that the roads were dry! off I went past Baiersbronn, and past that, along a bike path towards Freudenstadt. The bike path brought me into Freudenstadt alright, but on a 20% grade! I wondered how many locals even bothered using that path, since I was the only one on it, and had to work hard, even with a 24x34 backing me. Once into Freudenstadt, I figured out how to work my GPS dynamically --- set it for the next town, and the GPS unit will navigate you through the biggest city on the most direct route possible.

Skirting Freudenstadt, I headed towards bad Rippoldsau, This was a beautiful winding passage in the woods, a favorite amongst motorcyclists, it seemed, and then the descent started. And what a descent --- no brakes were needed and I hit well over 50kph, and then the road followed the Wolfach river down alongside a glorious valley before terminating in Wolfach. I stopped in Wolfach to buy some bananas, a donut, and a pear, and ate a little bit before using my GPS unit to set my route for Vor Kirnbach. This navigated me into a little side road into Schramberg. Schramberg was at 426m and Wolfach was at 262m, so I expected a little climbing. What I didn't expect was to climb well over to 800m before descending a fast road down to Schramberg. Once in Schramberg, I decided that the weather was so good that I should do more climbing, so headed up the road towards Hardt.

Yes, it was a hard climb. I stayed in my 24x34 quite a bit, so the grade exceeded 12% for a good long stretch. It was then that I realized that single chevrons on my map meant 12% grades, while double chevrons indicated 20+%. Clearly, my map was designed far masochists! I felt the climb and once in town checked my altimeter that said that I had done 1800m of climbing that day. That's right up there with a tour of the alps.

From Hardt, I decided not to do any more huge amounts of climbing, and rode into Sankt Georgen, where I found an open bakery and ate a cake, flushed down with some orange juice in a pouch. I then set my GPS for Vohrenbach and followed directions. I found the traffic annoying though, so when I saw a sign for Unterkirnach, I took it despite the promise of more climbing. Indeed, the climbing was hard (and I was really feeling it by now), but hey, the views were worth it. My GPS beeped once again, and I looked and saw that it had found me an alternate route to Vohrenbach that wasn't on my map. I took the route and found it leading down a gorgeous valley filled with hillside flowers, dumping me back out on the main road only 3km from Vohrenbach.

I arrived at Vohrenbach to find the tourist information office closed at 12:00pm on Fridays. Obviously, tourists don't drop by on Fridays. I took the hint and pushed on to Hammereisenbach, where the hotels didn't look that good, so I pushed on to Eisenbach up the hill a bit. The first hotel there wasn't yet open for the season, but the second one had the German cycling club logo on the outside, so I asked for a room. I couldn't believe it when I was quoted a 25 Euro price for a room and breakfast. The dinner was excellent as well!

Breakfast the next morning was a little anemic, but I was confident in my ability to find food somewhere else as necessary. I pushed on up the hill towards Titisee as rain drops started falling. Once into Titisee, the sun came out long enough for me to put on sunscreen, but of course once I had done so it started raining again. I rode up into Barental, stopped there to buy 3 bananas and a pear for an Euro, ate a banana, and rode up to Schuluchsee. The lake was quite pretty, but I wasn't in the mood for it was the rain started coming down then. All desires to do a scenic route vanished and I spied a sign for Bonndorf and took it. Hopefully it being not marked as scenic would mean less traffic, which would mean that I would enjoy it more.

Sure enough, there was much less traffic. One thing that I'm learning now about the Black Forest is that it is hilly. Schluchsee is 951m, and Bonndorf is 847m. So you might expect a descent between the two, right? Yes, but not before climbing to well over 1100m. The traffic being so light, however, was quite nice, and I saw quite a scenic view towards the North in one of the open areas.

Down into Bonndorf I went, and there I ate a banana before heading towards Blumberg via Ewattingen. This was marked as a scenic route on the map, but it didn't seem that terribly scenic to me. The part from Ewattingen, however, was scenic and fun! Several hairpin turns one after another and a sharp turn alongside a river took my breath away. I had too much fun descending to take any pictures. Once in Achdorf proper, however, I discovered that I had a flat. I stopped at a bus stop, ate a banana, and fixed the flat, which had no cause I could discern from an examination of the tire. I patched the tube and stuck in a new one.

