April 11th: Alcudia, Pollenca, Coll de Femenia, and Tunnel Puig Major

The breakfast at Fergus was nothing short of astounding. You  had a choice of Spanish, German, English, and Mallorcan breakfasts, along with an omelette station where you could choose whatever you wanted and ask the staff to make it. I was hungry enough that I showed up 15 minutes before opening time and started eating before the restaurant opened, something I would get away with for the next several days until I was told to stop by staff members for our last 2 days at the hotel.

Rolling out of the hotel, I was so excited to get going that I forgot about the flat approach to Port de Soller that we had used the evening before and just rode up Sa Figuere, which cost us about 20 minutes. Climbing over Port de Soller, I figured that with Garmin Livetrack, Mike wouldn't have any trouble following, so I just rode on to Bunyola and Santa Maria, where I found Karsten waiting for us at the previously designated coffee shop. Soon enough, Linus Gerdemann showed up, looking every bit the ex-Pro he was. He went to fetch his bike, and Mike showed up just as everyone was about ready, having found us despite all the travails of following my track. He ordered a cup of coffee, downed it like an elixir of life, and then we were off!

My memory of rides and roads is usually pretty good, but Linus and Karsten set such a fast pace that much of the time, I couldn't do much except stay in the slipstream of their bikes at what Strava would later tell me were speeds somewhere around 20mph. A couple of times, I would dash off forward to get pictures of them from the front, which was surprisingly hard, but if I hadn't done that, all my photos would have been of their backsides. The flat country roads were fun, with cyclists coming and going in every direction: it felt like a century day, except that during centuries all cyclists would be riding in the same direction whereas this seemed like an incredibly busy day regardless.

Eventually, as we approached the coast Mike started falling off the back whenever we climbed and the pace slackened. Karsten suffered a flat, and borrowed my pump to replace the tube. I looked at it and said, "This looks like an easy patch." "Patch?" Linus asked. I just throw it away. "In that case give it to me and I'll carry it." I said. By the time we got to Pollenca, Mike was looking a bit cooked. There, we stopped at a cafe/bistro/restaurant, and I ordered an ice coffee (which turned out to be ice cream mixed in with coffee) and a sandwich, which was a mistake, since after the sandwich I felt bloated and unable to climb. Both Karsten and Linus were time-limited, so they suggested that rather than try to just do an out-and-back with them, we could just ride over Col de Femina through the tunnels back to Port de Soller. Mike looked like he could do with a shorter ride, and Karsten suggested that he attempt to take the ferry back from the bottom of Sa Calobra. "Not even Brad has done that ferry ride yet!" he declared, which intrigued me. Linus's slow leak had become annoying, and he didn't have an extra inner tube, but fortunately, they were riding with a cycle tourist today: I got out my patch kit and pump, and proceeded to patch the tube that came out of Karsten's rear wheel. "You're supposed to let it cure, but you can just put it inside the tire without inflating it, and then inflate it so the patch is right against the tire to prevent the patch from blowing off." Trading the patched tube for a newly flatted tube, we took one last picture together and parted ways.

We rode north away from Pollenca, and then the road turned west. We were immediately hit by a headwind. Mike must have been exhausted because he couldn't even stay on my wheel despite the road being largely flat. When Nadine overtook me I decided that I'd just save some energy by jumping onto her wheel and riding. Nadine was from Germany, and she'd just recovered after 2 years of occupational and physical therapy after getting hit by a car while walking down the street. "The insurance company for the driver is still paying, as I still cannot work full time," she said.

At Col de Femina, I stopped and waited for Mike. After he showed up, we rode on and discovered that despite the name, after the pass the road continued to climb towards the monastery, only granting us a descent after the intersection with Coll de sa Batalla. "We're not going to make it in time for the ferry," I told Mike. "I'd given up on that about 15 minutes ago," he replied, which meant that we could take our time at the viewpoints and take in the glorious view on a clear day. The protection from the mountains meant that we no longer felt the headwind, which was a relief.

The descent to the Sa Calobra turnoff happened in quick order, and after that it actually wasn't much climbing to the tunnel. Karsten called to check to make sure we were both OK, and while I spoke to him on the phone Mike got his second wind and caught up and passed me to the second tunnel. That was the summit, and after that it was a long descent into Port de Soller, with only a brief stop to get views of Port de Soller from the restaurant and to charge my tail-light, which had exhausted its battery.

Back at Port de Soller, we took showers, did laundry, and ate snacks until it was time for our pre-reserved dinner at the Kingfisher. Despite having reservations, the restaurant was so small that we had to eat outside. Cyclists normally don't mind eating outside, but in Spain, eating outside meant that you got free second-hand-smoke from the other diners, which took away most of the flavorful meal we otherwise might have gotten.

