June 21: Hotel Alpenrose to Sporthotel Vetzan

In the cool morning air we did the descent stopping less frequently than usual, but once we got into Santa Maria we took off our jackets and arm and leg warmers and put on sunscreen. From Santa Maria to the Italian border, we could ride on the paved road but at the Italian border the bike path started. When Arturo, Pengtoh, and I rode that bike path in 2016 it was unpaved, but since that was 6 years ago, I hoped that the bike path had since been paved.

Of course I was wrong! The bike path was in the same condition, with large unpaved sections and not much fun descending --- we would have been better off on the road. Near the intersection at Laatchs, we even had the indignity of being watered on by the irrigation devices that were misaimed at the bike path instead of at the agricultural assets they were supposed to be aimed at.

In Glorenza, we saw a sight that wouldn't be seen in the USA --- a school led bike tour, where a few teachers would coral an entire class worth of kids down the bike path. In a country where you can take the train up the valley and then bike down the path this was an entirely reasonable field trip idea.

I'd picked Vetzan because there was a Sporthotel there with a swimming pool in case it got hot. It started to rain as we approached Vetzan, and Garmin gave us wrong directions as did Google, but we eventually found the place anyway.

The hotel was in the center of Vetzan, but it turned out that while they served dinner, there was nothing in town as far as food for lunch was concerned. After we got settled in, the hotel told us that we could take the bus to Schlanders for lunch and to use the outdoor swimming pool with a waterslide. But one look at the schedule convinced the hotel manager that that was an absurd idea, and he offered to drive us instead. We accepted, and then had lunch downtown before walking over to the "Lido Schwimmbad". But as we got there thunder and lightning ran out and they closed the pool, so we had nothing to do but to walk back to the bus stop and take the bus (with the free bus passes the hotel gave us).

Prior to the trip, I'd told the kids that if they didn't pedal hard on the Stelvio, they'd be forced to take the SAD bus. They got very excited when they actually god a chance to get onto the SAD bus. Boen even made a sad face so that he would be appropriately expressive for the bus ride.

We got back to the hotel as the rain stopped, and used the hotel's indoor pool instead. I was pretty disappointed in the Vetzan sporthotel. It wasn't in a convenient place, and while the facilities were fine, I would have rather had been in Schlanders instead if I'd known the location was this bad.

We debated riding all the way to Bolzano tomorrow and having a zero day there, vs breaking up the ride and stopping in Merano, which had a train museum and easy access to the train. Everyone seemed to enjoy the idea of a zero day. I wrote our hotel but they had no place for us to stay, so I had to book a different apartment in downtown Bolzano. I also wrote Lukas, and he said that rather than spend the entire zero day in Bolzano, we should take the bus to Lago di Fie and go swimming there, since it was going to be hot. He pointed me at a weather forecast app that was more accurate for the area and told me not to trust Google's weather results for the South Tyrol area. I'd gone to the Otzi museum with Arturo a few years back, and I'd been impressed, so I thought that would also be a good thing to do in Bolzano. We were also committed to buying hiking shoes in Bolzano as well, so having an extra day to do all that would be a good idea.

That evening a big thunderstorm blew through, but fortunately our stuff was already indoors and would dry overnight. Unlike the Sporthotel in Pontresina, this one wouldn't do your laundry while you slept, so I still ended up being the manual washing machine.

Review: Moosetreks Feedbag

 In past years, I've used CamelBak backpacks for Bowen and Boen to drink from the bike while riding. Most of the time, however, enough on hard rides, they don't even want to wear the camelbak, resorting to stopping the bike to drink. I learned however, that the rise of bikepacking has introduced the idea of a feedbag, and the cheapest model easily available was the Moosetreks feedbag. The last straw was when a water bottle was ejected from the triplet. I went all in and bought 2, one for each of my sons.

The bag mounts on the stem and is large enough for a full sized water bottle. It's insulated too, so water stays cold. Side pockets mean it can be used to store clif bars or gatorade chews. Bowen used it on a 7.5 hour ride, and said it's much better since I could now use Nuun tablets in his water bottle, something I'd avoided before since Camelbaks are notoriously hard to clean!

All through this year's tour, both kids used the feedbag for water bottles, snacks, and for a change, they disposed of wrappers into the feedbag rather than into my back pocket, for which I'm grateful. Both bags survived the tour, through rain, etc, with no issues.

I'm thinking that for any new bikes or my mountain bike, the feedbag is a far better alternative to the usual water bottle cage or handlebar bag. You don't see too many new ideas in cycling, but this is a good one. Recommended.

