Whistler MTB Trip: Prolog

 After last year's Canadian trip, Bowen really enjoyed his time at the Whistler MTB park I told him it was very expensive, but he said: "So's the school Costa Rica trip. I'd rather do this than go to Costa Rica. I should have made more conditions, but didn't think about it at the time, and so agreed, as I'd never seen Bowen excited about any sport before. 

We bought 5 day bike passes for the Whistler MTB trip, booked 9 days at an AirBnB in Whistler, and bought plane tickets with frequent flyer miles. Having price shopped, I realized that Coastal Culture Sports was much cheaper than the actual shops owned by Whistler, and they had full on Downhill (DH) bikes, which Brad Silverberg recommended. The decision to stay at Creekside was driven by the memory of how busy the Whistler village was, and how long the lines were. When Brad brought me over to Creekside, I noticed how there was never a wait for a gondola, and resolved that Creekside was a better location. 

Arriving on a Friday night at 9:00pm, we took the airport shuttle to the hotel. The morning bus left at 10:00am, so we had time to eat Pineapple Buns at a restaurant within walking distance of the hotel. It was a good thing we went there early, as there was a line that formed even before the restaurant opened. 

Bowen wasn't impressed by the Pineapple Bun and neither was I, but the rice porridge was good. We made our bus with plenty of time to spare, but the skylynx express got caught in traffic and we arrived half an hour late to Creekside, which made the whole point of taking the express bus vs the regular bus pointless. 

Being dropped off at the Legends hotel, we walked towards our AirBnB and dropped by the visit the Coastal Culture bike shop, who assured us we didn't need to do anything that day. We should pick up our bike passes, they said. We arrived at tie AirBnB, checked in, and then claered up a backpack to go to the grocery store. 

But first, we visited Creekside Guest Services, picked up our bike passes and then had lunch at Dusty's. At the grocery store, we bought dinner and breakfast --- our friends would show up much later and they had a car. We then took the bus to the swimming pool and swam. The bus was free but the swimming pool wasn't, and we discovered how frequently late the bus service was. We wouldn't visit the swimming pool ever again. 

John, Amy, and Sarah showed up late, long after dinner, and we had an early morning the next day so we went to bed early. 

Review: Janissaries

 I started reading Janissaries because of Jo Walton's What Makes This Book so Great. (I may never finish the latter books because it keeps sending me to the library to checkout books that sound intriguing) To my surprise it caught my attention to the point where I abandoned other reading just to finish this (relatively) short book.

The concept is the familiar one where aliens have been visiting Earth secretly and abducting Earthlings. Where it differs is that this has happened during various eras, to the point where a whole other habitable planet has humans in it from various different epochs that are mysteriously stuck in a low tech environment.

The protagonist of the novel is an educated officer who's dropped into this settings with limited amounts of technology (a rifle, a pistol, limited ammunition, but no books, computers). We get to see him put together from his knowledge of military history how Roman legions were organized and how to effectively overcome them with archers and alternate formation and layout.

The book unfortunately makes use of a frequent trope, which is of people deliberately withholding information from each other even though there's no reason to do so, all so that there's a dramatic reveal in the last few pages of the book which (unfortunately) sets up for a series of novels set in the world. It was a fast, compelling, and fun read but not so great that I find myself wanting to run out and buy the sequels.

Epilogue: Bern to Zurich to San Francisco

 In the morning, after a breakfast (in which the kids discovered a fresh orange juice presser and delighted in pressing their own fresh squeeze) Xiaoqin and I took a walk around the city, admiring the street fair/farmer's market that had sprung up in the morning, amidst the gorgeous views of the Swiss Alps. Our journey was at an end, and upon returning to the hotel we checked out and headed to the train station. There was a mix up as to where Boen and my train were, and when we finally found the platform, it was far easier to ride the tandem out and over to the platform than to walk it through the station, so that's what we did. We had time to get onto the train and hug each other goodbye, and the Bern train station's elevator happily took our tandem. 

Once on board the train back to Zurich, we could relax, since we had no exciting time-tight transfers today. Upon arriving at Zurich, I noted that we could have taken this train all the way to the airport, but it wasn't raining and I'd neglected to make the bike reservation, so we exited the train. Getting back to the surface was easy: take the panniers off the tandem, then get onto the escalator and hold on to the brakes for dear life. 

Exiting the station, I set a course for the Airport Hilton. Garmin took us on a route unfamiliar to me but turned out to be better than the one we had used before. Near the hotel, the route took us through a residential neighborhood and then up a rough stuff traverse to avoid the busy highway in front of the hotel, dumping us onto the hotel parking lot. I was impressed! The rain had held off so far. 

We checked into the hotel, and extracted the bike boxes and luggage, and took apart the tandem while rain drops fell, one at a time, on occasion on us. We were all done with the packing of the bike by the time the rain really started, and we went into the hotel after leaving the bike boxes in the hotel's luggage. 