Between the nice sunset and the decent meal (if over-rated), we got quite satisfied. Mike had booked the massage for the next day and wasn't planning to do more than a short ride. Linus taunted me over WhatsApp with a message that said: "I don't see Sa Calobra" on your Strava!" I decided that I'd just ride over the tunnel road again, ride down Sa Calobra, ride it back up, and then make it down again in time to catch the early ferry. I tried to get Mike to consider that: "The ferry leaves at 1:45pm. You'll make it back in time for your 3:00pm massage!" He wasn't convinced, for whatever reason. If this was a point-to-point tour we would have had a problem, but since it was a fixed based tour, it wasn't as though my riding was dependent on him coming along.

April 10th: The Easy Deia Loop

Prior to the trip, one of Brad’s friends, Karsten, in an act of unselfish generosity had said that he would pick us up at the airport. We were touched and brought him some chocolate from home hoping that it would serve as a gesture of thanks for his hospitality.

After the prior night’s rain, we looked at the forecast for Mallorca and saw that rain was in the offing.  From the airplane, the weather looked quite forbidding! Indeed, when we picked up the bike boxes at the Mallorca airport, we noted that they were wet. Karsten texted us where to meet him, and by the time we got out of the airport it was cool but no longer rainy. Karsten met us nearly instantly, finding us, since we looked rather lost. We somehow managed to get all the bike boxes and our carry-on into his car, whereupon he immediately texted Linus to say that his car wasn’t needed as well.

  

Along the way to Soller, he told us about the various roads as well as the rights of cyclists on the road: “You have all the rights of a car, including riding side by side on the road. Some of the tourists will freak out but most of the locals understand this.” My jaw dropped upon hearing this,  but indeed, over the next few days we’d see cyclists riding 2-up, 3-up, or even 4-up, in some cases posing more danger to cyclists going the other way than car drivers were!

Karsten and Linus were offering to ride with us, and of course we accepted, knowing that the good roads in the area could only be known  by the locals. He showed us the various meeting spots that we might end up using, and then pulled into Port de Soller. “We  have to park here, since to go further only taxis are allowed!” He led us down the block to the hotel, whose entrance was cleverly concealed behind the façade of a restaurant. There he bade us farewell and said that he’d be in touch via WhatsApp about riding together!

The Fergus Style Soller Beach was right on the beach, and when we talked to the reception they said our room wasn’t going to be ready until 3pm. “No problem,” we said, “We’ll put together our bikes and go for a ride until then!” The staff then led us to the room  used for organizing laundry and sheets, whereupon we took apart our bike boxes and assembled the bike, taking extra time as we were still jet-lagged but excited about riding in Mallorca.

But first we had to satisfy our hungry stomachs. Down the street from where Karsten had dropped us off was a restaurant, where we ordered a few tapas, which took some time to serve. We would find out later, that most Spanish restaurants don’t actually fire up the kitchen until later in the afternoon.

I’d laid out an easy first day’s route, riding up to Deia, and then curling back around to climb Col de Soller. I figured out that the way out was the way Karsten drove us in, but of course, I’d forgotten that Karsten used the car-only tunnel! But right next to the exit to the tunnel which said “No bikes”, was a road marked “Sa Figuera”. It looked nice and small, and it was marked on my Fenix 5X, so I opted to ride it. One problem with the Garmin GPS’s is that their marked routes when you choose to follow a pre-laid course had no direction markers, so you never know whether  you’re riding in the direction you’d planned. I also discovered to my dismay that while I thought I’d loaded all of Spain onto my Fenix 5X, the maps were invalid, and my screen was blank except for the GPS track on it. But hey, one of the reasons to pick Soller were that there was only a few roads out, so off we went.

Sa Figuera turned out to be a beautiful single lane road that led out to the highway that would lead to Pollenca, and at the top, Mike’s GPS, which had all the maps correctly loaded told me to turn right, and we did, whereupon my GPS picked out the route to Deia, and we started climbing with grand views of Soller gradually developing until we turned the corner and saw the Mediterranean in all its glory, with the sun out and storm clouds no longer with us! “This might be the most beautiful ride I’ve ever been on!” declared Mike.  We rolled along the hills and went down to the descend to Valledemossa, whereupon I felt a tugging to turn right and do an 80 mile day right then, but it was already mid-afternoon and I knew we did not have time.

So we headed towards Bunyola following signs for Santa Maria, and stopped at the coffee shop that Karsten had pointed out to us. You might think you have coffee shop gatherings for cyclists where you live, but there are so many cyclists on Mallorca, that the coffee shops are forced to implement bike parking on a century-ride scale. Nearly every restaurant or coffee shop that serves cyclists (or is in a cycling area) will have one or more bike parking stands similar to what you'd see on a century ride.