June 20th: Hotel Franzenshohe to Hotel Alpenrose, Switzerland

 When I first planned this trip, I recalled that Bowen and I effectively climbed 4 passes to Pontresina the next day, so making it to Livigno shoud be possible. There was 1161m of climbing, however, from Bormio to Livigno, and there were conflicting statements as to whether the tunnel from Livigno back to the Musair Valley was available. On the other hand, if we descended the Umbrailpass, there was a hotel halfway down that I had seen in 2014 that intrigued me. It would make the next couple of days really easy, but that was not necessarily a bad thing. I sent e-mail to the hotel and they replied that they had plenty of room, though there was no special half-pension offer for dinner. We would have to order everything a la carte.

Before we did any of that, however, we first had to finish the climb up the Stelvio. With having relatively poor sleep the night before, I expected it to be a big challenge. Indeed, we found ourselves having to stop and rest every other corner. Hotel Franzenshohe was on the 22nd numbered corner, so that was a lot of stopping and resting. The scenery was outstanding, of course, and at this altitude heat was not a problem, though Bowen, Boen and I were all warm enough that we did not need jackets.

When we finally got to the last corner, we rested one final time on the last straightaway before all of us stood up and sprinted the last kilometer, going into oxygen debt in the cool thin air.

Now, we'd been getting encouragement and thumbs up all to this point, but what I hadn't realized was that the Transalp Tour was running that day from Zernez to Bormio through Stelvio, and pieces of the caravan had already gone to the summit. The result was that as we approached the last 300m of the summit, every supporter who was there for that other event saw us and started summit cheering us. A cacophony of bells, clapping, cheering, and yells accompanied us as we approached the summit, increasing in crescendo until we reached the pass sign, though I had a hard time hearing it over the sound of my gasping for oxygen and my heart pounding. A casual observer might have thought that we'd won some sort of prize, though in retrospect I would realize that we might very well be the first triplet tandem to summit Stelvio, or at the very least the first with children under 11!

Spectators were happy to take a summit photo for us, and then Xiaoqin had to replace her sunglasses, left a couple of days ago at the park at the bottom of Stelvio, while I reorganized the luggage to relieve the ebike of the load. With gravity assisting us, we wouldn't need her to carry the luggage for the next few days. We probably should have bought some Stelvio jerseys as well, but they probably didn't make them in kid sizing anyway.

The descent down to the Umbrail pass intersection was fast and furious with minimal turning. After turning right into the Swiss border, there was a slight rise, which gave Bowen a chance to complain about how I had promised only downhill. I had to explain that all passes had to have a rise, but that it was a short, barely preceptible one.

From Umbrail pass, the descent down to Hotel Alpenrose was a series of hairpin turns, laid one atop the other, and we would do our usual trick of stopping every so often to cool the brakes. These corners gave me a chance to take multiple exposures of Xiaoqin descending and stitch them together with panorama software later. On a single bike you would think nothing of the road but on a triplet it was better to be safe rather than sorry.

We arrived at Hotel Alpenrose right at noon, and after inspecting the rooms, Xiaoqin determined it good. We could have descended down into Mustair Valley but with the heat wave staying at 1400m would not just help our altitude acclimation, but also keep us cool.

The view from the hotel's panorama lunch deck was amazing, and we ate lunch after parking the bikes and settling in. I hoped that the hotel had decent hikes around it, but the owner explained that the brochure on the website with the waterfall hike, etc was for stuff down in the valley! The hiking itself here was not very good, with a lot of road walking before finding a cow poop infested series of rugged trails. We were very disappointed after the wonders that we had seen the day before at Hotel Franzenshohe.

Nevertheless, I wasn't too put off by it. You always take these risks when exploring a new place, and in the late afternoon from the hotel window I saw a red fox right in the hotel driveway! The facilities were great, and the board games available let the kids learn to play Stratego and we played Uno in the afternoon before an adequate dinner. It wasn't a big deal as the next day was a descent all the way into the valley to Vetzan.

June 19th: Gomagoi to Hotel Franzenshohe

"You wouldn't want any CO2 cartridges, would you?" "Uh, no. We have a pump." "I guess you're mountain bikers?" "No. We're on a bike tour, but I always carry a pump." "We're getting on a plane and can't bring the cartridges with us." The couple who sat next to us at breakfast turned out to be from the United States. They had flown into Munich and rented a car, loaded their bikes on it and had done various day rides in the Dolomites and yesterday, Stelvio. They were impressed when they saw our bikes, and even more so when they realized we'd come all the way from Zurich without a car.

We loaded the panniers onto Xiaoqin's e-bike, moving the trunk bag with the ebike charger onto the triplet, since there was no longer any space on the rack for it, and then proceeded to ride up from Gomagoi. In short order we arrived at Trafoi, where we took a much needed break to refill water bottles and admire the Ortlers and Glaciers. Bowen had paired his bike computer with my heart rate monitor, and noticed that I'd pegged at around 155bpm. At altitude, I seemed to be unable to ride any harder, though at home and at sea level on my single I could regularly hit 170bpm. I'd make it a point to rest until my heart rate hit a much more reasonable 120bpm before we'd attempt to keep going.