It was a good thing I fixed the flat then, because the climb from Achdorf to Blumberg was marked with a 15% grade. A car driver stopped as I was climbing the road to warn me about the steepness! I sat in my 24x34 and spun up it, not even daring to stand up because the road was wet. That was a doozy! After that, the ride through Nordhalen, Tengen, Engen, and Neuhausen was unremarkable except for brilliant hillside yellow flowers. I started making my way through the built up areas, following side roads and bike paths as much as possible, until in Nenzingen where I could finally set my GPS for Ludwigshafen on the Uberlingersee.

There, I spotted a sign: 68km to Lindau. Since it was only 3:30pm, I thought I could make it. Well, I underestimated how tired I was because once I got into Ludwigshafen and the bike path, I found my butt a bit sore. I stopped at a bathroom and changed to a fresh pair of bike shorts, which helped quite a bit. But by then I had eaten all my food, and was tooling along slowly. At that point, I had to find lodging or keep going. I elected to keep going a bit more through Uberlingen, and that was my mistake. Past Meersburg, there was no lodging to be had at all, and I had to keep going in search of lodging. Finally in Friedrichshafen I saw the train station, got onto a train to Lindau, and from Lindau bought a Bayern ticket and took the train back to Munich, getting in at 11:30.

The total ride was 350km with 4027m climb over 3 days (the first day was only 77km and 700m of climb). Not bad at all but with only one day of sunshine and 2 days of rain, and one flat, I wish I could have done better. In any case, if you enjoy climbing, I think the Black Forest is for you. The scenery isn't as nice as the alps, but it was a good change of pace, and the climbs are as steep as anywhere you'll find. And the prices are amazing. Highly recommended for cyclists on a budget.

Review: A Song of Stone

This is an awful book, despite my being a fan of Iain Banks.

A noble man (wealthy enough to own a castle) and his companion (it's unclear whether they're married, but given Banks' penchant for illicit relationships between siblings, they could easily have been siblings) are fleeing their home in the aftermath of a war. They get caught by a band of soldiers who force them to lead them to their castle, take it over, and begin a series of operations, culminating in the destruction of the castle and lots of deaths.

I can find no redeeming value in this novel whatsoever. Nobody in it is a likable character, and nothing happens to move the plot along or make it interest. Near the end, I was slogging through it out of a sense of obligation, and if the novel had been any longer I would have just given up. Two thumbs down, not worth your time.

Deutsches Museum

It was raining today, so I took the day and spent it at the Deutsches Muesem. Anyone who's known me any length of time will know that I'm not a big fan of spending time inside museums, particularly for art, where I can appreciate the print just as easily as the original. (Or in the case of impressionist paintings that depend on me not being red-green color blind, I can just as easily discover how little I appreciate them)

The Deutsches Museum, however, is not an art museum --- it's a scientific and technical museum. Now, your first thought would be that this would be something like the San Francisco Exploratorium, which is interesting and entertaining, but not all that enlightening. The Deustches museum, however, covers much less sexy topics --- unless you're an engineer.

The mining exhibit, for instance, can easily take you an hour to walk through, and has parts that simulate a real mine --- complete with the sense of claustrophobia, though not the dirt and risk of suffocation. The section on power generation contains full scale runners from actual generators. The aviation section has cut away engines. Not just one, but many of them!

The museum is huge. I spent all day there and didn't see everything. I didn't even attempt to get in on the guided tours, though we happened to wander into the tail end of one while visiting the printing section. (The printing press was invented in Germany, and so was lithography, so you got to see the original versions of the lithographic machines and so forth) By the end of the day, I was exhausted from standing, and there was still plenty to explore. Definitely something to come back to again. Recommended, even for those who are usually museum haters.

Yes, the museum does allow photography inside, but my SD card chose today to give up, so I was screwed.