Suitably refreshed, we started up Col de Soller a 1600 climb at a steady 5% grade. Once there, it was a straight and easy descent to Port de Soller, where we discovered that the official bikeable road was signed and led us down along the beach street, which was now filled with tourists. The cleverly hotel façade once again fooled us into riding past the hotel, but we found it, retrieved the bike garage keys, parked the bikes, and then had our room keys and luggage ready.

One of the things I discovered that was unusual about Spain was that frequently, hotels would give you a better deal than booking.com if you went directly to their web-site. Usually booking.com tries to enforce “lowest pricing” but Spanish hotels regularly violate this rule, giving you discounts, or a longer free cancellation window. In our case, booking directly with the Fergus hotel got us free breakfast for the same price, and we were treated to a room upgrade to a room with a hot tub and balcony. We only used the hot tub a few times, but the balcony had a clothes line rack, and lots of convenient places to hang clothes hangers to dry our laundry!

Another perk the Fergus had was a swimming pool, and I was told that it was closed at 6:00pm, so I hurriedly got changed, put down a towel deposit, went to the swimming pool and jumped in only to discover to my dismay that the swimming pool wasn’t heated! 10 minutes of swimming was enough for me to discover that my teeth chattering was giving me more exercise than the swimming so I hurriedly went back up and got into the hot shower.

Karsten recommend Es Passeig for dinner, and the place Mike wanted to go to was fully booked that night, while Es Passeig was willing to serve us, so off we went. Dinner was excellent, and we had great food. Karsten said the he and Linus would meet us in Santa Maria at 11:00 but I suggested 10:30 since we were jet-lagged and would get up early anyway!

Mike and I couldn’t believe our luck. Not only had we picked a hotel with glorious views in a near idyllic setting, but Brad had set us up with friends who’d show us the local roads! And if the food was anything to go by, we were going to have an awesome time. We took our melatonin pills hoping that we could stay asleep till dawn this time.

April 8-9: Prologue

Due to a confluence of health, work, and other personal events, I was suddenly able to take a trip in April or May. Both months are too early for a tour of the Alps, where the passes would still be under snow, but I remembered that Brad Silverberg had posted a year ago about his repeated trips to Mallorca and how it was a mecca for cycling in April. I’d been to Spain before on my tour across France, where our frequent crossings in the Pyrenees had led me to believe that Spain would be a terrible place to cycle tour, as hotels and restaurants kept particularly cycling unfriendly hours.

Brad assured me that this would not be so in Mallorca, and that a week would be sufficient time for me to do the kind of riding I enjoyed on the island. A one week trip is too little time once you take into account jet-lag, but a little bit of research indicated that Girona was also a good destination for cycling, and easily accessible by train from Barcelona. Even better, Norweigian was offering $390 flights to Barcelona from Oakland on those particular dates (depart April 8th, return April 25th), which even with the hefty bike fee of $80 each way, still came out to a reasonable price for a direct flight.

Negotiations with my usual touring companions came up short, as everyone had plans of one kind or another, or misgivings about their physical condition after a horribly rainy winter in California. Mike Sojka, however, who had done a qualifying pigeon point trip way back before Bowen was born, decided to come along. Once plane tickets were made, I made a flurry of reservations, for flights to and from Mallorca (the ferry was theoretically an attractive proposition but would take 9 hours in transit!), and hotels in Girona, Barcelona, and Port de Soller on Mallorca.

Despite my preference for point-to-point tours, Mallorca as an island was small enough that there was no point in carrying luggage on the bike. Girona looked like it had enough riding that I didn’t have to carry luggage there either, and remember my previous bad experiences trying to get lodging without reservations in Spain, I decided that it was more prudent to do a fixed base tour. Mike said that the fact that it was a fixed-based tour made it easier for him to decide to come: it meant that on days when I wanted to do a more aggressive ride or harder ride he could simply opt out and do his own thing.

Thus it was that on April 8^th, Mike showed up at my house with his car carrying his bike, and packed up the bike. Our super shuttle to the airport showed up uncharacteristically late, and I would regret not asking for a much earlier pick up time. The super shuttle scheduling recommendation was set up to work for San Francisco but would prove to be too optimistic for Oakland. Nevertheless, we arrived 2 hours ahead of departure and still had time to buy food for the flight. Norweigian, being a cut rate airline, didn’t provide much in the way of amenities, food, or even water, but did provide “Bohemian Rhapsody” as a movie to watch, so I watched it and enjoyed it as entertainment. (As documented elsewhere, the movie has lots of factual inaccuracies that mean that you can’t take it seriously as a biopic)

Upon arrival in Barcelona on the 9th, we were pleasantly surprised to find our bike boxes waiting for us right after we cleared passport control. We found the hotel shuttle pickup for the Best Western Barcelona Airport, and promptly checked in and asked for the earliest shuttle the next morning, knowing that jet-lag would get  us up early enough to catch the 8:00am RyanAir flight.