As the day passed, one cyclist after another would pass us. Every other cyclist would either give us a thumbs up, or yell some form of encouragement, like "Allez!", "Bravissima!", "Courage" (in French), "Super" (in German), or shake their head in amazement. One guy passed me and said, "You're crazy and insane!" I concurred with him. I was living the reality that many fathers experienced: you go out with your two kids, and no matter how mediocre a job you're doing as a parent, everyone ooohs, and aahhs, and proclaim you to be super-Dad --- mommy doing something identical wouldn't even merit a comment. In the mean time, Xiaoqin was doing a pretty difficult job lugging 35 pounds of bags up the mountain on her e-bike, but because she was on an ebike she was getting none of the encouragement the kids and I had. Life simply isn't fair.

You couldn't fault the scenery you're riding through, and Charles J Sykes, in "50 Rules Kids Won't Learn in School" had a frequently cited quote that goes like this:

“ Before you were born your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way paying your bills, cleaning up your room and listening to you tell them how idealistic you are. “

I guess if nothing else, I was showing my kids that you didn't have to be boring just because you had kids.

Strava says it took us 2 hours and 15 minutes to move the 7.4 miles up the mountain, climbing 2851' in the mean time. Subjectively it felt like a 4 hour ride, and we arrived at Hotel Franzenshohe with me feeling like I had legs of rubber. There was some sort of cheerleading event/workshop going on at the hotel, and it was clearly too early to checkin, but because the workshop had just made a big mess in the hotel's conference room, we were cleared to park our bikes in it, eat lunch, go on a hike, and come back later when our rooms were ready.

The hiking trails behind the hotel left such a deep impression on Bowen and I that he'd specifically wanted to come back to Stelvio 4 years later. It was Xiaoqin's first time in the area, so we had to do the hike even though we only had cycling shoes. The place was as pretty as I remembered.

This time we went as far as we could on the Gletscherweg, turning around only when it was clear that our shoes weren't going to hold on to the trail. On the way back we found a waterfall, and even did a cross country jaunt to where Bowen and I visited higher up near the road.

By the time we were all done we were ready for ice cream and then we could move into the rooms and take our showers and do laundry. We asked about the swimming pool we used the last time but apparently they had only just opened it and the water was too cold. We ate our 4 course half pension dinner, but that night I was given a reminder of how I still wasn't fully acclimated to the altitude. At 2188m in elevation, the hotel was higher than lake tahoe, and near the 8500'' operational limit of my CPAP machine. As a result, the machine became noisier, and I also correspondingly slept less well. It was a fitful night. The big difference was that we were doing Stelvio near the start of the trip, while on the previous trip, it came quite a bit later. The difference was considerable.

Review: The World According to Star Wars

 I was looking over Cass Sustein's book at the library and to my surprised, one of his books was The World According to Star Wars. I wasn't myself a Star Wars fan, but I figured that what he had to say was interesting.

The book explores several different themes and interpretations of Star Wars, one of which was the relationship between fathers and sons. I didn't know much about George Lucas's personal history, so I was pleasantly surprised to read these words:

Lucas himself was able to reconcile with his father, though it took years for them to come back together. He packs a lot of pain and understanding into these words: “he lived to see me finally go from a worthless, as he would call ‘late bloomer’ to actually being successful. I gave him the one thing every parent wants: to have your kid be safe and able to take care of himself. That was all he really wanted, and that’s what he got.” It’s not irrelevant that after Return of the Jedi, Lucas abandoned Star Wars, and movie-making, for just one reason: he wanted to be a good father. He retired for two decades so that he could raise his children. Asked in 2015 what he wanted the first line of his obituary to say, he responded without the slightest hesitation: “I was a great dad.” (kindle loc 1326)

The book's probably at its best when it veers away from pop psychology when it dives into Sunstein's core research topics, such as nudges or information cascades. I enjoyed his explanation of why rebellions are always a surprise (which also explains the Trump movement). He also explores what it looks like in authoritarian countries like China:

 In the late 1980s, I was asked to teach a short course on American law in Beijing. (We didn’t discuss Star Wars, so far as I can remember. Recall that Star Wars was not shown in China until 2015.) As a final assignment, I asked my thirty students to write a short paper. Their task was to explore what the United States could learn from the Chinese legal system, or what China could learn from the U.S. legal system. They were free to pick one or the other. I much looked forward to seeing what they would come up with. To my utter amazement, almost everyone in the class refused to do the assignment! With embarrassment, one of them explained: “We are worried that what we write could get into the wrong hands.” By that, they meant to suggest that they could get in trouble with their own government. Of course they were loyal to their country. And in private, they were willing to raise some questions about what their government was doing (as well as about what the United States was doing)—but for fear of some kind of punishment, they were unwilling to put those questions in writing. Here’s the upshot, elaborated at length by the economist Timur Kuran in his terrific 1997 book, Private Truths, Public Lies: If people falsify their preferences and beliefs, rebellions will be difficult or perhaps impossible to predict. People might be satisfied with their government; they might dislike it, at least a little; or they might hate it. Because what people say does not match what they think, citizens will be in a situation of pluralistic ignorance: They will have no idea what their fellow citizens believe. But if some people (the Leias among them) start to express dissatisfaction and display a willingness to rebel, then others (the Lukes) might think that a rebellion could succeed, because a lot of people might be prepared to join it. If so, the world might turn upside down. (kindle loc 1763)