We went down to the Coop and the Migros to buy a supermarket lunch as well to pick up extra chocolate to bring home. The storm on the way back was intense, but we managed to get back without getting too wet. We booked a shuttle to return to the airport for the next day. 

In the morning, we ate the breakfast we'd bought the night before in the room and took the shuttle to the airport. At the United counter, the counter check-in person was so enamored by Boen's story of riding in the alps that she didn't even bother weighing our bike boxes, just led us to the oversized counter with everything tagged and wished us luck! 

We spent our waiting time at the Sprungli chocolate for lunch and bought a hundred dollars' worth of chocolate to bring home. 

On the flight, I started writing the trip report. Upon landing, the bikes showed up quickly and in one piece, and Xiaoqin picked us up, having arrived a couple of hours before. Our tour was over. 

July 5th: Linthal to Bern

 We woke up to clouds and even light sprinkles. The clothing that was hung from last night was still damp, though it should dry in plenty of time today. We showed up to breakfast 10 mimutes early, and were given no problem as we walked through the breakfast room grabbing food and eating as though we were cyclists on a bike tour. 

Putting the damp clothing into the outside mesh pockets of the panniers, we headed up the Klausenpass road onto the initial cobblestone section which serves as a warning for motorists coming down the pass that they're about to enter the city limits. Once past that section, the sun came out and bathed the valley in dreamy painter's light. It was gorgeous and I shot several pictures during the climb but none did it justice. 

The road climbs steeply in the first few kilometers but Boen was motivated to see his mom and his brother and poured on the power. We made excellent time despite stopping in several places to take pictures. Then the first part of the climb was over and we entered the Urnerboden valley, with views of the upcoming climb looming before us. To my surprise I didn't see any water fountains in the valley, and again, stopped at a house with an open door. There was a man outside with a bike that I thought was the owner but he denied that. 

Being desperate, I simply walked into the house with my water bottles and filled the bottles for the final leg of the climb. We then ate the rest of our emergency food. As we were about to leave a woman came out of the house, closed the door, and got on her bike. We smiled at her and she smiled back and then rode off. 

We too, rode up towards the wall that was looming ahead of us. Fortunately, in true Swiss fashion, the road doesn't go straight up, but switchbacks in various corners, never exceeding about 10%. As we climbed the views got better and better, and having to stop every 250m of elevation gain meant that we had ample opportunities to take pictures. The traffic wasn't too heavy, and there were a few cyclists who passed us, though not as many as on the famous Italian passes. In true Swiss fashion, though, they rarely said a word to us. 

At the summit was a cafe, a bathroom and a water fountain. We got others to take pictures of us and then proceeded to descend the frequently single lane Altdorf side of the pass, which is gorgeous. You can truly zip down at speed but this time with Boen in the back seat I took it a little easier and spotted something I'd never noticed before: a viewpoint with a bench seat, designed so that the bench seat would only be stable if someone was sitting on it! I stopped the bike and told Boen to get on, and then snapped a few pictures before getting on myself and wondering at the gorgeous view of the opposite mountain range across the valley. 

A pair of cyclists came by and offered to take pictures of us, and I of course agreed! They were UK citizens now living in the valley, and one of them had just mentioned to the other that they hadn't seen a tandem for a while! We kept descending the Klausen pass road, this time seeing a lot more cyclists coming up the Altdorf side. 

Rolling down through Altdorf I finally realized that the train station I wanted wasn't Altdorf (which didn't have a railway station) but Fluelen. I found the train station that I used 10 years ago with Arturo, accessible via an underground tunnel from the Altdorf road. It's amazing how spatial memory is so sticky and persistent. It was no effort to remember the tunnel entrance at all. 

I bought train tickets to Bern on my phone. The train pulled up minutes later and we got onto the bike compartment. The conductor scanned my passes and reservations (with a tandem, it was a lot of scanning and swiping!), and then told us we had a tight connection in Zurich and gave us directions. 

The Zurich transfer was hard but we had help from other passengers and made it to the train with time to spare, having changed out of our cycling shoes into running shoes! Xiaoqin and Bowen met us at the train station (after some confusion). We checked into the Hotel National Bern, which also had a closed restaurant on account of some event. We walked through town and noticed that the river had people floating down it with exits, so we went back to the hotel to change to swimming clothes and then went to do the same thing! 

The Aare river was fast and cold, but it wasn't too bad, though Boen got out of the river early because he panicked. Xiaoqin also had a hard time but there are multiple exits on the river --- as far as I know, Switzerland has never lost a tourist from swimming in the river so I assume at some point there's a safety net. Well, the water was cold enough that twice was enough, so after everyone had had a go at it we got dressed  and went back to the hotel for the evening. I'd booked tomrrow's train to Zurich for 11:00am to synchronize with Xiaoqin and Bowen's return to Munich. We only had a short ride back to the Zurich Airport Hilton, but the forecast was that it would rain at noon. But it didn't matter, at this point, even an unwaxed chain would get us home.