That night, walking out to get food, we got rained on as a thunderstorm hit town. We discussed getting a taxi or taking a bus, but my the time the taxi app had installed on my phone, the rain had died down a bit and we opted to just walk back in the rain.

We tried as hard as we could to sleep, but I nevertheless still woke up at 3:30am unable to sleep again. We ate the breakfast we’d bought the night before, packed everything up, and headed for the airport.

Index: 2019 Mallorca and Girona fixed based tour

From April 9th to April 25th, Mike Sojka and I conducted two fixed based tours, each 6 days long in Mallorca and Girona, separated by a 2 night rest period to explore Barcelona. It being a fixed based tour, we didn't do all the rides together. Excluding the e-bike tour of Barcelona which was of no metabolic significance, I totaled 659 miles of cycling with 56,431 feet of elevation gained. While I suffered no mechanicals, Mike had one flat tire during the trip. This is the index page day by day trip report (for the cycling days) as well as links to the photos and various equipment reviews.

Trip Photos

With Linus Gerdemann and Karsten Boehrs

Day by Day Report

• April 8-9: Prologue
• April 10th: An Easy First Day
• April 11th: Pollenca Loop with Karsten and Linus
• April 12th: Sa Calobra
• April 13th: Coastal Loop to Andratx
• April 14th: Soubremont
• April 15th: Coll d'Honor, Coll de sa Batalla
• April 16th-17th: Barcelona Rest Days
• April 18th: El Angels
• April 19th: Llanca, Cadaques, and Girona
• April 20th: Olot Loop
• April 21st: Costa Brava
• April 22nd: St. Hilari
• April 23rd: Rocacorba
• April 24-25th: Epilogue
• Conclusions

Equipment Reviews

• Portable Travel Bottles Set - Squeezable Silicon Tubes
• AmazonBasics Carry-on Backpack
• Sea-to-Summit Ultra-Sil Dry Daypack
• EPICKA Universal Travel Adapter
• Fenix 5X Long Term Review
• Mpow Foam Earplugs
• Long Term Review: ResMed AirMini Travel CPAP

Review: One Word Kill

One Word Kill is a novel about time travel, growing up, and (peripherally) D&D. (One Word Kill really should have been Power Word Kill --- there's probably a story about why the title was deliberately misplaced) It's the first book in a trilogy, but it was a free Prime selection for the month, so I picked it up.

The novel is breezy and made for smooth reading. Despite the trilogy setup, you could finish the novel somewhat satisfied with the ending, as all the major plot-points are tied up. It's also a short novel, no more than a 3 hour airplane read. I enjoyed the characters, who are smart, but not obnoxious or in a show-off way, though the villain does seem a little too one-dimensional. The time travel aspects are kinda meh, and the D&D game is depicted at too high a level to grant you a real nuanced view of the game itself.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed the book enough to consider picking up the next books in the series when they come out. Imagine that. A first book in a series that doesn't end in a cliffhanger! Just for that alone I'd give it a recommended tag.

Review: EPICKA Universal Travel Adapter

During last year's tour, I traveled with 2 small plug adapters for Europe and my usual dual port USB adapter and a 15 watt Motorola turbo charger. That was a satisfactory arrangement and fairly light. This year, however, with 2 kids and my wife, the charging needs will go up. I picked up the EPICKA Universal Travel adapter on a lightning deal and have been impressed.

In addition to being a universal plug adapter, the device has 4 USB-A port and one USB-C port. What's amazing is that the USB-C and USB-A ports register as "turbo charger" (i.e., Qualcomm QC compatible) chargers on my phone, and charge all devices attached to it at their maximum speed. 

The device weighs 147g (sans case and the cable it comes in), which is 14g more than having 2 adapters and the above-mentioned chargers, but those 14g gives you 1 more USB-A slot and 1 more USB-C slot as well as more countries you can visit on one adapter. I used it during my recent fixed based tour and have been impressed. Recommended.

Review: Sea-to-Summit Ultra-Sil Dry Day Pack

I’d been given a stowaway backpack in the past to review, but it was heavy (10 ounces), and for my tour, I planned only to pay for the checked bicycle and put everything else in the Amazon carryon backpack that I’d bought. The backpack was too big and bulky to use around town, so when I saw that REI had a sale on the sea-to-summit backpack that was only 2oz, I placed an order for next day pickup. Of course, the next morning I got a cancellation e-mail from REI, and a call to various stores around me confirmed that REI was all sold out locally. I looked on Amazon and saw that Sea-to-Summit has a waterproof version of the same backpack at 4oz, which is even better, 2oz being a low price for waterproofing.