Unfortunately, Sustein's not a historian or an expert on China, so he doesn't go any further and explain why movements like the Tiananmen protests got squashed despite an information cascade.

I didn't exactly find the book a waste of time, but I'm guessing that unless you're a Star Wars fan, you're probably not going to find the book all that interesting. His other books are probably a more interesting read in terms of ideas.

 

Consolidated Cycle Touring Page

I've done a little bit of bicycle touring over the years, and this is the place where I've decided to collect all those tours. Unfortunately, due to an inopportune dual disk failure, the 2004 Bicycle Tour of Colorado pictures have been lost.

• 1993 Pacific Northwest
• 1994 Seattle to California
• 1995 Tour of Scotland
• 1996 California Coast
• 1997 Pacific Coast Tour
• 1998 Languedoc-Roussilian France (Pictures Only)
• 2000 New Zealand (Pictures Only)
• 2000 New England (Pictures Only)
• 2001 South Africa (Pictures Only)
• 2002 Pacific Coast Tour
• 2003 Tour of the Alps (New: Pictures)
• 2004 Bicycle Tour of Colorado
• 2005 Tour of the Alps (New: Pictures)
• 2007 Tour of the Alps
• 2008 Tour Across France
• 2009 Tour of Hokkaido
• 2010 Tour of the German Speaking Alps
• 2011 Tour of the Alps
• 2014 Tour of the Alps
• 2016 Tour of the Alps
• 2017 Bowen's First Tour in England
• 2018 Bowen Winter Bike Tour
• 2018 Bowen's First Tour of the Alps
• 2019 Boen's First Bike Tour
• 2019 Mallorca and Girona Fixed Based Tours
• 2019 Shasta Kayaking and Cycling
• 2019 Tour Across Bavaria (Xiaoqin's first bike tour)
• 2022 Tour of the Alps (Xiaoqin and Boen's first tour of the alps)
• 2024 Tour of the Alps
• 2025 Tour of Dolomites, Slovenia, and Alps

Essays on Cycle Touring:

• Why You should not tour like me
• Cycle Touring and the Spirit of Adventure
• Raising the Bar(The second best book on cycle touring ever written)
• Effective Cycling The best book on street-wise cycling ever written.
• My Views on Training for Cycling

Items without links are To Be Written/Documented. Newer tours will probably show up first on my blog.

I've written a book about bicycle touring called: Independent Cycle Touring. I think it's the best book on bicycle touring ever written. If you would like to have your own bicycle adventure, this book is a great resource.

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June 18th: Nauders to Gomagoi

 The day started with a climb up to Resia pass from Nauders on the bike path. Peaceful in the morning, and granting beautiful views, we rode the gentle climb to the Italian border, where we stopped at kilometer zero of the bike path for a photo.

Despite the name Resia pass, the bike path continued to go uphill past the border, only relenting as we approached the lake, where I found the zip line playground that Bowen had played in 4 years ago while I desperately searched for lodging. The kids played there for a good half hour, and then we kept going on the bike path, which granted gorgeous views of the lakes.

Past Castello del Principe, the bike path started flashing warning signs of 20% grade. I got nervous, because I remembered from our trip 4 years ago that this section was unpaved, so I stopped a few cyclists going the other way and asked if the pavement disappeared. "Actually, it gets better. They built or rebuilt this section a couple of years back and it's brand new!" With that, I sighed a sigh of relief and took the bike path as quickly as I dared, stopping occasionally to check the brakes.

In Laatsch, the bike path joined up with the bike path from Santa Maria/Val Mustair, and I saw at the intersection two girls sharing one bike. 

We rolled past Glorenza. Xiaoqin remarked: "I can see why Bowen kept talking about this place. It's beautiful." "This isn't even the pretty part yet," I remarked. The pollen or cut grass int he air got into both Bowen and Boen's eyes, however, and they complained about itchiness. So as we pulled into Prato Allo Stelvio I was relieved to see that there was a pharmacy open, and pulled into it to buy them some allergy medication. They sold us both tablets and eye drops. We would later read up on the tablets that turned out to be some homeopathic medicine that was basically a placebo, but the eye drops would turn out to be effective though getting it into their eyes was such an effort that after this I never tried again!

In town, we bought food at the grocery shop while Xiaoqin opted for a local pizza place. We found the same zipline playground that Bowen had played in 4 years ago to console himself for not doing Stelvio, ate everything we bought, and then I planted all the panniers into Xiaoqin's ebike and proceeded to ride up to Gomagoi.

Going from the triplet to the ebike is like going from a pedal powered bicycle to a Ferrari. Just a little tap on the pedals and the bike would accelerate. I knew it was a 4 mile trip each way, and the battery was more than half full, so I turned the power all the way up and enjoyed an easy cruise up the valley to the hotel. The proprietress saw me, and assumed I was going to keep going up the mountain, but I said I was just leaving the bags here and am going back to fetch my wife and kids.

By the time I got back to the playground it was 1:00pm, and the afternoon had heated up in earnest. The 4.4 miles to the hotel from the playground was much easier on an unloaded triplet than it would have been while carrying luggage, but in the heat and at low speed it was still very hard. My cycling cap was soaked through at mile 2, and it was a testament to the quality of the Walz caps that while sweat was dripping off the brim, they never got into my eyes or made me uncomfortable.

Even Xiaoqin felt the heat, and the kids were definitely shocked by how hot it was. By the time we got to Gomagoi at 3pm we were all cooked and ready to call it a day. I was very glad that while planning the trip I couldn't get any lodging at the next town up, Trafoi. It might only have been an additional 2-3km, but it would have been killer in the afternoon heat.

Bowen drank tons of water at dinner, and nobody would hear of even doing a hike at 8pm when everything was cooler. I realized then that it would take too long to deliver the luggage the next day and waiting for the day to heat up would be fatal, and so suggested to Xiaoqin that she just ride the bike up with all the luggage. "It's so easy it should be doable, and the road isn't challenging on an ebike." She thought about it and agreed.

June 17th: Scuol to Nauders

My 2018 tour with Bowen featured a fateful promise that I would come to regret: breakfast in Austria, lunch in Switzerland, and dinner in Italy. When I planned this year's tour, the trip from Scuol to Nauders looked to be short, and I looked for lodging on the Italian side, but couldn't find any! It turned out that I had made a mistake on booking.com --- rather than keeping everyone in one room, I should have looked for 2 rooms, which would have opened up lodging options. But I might not have tried very hard --- memories of that painful day in 2018 had left a deep impression on me, and in fact that morning when I set out from Scuol, I felt like I needed a rest after 2 hard days in the mountains without prior acclimatization.

The descent from Scuol down to Martina was fast, with some pedaling required here and there, but in the cool still air of the morning very pleasant, though once in the shade the kids complained about being cold and put on their down jackets.

Once down in Martina, we made a right turn onto the Nobertspass road, and proceeded up the numbered turns (which weren't too many). Cyclists marveled at seeing the triplet bike, and would ask us for photos. One cyclist from Germany said she was headed to Castelrotto that day. Castelrotto was famous but it looks very generic from the bike path, which is why I'd never thought to stop there.

Being relatively fresh and not exhausted by extreme efforts to make it to Martina, we made easy and short work of the pass and made it to Nauders at 11:00am. Upon arrival at the hotel, we were too early for them to give us our rooms, but said we could take the cable car up to the Mutzkopf, where a hike could take us to a couple of lakes.

We walked to the cable car to discover it was an open air chair-lift which took mountain bikes. In fact, the ticket agent was nonplussed when we showed up asking for lift tickets without bikes. It then dawned on me that we were still wearing bike clothes, but of course, our bikes were not suitable for extreme downhill and I hadn't thought to rent mountain bikes in town! I was surprised that there wasn't a mountain bike rental place right next to the lift!

We were positioned to sit on the chairs and then sat down. Of course I immediately committed a boo-boo, which was that I hadn't noticed the chair restraints which was a safety bar overhead that you had to pull down after the chair was in flight, and so sat on the entire ride thinking about how amazing it was that nobody had fallen off the lift while drunk and sued the entire outfit out of existence for having a lack of restraints!

The hike itself was pleasant enough, but nothing spectacular after we'd visited Scuol. I'm sure if we had more time, energy, or better hiking shoes we could have done something higher and more ambitious, but it was a warm day and there were many tree houses to distract the kids until we got to Schwazersee. We didn't feel the need to visit other lakes, and so started heading back.

One interesting feature of the European culture is the widespread acceptance of smoking. When we got back to the lift, the place was swamped with cyclists, but you could smell the tobacco smoke in the air. Whereas you'd almost never see a mountain biker light up in California, apparently mountain biking culture in Austria was such that it was more than acceptable to burn up your lungs prior to a ride. After all, you don't have to pedal uphill --- the chairlift is there to do the climbing for you!