When the backpack arrived, it looked great: sized like a pair of socks, and indeed cleverly folded up. It did, however, have signs saying “do not immerse” on it, which indicated that the contents might not stay dry if you fell off a dinghy in the middle of a sailing trip.

Nevertheless, when we were caught in a thunderstorm in Barcelona, the croissants and other bread-like items I’d bought for breakfast stayed bone dry. You wouldn’t stuff a huge amount inside, but I regularly carried a jacket, a kindle, even a bike helmet and full water bottle, while still having room for morning croissants in Girona. I’m not going to do an immersion test on it, but I’m confident that the backpack will withstand long term use for its intended purpose and still keep things inside dry.

Recommended.

Review: Amazon Backpack Carry-On

For a fixed based tour, I decided to acquire a backpack carry-on case. The reason was that even though we were not going to tour carrying luggage, I wanted to connect from Barcelona to Girona via a train, and there would be a 3-4 mile ride in the city carrying luggage on our backs, and roller luggage would be incompatible with that. Furthermore, Norweigian Airlines had a 10kg limit on carry-on, as did Ryan Air, so while web-sites and other traveler reports were that we’d never get checked, the lighter the backpack, the more weight budget we would have for our actual cycling gear.

The gold standard, of course, is the eBags WeekenderConvertible, but I wasn’t expecting to use this luggage on many other trips: with kids, it was more practical to have roller luggage, and I wouldn’t expect my wife to hoist 10kg onto her back while traipsing through the airport with kids, so I didn’t expect to use this too often, so the eBags lifetime warranty didn’t come into play.

Enter the Amazon carry-on backpack. It’s priced at $50, half the price of the eBags carrry-on, and offered most of the features of the eBags, and even had a laptop compartment built in. It also came with straps to convert it into a shoulder bag, and extra tabs to hook a waterbottle with a caribiner.

Into this bag, I stuffed the following items for my tour:

•           1 ebag packing cube stuffed with clothing
•           2 ebag half-packing cubes stuffed with clothing
•           1 pair of cycling shoes
•           1 pair of SPD pedals (in case our bikes somehow got lost and we were forced to rent bikes)
•           Travel pillow
•           Noise cancelling headset
•           Toothbrush, toothpaste, all the charging accessories required to charge the electronics I was carrying with me
•           Travel keyboard for the smartphone
•           Anker 3000mAh battery
•           Kindle, travel documents, and a map
•      Eucalan

The true test was how the riding felt with the backpkack on, and I thought it was great! There was next to no sway, and while I wouldn’t want to climb or descend with it on, it was more than serviceable for a short city ride. Walking through airports with it was quite comfortable. The backpack also packs down to a mere 2 inches in depth when empty, so it would be a great sailing luggage: you’d unpack everything inside and then flatten it for storage.

The laptop compartment doesn’t expand very much, and since I didn’t bring a laptop on this trip I can’t comment on how good it is for an actual laptop, but I managed to stuff my travel pillow and noise cancelling headset as well as the various liquids that needed inspection at airport security into it. The front pocket was also perfect for the kindle.

The biggest flaws of the bag is that the small compartments are no good for securing stuff: they aren’t quite tight enough so things have a tendency to fall out during a flight. The secondary flaw is that the expander zipper doesn’t seem to add very much volume to the bag. When I expanded it, I didn’t feel like I gained very much room in the bag, and would rather have saved the weight of the zipper and seams that had to be stitched and depend on the external compression straps instead.

Nevertheless, for the price, this is one heck of a luggage. Recommended.

Review: Portable Travel Bottles Set - Squeezable Silicon Tubes

When traveling, I’m usually of the “buy it when you need it” philosophy. Things like shampoo, toothpaste, etc. are easily purchased and cheap even in Europe, and there’s no point bringing enough to last your whole trip if you’re weight limited. However, I make an exception for Eucalan, since that’s tough to buy, and laundry detergent is very useful if you’re so lightly loaded that you need to do laundry every single day.

The problem with Eucalan is that it comes in packaging that’s heavy and a pain to use. It’s also expensive, but Amazon sells at one third the regular price in large bottles that obviously aren’t going to clear the TSA, so I needed smaller  bottles to carry it on tour with.

These liquid containers are great: they don’t spill, and dispense with a single squirt. Even better, when they dispense they don’t let in air, which means the container gets smaller throughout the trip! A 3oz container of Eucalan is enough to last me and Bowen a 3 week tour, so these containers aren’t just TSA friendly, they’re the right size for most tours.

Recommended.

Review: The Consuming Fire

The Consuming Fire is John Scalzi’s second novel of the interdependency. I don’t know why someone would read this book. The plot is breezy, the characters don’t develop, and there’s really no science in the science fiction, nor is there any working out of the concepts introduced in the first book.