 We returned to the hotel, and I discovered how rare GoPro dealers were in Europe. I expected to be able to find a bike mount for the GoPro at any bike shop, but none of the shops were dealers and hence didn't carry any accessories! The hotel did serve a half pension dinner, so I was once again able to eat my fill, especially from the salad buffett.

I had thought about how we were going to tackle the Stelvio, and at dinner I unveiled my plans: at Prato Allo Stelvio, I would use the e-bike to deliver luggage to the hotel first, and then come back and ride the triplet up the mountain without luggage. I could do that for all 3 days of the Stelvio climb if necessary, and this approach would raise the success of our attempt to climb the Stelvio dramatically! I went to bed much more confident that we would be able to execute this plan.

June 16th: Davos to Scuol

 "Now it's raining really hard!" declared Bowen. "Yeah, I don't know if we're going to make it. Let's at least sprint for that cafe over there!" We parked the bike and ran indoors before sheets of water came down from the sky, along with lightning and sounds of thunder.

June 15th: Pragg-Jenaz to Davos

 Boen had started coughing at night, dashing my hopes of making it to Austria or Italy before having to hunt down his medication. I spoke with our hostess, and after some misunderstanding, established that her doctor right down the street was her kids' primary care physician and they had Ventolin in stock. We were warned that we would have to pay cash since we were from out of the country, but anyone who's faced the US medical system will discover that European healthcare system with no surprise billings and an upfront declaration of cost is a tiny mosquito bite compared to the hummer-sized disaster that many doctor visits in the US can generate.

It started raining, so we started bundling the kids up in rainjackets, making them take off the pants they had already put on. In the ensuing confusion, we left Bowen's hiking pants behind. We also somehow managed to lose the pin that was on Xiaoqin's GoPro bike mount, rendering her GoPro useless until we got to Bolzano.

At the doctor's office, we showed them photos of our US medication, and they immediately sold us Ventolin and Seretide, the Swiss equivalents of Ventolin and QVAR, without a doctor visit or consultation. My guess was since it was a doctor's office they didn't have to jump through the hoops that a pharmacy would have had to do. The nice thing about being in a small village is that the doctor's office will also stock all the medication you need, so there's no need to run from the doctor's office to a pharmacy.

From prior research on the internet, I'd read that past Kublis, the bike path degenerates and becomes a disaster for traditional trekking bikes, which meant bad news for the triplet. Despite this, we took a wrong turn and ended up on a nasty dirt bike path that I could barely ride up with the kids dismounted. Of course, that Daddy gets to ride and kids have to walk made the kids determined to stop using the bike path and ride the steep pavement up to the main road, which actually had a reasonable grade!

The road eventually met up with what looked like a limited access (no bikes allowed) road! We puzzled over it by the side of the road for a while, until a kind motorist stopped, got out of her car, and told us that if we went down the other fork of the roundabout, there was a bike path which was signed that would take us to Kloster. Sure enough, that bike path sign was there, but we were glad she stopped and told us to look for it because we might not have seen it otherwise. I was learning that bike path signage is just not a priority, even in Switzerland which otherwise has no issue spending money on infrastructure.

The bike path took a detour and showed us a gorgeous waterfall in the shade before we rode more uphill into Kloster where after a few wrong turns we ended up at Kloster-Platz at the supermarket right next to the train station for lunch. After lunch, Xiaoqin and Boen decided to take the train to Davos, while Bowen and I would attempt the ride over Wolfgang pass, which I'd never done before.

The ride over Wolfgang pass has a deceptive quality to it, which is that at the decision point where you have to decide between the dirt road and the official highway, most of the traffic on the road had been drained over to use the tunnel under Fluela pass. So at that point, you would be fooled into thinking that since traffic was light, it was ok to take the road. But soon after that, the traffic from the tunnel now joins the main highway, and you are completely committed to riding the road at that point, since your hard earned ascent would have to be undone! So Bowen and I fell into this fatal trap. To rub salt into the wound, there was road construction in the final kilometers of the climb, so we had to put up with dust, dirt, and rough roads!

The descent from Wolfgang pass over to Davos was short --- only 100m, though we got a nice view of Davos Lake, and a diversion down to the lake as part of the bike path to get us out of the heavy traffic. We made it down to the serviced apartments just as Xiaoqin and Boen had gotten the keys, so we got everyone settled in --- the apartment manager had given us 2 rooms in 2 different buildings, parked the bikes, took showers, used the washing machine (the last time we would get a chance to do so on the trip), and then upon learning that there was a Fondue restaurant, the kids demanded that we go there.

The ride to the Fondue restaurant was beautiful, reminding me how even the most mundane ride in Switzerland is gorgeous, taking us past streams and fields. The dinner was OK --- we did finish most of the Fondue, and bought breakfast for the next morning from the supermarket next door before returning. The forecast was for rain the next day, but with increasing possibility of sunshine during the day. I got the laundry out and dried, and slept decently, waking up once again at 2am but no longer distressed and sleep deprived.