I guess this highlights how important style is. Even when a writer has a lackluster plot, no interesting characters, and no science in his science fiction, an eminently readable style that’s transparent, and at times witty, will still pull you along and get you to finish the book. After finishing the book, however, expect to reflect back upon it and realized that it was like a feast full of empty calories: fun at the time, but ultimately unfulfilling.

Maybe if you’re stuck on an airplane with nothing else to read, this would be something to consider. Otherwise, pass.

Review: Grunt

Grunt is Mary Roach’s book about military science. Or rather, the scientists that are involved in the military. She deliberately avoids the subject of PTSD, since it’s already been covered in lots of other places, but instead focuses on the auxiliary details that you may not have thought about.

For instance, the book opens with a discussion of military uniforms, the different specialty needs of the different units, and how the military decides on them. Some decisions were not mad scientifically, including a camouflage pattern that was decided on as a matter of taste by a general, with the predictable results.

Then there’s an indepth analysis of the invention of stink bombs and the failure (and partial successes) of the effort to find a smell that’s universally abhorent.

There are some sections that I didn’t think were particularly relevant, including one on shark attacks (though she does debunk the myth that menstruating women shouldn’t swim in the open ocean for fear of attracting sharks), and similar investigations on bears.

But overall, the book was informative, well written, and full of fun footnotes, each of which are well worth reading. (The stuff on submarines were all new to me, though the section on sleep science wasn’t)

Recommended as a light airplane read, though for more interesting than most novels  you can find.

Review: When

When is Daniel Pink’s book about timing. A short read, it covers several things you already know, like the timing of your circadian rhythms and the difference between Larks and Owls, as well as how your circadian rhythms change  over your life cycle. The surprising thing about this isn’t so much the well known difference between kids and teenagers, but that despite all the research we have about how important time of day is, schools still largely ignore all that research and set school start times too early, mostly because of parents wanting to drop off their kids before their first meetings at work.

Each chapter in the book has an addendum with “time hacks” on how you can best improve your life using the knowledge you have. One interesting one is the “Nappuchino”. The idea here is that it takes about 25minutes for caffeine to hit your bloodstream, and about 6 minutes for you to go to sleep. So what you do is drink a cup of coffee, set an alarm clock for 30 minutes, and take a nap, and the alarm clock will go off at the optimal time for the coffee to kick in and give you an afternoon boost!

There are chapters on starting long term projects and the mid-life slump. These are less interesting, though apparently one common phenomenon is that that most projects don’t get into gear until halfway to a deadline. Good managers can make use of that phenomenon by setting up a checkpoint/review midway through a project. Another interesting idea is the pre-mortem, where you brainstorm ideas of how the project could fail prior to embarking on the project, and then using that as a checklist of things not to do.

Overall, the book’s short, so even if you only get a few ideas from it, it’s worth the read. Recommended.

Review: Seven Brief Lessons on Physics

Seven Brief Lessons on Physics has a ton of really great reviews. Since it was short, I was excited to read it and checked it out of the library. It takes less than 2 hours to read, but unfortunately isn't all that enlightening. It was basically a series of invited newspaper columns, and the text reflects it. There's a ton  of philosophizing, but not very much physics that's new to you if you're well read on the subject. At least it wasn't a lot of wasted time.

April 4th: San Simeon to Morro Bay

The morning was overcast, with a 20% chance of rain in the forecast. It looked a little gloomy  on the outset, but we decided to ride anyway! The ride out of San Simeon was rolling, though of course, on the tandem, any hill quickly becomes a chore. The ride was much gentler than the day before, but the traffic was a lot noiser. Being bored, Boen quickly started to play with his brother's bike computer (even though he had his own), annoying his brother until I stopped the bike and made him stop, whereupon he cried the entire way to Cayucos.
At Cayucos, we stopped at the Brown Butter Cookie company, where Bowen and Boen tasted all the cookies on the menu and we bought a small bag of very expensive cookies, and then went next door to the cafe which served an amazingly good lunch.

This time, I was able to keep them riding after lunch, visiting first the Cayucos Pier, and then making it all the way into Morro Bay where we started feeling rain drops.

With rain in the forecast for the next day, and the kids not very enthusiastic about the boring riding ahead to San Luis Obispo, Xiaoqin and I decided to call it an end to the bike tour and drive home from there. We even had time to visit Pinnacles National Park on the way home!

Our tour was over at a very short total mileage of 100 miles, but it left me confident that we could execute our summer tour in Switzerland come June. With plenty of playgrounds with ziplines and lots to do and see, and no option for riding in the van, I'm fairly certain we can make 30 miles a day in good weather. Most importantly, every time I asked Boen if he enjoyed bike touring on this trip he would say yes, which meant that we'd have a good time.