Review: Continental GP5000 700x25

 I've avoided Continental tires on my bicycles for years and years, since every sidewall blowout I saw at the bike club were from Continental tires. I ran Gatorskins for a couple of tours on my tandem, and they were hard wearing tires (I never wore one out before the sidewalls began to look nasty), but Michelin Pro tires were cheaper and didn't have sidewall blowouts.

The good Michelins weren't available in 700x32, so when the GP5000s became available in 700x32 size I mounted them on the triplet before a tour and road them. One tire died from a sidewall blowout, but the other wore through normally. Then Michelin raised the prices on its road tires to a nose-bleed $55/tire from my usual sources (and believe me, as a cheap skate I buy them from far and wide to avoid paying consumer prices), while Continental tires could be had for around $40 each if you shopped carefully.

I ended up with the GP5000 700x25s, and ran one long enough to wear out a tire. First of all these run narrower than the equivalently sized Michelins (which don't matter much except that the Michelins top out at 25mm). Despite abuse, their sidewalls don't seem to be more fragile than the Michelins --- the high end GP5000s are made in Germany, rather than somewhere in Asia, which means that they're constructed differently than the Gatorskin or lower end tires.

I finally wore one out after 4350 miles, 2105 on the front and 2245 on the rear. By comparison, my last Michelin went for 3921 miles (don't know the exact mix of front and rear), so approximately 11% more tire life for a 34% reduction in cost, which makes the GP5000s a much better deal than the equivalent Michelins.

After I run out of 700x25s, I expect to switch to the 700x28s on the Continentals to get wider tires on my single. I would expect increased tire life, except that the tread depth on the 28s appear to be thinner! The 25mm GP5000 have 0.2mm more tread rubber than the 28mm, which explains why the 28mm tires are only 14g heavier than the 25mm tires. By contrast, the 32mm tires are only 0.1mm less thick than the 25mm. Looking at the chart, it looks like the GP5000 25mm tires actually  measure 26mm, so I guess what that means is that the Michelin 25s actually are more like 27mm.

Regardless, the numbers don't lie. The Continental GP5000s are a better deal and at least equivalent quality to the Michelins. I expect to be running these for the foreseeable future. Eventually I might decide that the 45g difference between the 28s and the 32s to be not worth the bother and just run 32mm tires on all the bikes, but I fear is that if the tread lasts too long I'll once again run into the dreaded sidewall blowout.

In any case, I think these will be my standard tires for the foreseeable future. Recommended.

Tour of the Alps 2022

 From June 13th to July 2nd, we executed a Tour of the Swiss, Austrian, and Italian Alps and Dolomites. The ride encompassed 437 miles, and 25,994' of climbing. We had 2 flat tires, 3 train transfers, 1 bus transfer, and 1 private taxi transfer (which we turned into a hiking day). We had one day of riding in the rain, and 3 days of lost riding to food poisoning. We also took a voluntary zero day, which was spent swimming at Lago di Fie. After the trip, for an extended epilogue, we visited my favorite hotel in the alps, Hotel Rosenlaui (the first for Bowen since he was a baby, and the first for Boen ever), where we did a couple of days of hiking and site-seeing, with Savitha tagging along. This was both Boen and Xiaoqin's first bicycle tour in the alps proper.

This is the index page for the day by day trip report, as well the consolidated picture album and equipment reviews.

Pictures

• Full Resolution Pictures

Day by Day Trip Reports

• June 12th: Prologue
• June 13th: Opfikon to Weesen
• June 14th: Weesen to Pragg-Jenaz
• June 15th: Pragg-Jenaz to Davos
• June 16th: Davos to Scuol
• June 17th: Scuol to Nauders
• June 18th: Nauders to Gomagoi
• June 19th: Gomagoi to Hotel Franzenshohe
• June 20th: Hotel Franzenshohe to Hotel Alpenrose
• June 21st: Hotel Alpenrose to Vetzan
• June 22nd: Vetzan to Bolzano
• June 23rd: Bolzano Rest Day (Lago di Fie swimming)
• June 24th: Taxi Transfer Bolzano to Arraba
• June 25th: Arraba to Cortina D'Ampezzo
• June 26th: Cortina D'Ampezzo to Bruneck
• June 27th: Bruneck to Sterzing
• June 28th: Train Transfer Sterzing to Innsbruck
• June 29th: Train Transfer Innsbruck to Landeck, Bus Transfer Landeck to Galtur
• June 30th: Galtur to Feldkirch
• July 1st: Feldkirch Food Poisoning Layover
• July 2nd: Train Transfer Feldkirch to Zurich
• July 3rd: Epilogue - Rosenlaui's Romantikweg
• July 4th: Epilogue - Reichenbach Falls, Aareschlutz, Rosenlaui Schlutz
• July 5th-6th: Epilogue - Luzern/Zurich/San Francisco
• Reflections