April 3rd: Lucia Lodge to Salmon Creek Falls

We started the day with breakfast and overcast skies, but as we climbed out of Lucia Lodge, the weather improved steadily. The traffic was frequent but not terrible, since construction would batch up the traffic and then we'd get long breaks without it.

Unlike on Old Santa Cruz highway, the drivers on this stretch had rarely seen a cyclist, and many would slow down so the passenger could take a picture of us on the triplet. Even the giant ass trucks carrying huge stones for construction would give us a thumbs up as they passed, granting us lots of room. One car driver even rolled down his window on a long climb and yelled: "Best Dad ever!"

By the time we reached Salmon Creek Falls, however, the kids were ready for a break. The long climb, while somewhat gentle, wasn't interrupted with many places to stop and play, so we took a short hike to the Salmon Creek falls, but after that hike the kids didn't want to keep riding, despite my telling them that this was the last hill before things became easy. Van-supported touring sounds great in theory, but in practice, given the chance to be lazy, even Bowen can get lazy and decide to ride in the van instead of riding on the bike.

Past Big Sur and into San Luis Obispo county, the road suddenly became flat and gentle, and we pulled into the San Simeon Elephant Seals viewing area for a look at the giant creatures.

There, I pulled out my smartphone and discovered to my surprise that hotels were far cheaper than AirBnBs in the area. We ended up picking the Sands Hotel, which had great facilities, including a swimming pool with hot tub, and an extensive outdoor play area which Bowen and Boen enjoyed using.

Dinner was at the Madeline's a French restaurant in downtown Cambria which served rabbit, much to Bowen's chagrin.

April 1-2: Monterey

When I first started planning the trip, I'd planned to be in Monterey for one night, and Big Sur for another, and then hit Lucia Lodge. I figured that Lucia Lodge would be the bottleneck, and so went with that for Tuesday, but then discovered that Big Sur was too expensive. I made the mistake of then going for Monterey for 2 nights thinking that we could ride the Big Sur segment, then get a van ride back to Monterey, and then do the rest the next day. Instead, of course, Bowen decided that he'd rather go play in the sand dunes we saw yesterday!

Given a choice of riding or taking the van, even my intrepid kids preferred the Van, so we drove down to the dunes and spent most of the morning there. Running and jumping on the dunes was surprisingly exhausting, and by 11:30am it was time for lunch. We chose to drive to Trader Joe's, buy some lunch items and sandwiches at Ike's next door, and then travel to Lover's Point for a picnic lunch.

After lunch, we headed over to the famous Cala Lily Valley, which exceeded my expectations. I'd somehow passed by it often in the past, but never stopped. It's well worth the short drive from Monterey and the 30 minutes it takes to explore it.

After that, we even had time to take the kids to the Monterey Aquarium, where we had a season pass. When given a choice, it's much better to go there in the late evening than in the morning, because the crowds would have thinned by then. Nobody pays to go in after about 2:00pm, so only members would saunter in that late.

We finished up with dinner at the Fishwife, which was under new management. While the food was as good as we remembered it in the past, the new staff was a lot more pushy and a lot less tolerant of kids, which is disappointing.

The next day, we started the day by packing everything into the car. The forecast was for rain, and we did indeed feel a few raindrops. I dropped by the Aquarium again in the morning on request from the kids. After that, we had lunch again at Lovers point and drove South to Lucia Lodge, where we checked in, moved our luggage in, and then took a hike at Jade Cove, where apparently you could find real Jade. But I didn't know that at the time, so treated it as a random hike.

While we felt sprinkles all through the hike, it never really rained, leading me to doubt all the forecasts about rain hitting the area the next day. The sunset from the Lodge was nothing short of gorgeous, and I looked forward to riding the next day. "No excuses," I said to the kids.

March 31st: Aptos to Monterey

The Best Western provided a great breakfast, but after breakfast and packing everything away, we had a problem, which was that Boen refused to get on the bike! My policy about cycling and kids is that you never force a kid on a bike unless there's no other choice (e.g., he's screaming and throwing a temper tantrum at the park and you only have a bike with which to get him home), so I just let him get in the car and started the ride with just Bowen. Bowen vetched a bit but I assured him that sitting in the car was not a good deal compared with riding the bike.

We rode past Sunset State Beach and then came to an intersection where my Fenix 5X told me to turn left (using a preplanned route I had) while the road sign said "Pacific Coast Bike Route" pointed to the right. I asked a passing cyclist, and he said that turning right was the way to go. My wife would later confirm that my planned route would have been much better, since the official Pacific Coast Bike route spent no less than 4 miles on Highway 1. This might have been tolerable on a single bike, but on a slow moving tandem it was very annoying. I was relieved when we pulled into Castroville's Great Artichoke Restaurant, where we had beaten the minivan and ordered an artichoke platter to satisfy Bowen's artichoke cravings.

After lunch, Boen deigned to join us on the triplet, and the bike immediately felt heavier, with the climbs into Marina becoming more challenging. At one point we saw a fox in broad daylight on the other side of the road from the bike path, which was pretty amazing. Since the last time I had done this ride, there was now a bike path all the way from Castroville to Monterey, which made for easy riding. As we approached Monterey, we pulled off onto the side and Bowen and Boen picked wildflowers.

Once in Monterey on the bike path, Xiaoqin met us on her Cheviot, gave us the keys to the hotel, and we rode into the hotel. There, I did laundry, and then we walked out to dinner, picking up Salt Water Taffy on the way.

March 30th: Lexington Reservoir to Aptos

I considered riding from our home, but I'd already done much of that ride with Bowen during the 2018 winter tour, and with the triplet I expected that the dirt climb would exceed our traction limit and wear us out too early to enjoy the best part of the route, which was the easy climb up Old Santa Cruz Highway.

In addition, you should always make sure that everything fits into the van before you go, so I packed everything into the van which we had rented from Turo. The procedure for the triplet is to remove the rear pedals, the front and middle seat posts/handlebars, and the front wheel. The center console on the new models of the Dodge Grand Caravan/Chrysler Town and Country are annoyingly not-removable, but by draping the console with a space blanket, we could roll the rear wheel onto the console without leaving any marks. We also managed to get Xiaoqin's Cheviot into one side of the leftover space, leaving the other side available for luggage.

We parked the van at the Lexington school, and then got out and assembled the triplet and then we were off! The climb as expected was great, never exceeding 5-6%, but of course we were in our granny the entire way despite the easy grade. Cyclists would ride past us but despite the constant disclaimer of  "Cool bike!" nobody ever took me up on the offer to trade.

At the intersection with summit road, we turned left, and the rolling terrain to the summit store was much easier than I expected. At the summit store, we bought lunch and ate it on the porch.

The descent from the summit road via Soquel San Jose was my biggest concern. While I'd done many descents on the triplet, this was by far the longest descent with the highest potential speed. The bike was long enough that it flexed sufficiently at speeds above 35mph I would drag the brake a bit just to bring it back down. It never felt dangerous, but any kind of misbehavior from the boys on the back of the bike would wriggle the bike, always a disconcerting feeling.

Near the bottom, we stopped at a poppy field, where Bowen, being a far better older brother than I ever was, would pick flowers and give them to Boen.

At Soquel, we turned a left onto Soquel drive. The climbing here is at times actually steeper than Old Santa Cruz Highway, and felt harder, coming at the end of the ride when we were no longer fresh. Fortunately, it was only a few miles to the Best Western Inn where we checked in, rested a bit, and then proceeded to Seacliff Beach, where the boys proceeded to spend the afternoon playing in the sand and surf.

Index Page: Boen's First Bike Tour

An unexpected confluence of events happened all at once to make it possible for us to take a family Spring break trip. It being too late (and too short) to do any kind of ocean-crossing trip, we decide to do a bike tour. Xiaoqin volunteered to drive the support van, and I wanted to reprise the California coast tour trip (which I had last done so long ago that I don't remember much of it) to Santa Barbara. We rented a van from Turo, and made a few days of reservations just in case it would be hard to find last minute hotels at the places we were traveling to. (It turned out to be unnecessary, but Lucia Lodge in particular has only 8 rooms!)

This is the index page for the ride. We had 2 goals for this tour:

• To see how the triplet handled under touring conditions
• To see if Boen could do a bicycle tour and enjoy it

Pictures

On Cayucos Pier

Day by Day Trip Report

• March 30th: Lexington Reservoir to Aptos
• March 31st: Aptos to Monterey
• April 1st - April 2nd: Off-bike rest days
• April 3rd: Lucia Lodge to Salmon Creek Falls
• April 4th: San Simeon to Morro Bay

Review: Amazon Kindle Paperwhite Leather Case (for 9th generation Paperwhite)

I still hadn't found a decent replacement for my wife's Moto Z Play, which is as fabulous a phone as you can imagine, though its 32GB of internal storage is now starting to get cramped. Her old case was getting beat up, so I bought her a new case, and now it felt like a new phone! (The nice big battery in the Moto Z Play means that the phone will still outlast newer phones)

So when I noticed that Amazon was blowing out refurbished custom leather cases for the Paperwhite for under $5 after taxes, I jumped on it, hoping for the same "new Kindle" effect. This case won't fit the new 10th generation Kindle, but of course, Kindles are renowned for battery life, and mine is waterproof to 200 feet, so there's no reason for me to consider an upgrade.

At $40 new, there's no way I would have forked over for one of these, but $5, these are great. It's definitely a more premium case than the OMOTON case I used to have. The magnet feature seems to work more reliably as well. Recommended at this price.