Equipment Reviews

• Moosetreks Feedbag
• GoPro Hero 8
• Ortleib Backroller Pro Plus Panniers
• Gorewear C5 Shakedry 1985 jacket
• LowePro GearUp Wrap/LowePro GearUp Mini Pouch
• Granite Talon Tyre Levers with Master Link Pliers
• Amazon Basics Medium Point and Shoot Camera Case
• USB C to Micro USB Adapters
• Walz Cap
• Pixel 6 Touring Review

June 14th - Weesen to Pragg-Jenaz

 I was still jet-lagged, waking up at 1am, which wasn't actually that bad, since I could go downstairs, take all the laundry up, and hang it up so everything was dry by 8am! I then took another melatonin pill, but still had trouble sleeping for another couple of hours. The supermarket was closed by the time we were done with dinner the night before, so we didn't have anything available for breakfast except for the leftover snacks, clif bars, and Gatorade chews brought with us from California. I ate some of the leftover snacks and bread, and the kids would claim they weren't hungry, but by the end of the day I would discover that nearly all of our cycling food was gone, meaning that they had made use of their feedbags and were chomping away all through our ride.

Xiaoqin had neglected to bring a second pair of bike shorts and decided to borrow mine instead. (Fortunately, my shorts from the previous night had dried enough that I could wear it) I guess being married means that you need to share bike shorts as well, in sickness and in health!

It had been 12 years since I'd last been in the area, but my memories of the surprisingly non-flat ride along Walensee were born out. There was even a climb when we had to get off the bike and walk, while Xiaoqin's e-bike had no problem managing the climb. After that, the ride along the lake was beautiful, though the water not as calm as I'd hoped, with a breeze blowing through creating ripples.

In downtown Walenstadt, I found an open bike shop just across the street from the water fountain where I was filling up my water bottle, and walked into it hoping to get help. The mechanic spoke even before I opened my mouth, "I'm so excited about your bike even before you walked in!" he declared. With that, when I showed him my front derailleur and explained what happened with TSA, he clucked and declared, "You should be so mad --- this is not OK. I hope I have a long enough cable to fix this." When I showed him the DaVinci cable splitters, he immediately figured out how they worked, and had me moved the bike to his shop so he could do an installation. I asked Xiaoqin to take this moment to buy herself a new pair of bike shorts. "Couldn't I just keep using yours? They fit so nicely!" "But on a rainy day they won't dry in time and both of us will be stuck with wet shorts!" The one time I'm authorizing my wife to pay expensive swiss prices for clothing is the one time she's reluctant to do it, but she eventually agreed that she needed a second pair of shorts.

After that, it was a flat ride up the valley towards the Rhine River, where we would follow the Rhine to Bad Ragaz and Landquart before starting the climb over to Jenaz. There's an alternate route that would take you over to Maienfeld, but I noted that it introduced additional climbing on a day when we didn't need any. In fact, upon leaving Walenstadt we immediately faced a climb which exercise our newly installed front derailleur, which worked to perfection!

In Landquart, I got hungry and we stopped by a migros to buy snacks, cherry tomatoes, ice cream, chocolate, and (disappointing to Xiaoqin), hazelnuts that turned out not to be roasted and therefore weren't very yummy. Coming out of Landquart, the bike path turns into dirt, but it was only for a couple of kilometers before dumping us out onto a frontage road along the river. This was a common place for kids to ride --- we saw a group of school age children riding along the same route, and the triplet got plenty of stares.

The climbs were occasional, coming in between towns, but then flattening out in a series of stair steps. Riding into Pragg, I noted that the Hotel Sommerfeld looked like it was closed, which explained why I couldn't get reservations there instead of having to book an apartment. I wasn't too sorry about that --- the apartment had a washing machine, and I liked the prospect of not having to do laundry for the first 3 nights of the tour.

We got to the apartment and had a hard time communicating with the apartment owners, but it turned out that they'd left the keys for us, so after that phone call we managed to get ourselves installed and get all the equipment charging. The owner told us that none of the restaurants in town were open, so I had to head down the hill with Xiaoqin's e-bike to buy groceries.

There wasn't really much to do other than that, so after using the washing machine and hanging everything up we just went to bed!

Review: Doctors - The History of Scientific Medicine

 I listened to Doctors - The History of Scientific Medicine on a travel trip while flying between continents. It was a great listen, covering early medicine (who was Hippocrates, who was Galen, and how did Galen set back medicine for 1200 year) to the various folks who invented antibiotics, anesthesia, and surgery. For each person selected, you get a biography, context about how he or she performed the discoveries, and the impact of the procedure, concepts, etc. Some of the descriptions can become graphic, so be warned, but it's well worth getting over the squeamishness to get into how the modern medical world became the way it was. I listened to it all in one go because it was so good!