Review: Everything's Eventual

After reading Duma Key, I resolved to read more Stephen King, since I found Duma Key so much fun. So I picked up Everything's Eventual (Dead Tree edition) just before the Tour Across France.

Everything's Eventual is a collection of short stories. Nearly every genre of horror is covered, ranging from the meeting with the devil (The Man in the Black Suit) to the haunted room (1408 --- this also appeared in On Writing in draft form).

The stories are quite uneven in quality, but I found Autopsy Room Four, Everything's Eventual, and The Death of Jack Hamilton particularly good. I got my money's worth, but unfortunately, I didn't think this collection was sufficient to get me to run out and buy more King books until I am back in the US and can sample his books using the sample feature of the Kindle. Still, at $7, I got my money's worth, so a mild recommendation is in order.

Review: Zoe's Tale

Zoe's Tale (Kindle Edition) is the latest book in John Scalzi's Old Man's War universe, taking place concurrently with The Last Colony.

Even though Scalzi swears up and down that the book is independent of The Last Colony, I don't think it can easily be read that way --- you would miss a lot of context, and that would lead you to think that this was not a very rich universe. Scalzi agonizes a lot on his blog as to whether he got the teenage girl's voice right, and he does. But I've never been a teenage girl, so I'm not sure I'd qualify to pass that judgment.

Unfortunately, it feels a bit like that's his only goal for the entire book --- there's not a lot of additional story, and while the travails of a teenage girl in a colony who's the Chosen one is entertaining, it strays too much into Buffy territory for me, and unfortunately, Scalzi is no Joss Whedon.

If you like the previous Scalzi books, then you'll eventually pick up Zoe's tale, but I see no reason not to wait for the paperback version (well, ok, I picked up the Kindle edition).

Conclusion

Having ridden the France, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, and Italy, I have to say that the food in France is better, but you do pay a price for it --- you sacrifice 2 hours a day of riding time at least for the food if you go for the fixed price menus that are the best value --- if you just order a plat it can take much less time. Grocery store lunches are fine, but it can be tough to find a grocery store at times.

The scenery in Switzerland and Austria is definitely better. If I were to advise a first time tourist in Europe who was reasonably fit, I would recommend that they start in Switzerland --- the food is good if you know where to go, and with Jobst's Tourof the Alps collection on-line there's no excuse for not knowing where to eat and where to stay in Switzerland. (Some day, I'll go through his logs and extract all the good places to stay and put it up in a wiki) The scenery is spectacular and the drivers very very polite. Plus the Swiss aren't too snotty to speak English to you. French drivers aren't nearly as polite and frequently drive a bit fast for the conditions, though not as badly as the Italians do.

The big problem with riding in France is the trains --- long distance trains are a nightmare as far as bringing a bike is concerned, and the German speaking countries definitely are far more accommodating of bikes on trains. I don't think there's a serious price difference between the countries.

All in all, I'm not surprised that Jobst can tour the Alps year after year for 40 years --- the Pyrenees was fun once, but my next mountain tour in Europe will definitely be in the Alps. Though Mike, Roberto and I are contemplating Japan or Taiwan. It would be nice to tour in a country where I speak the local language for a change.

Review: Exposure Lights Joystick Maxx

When I learned that my commute was going to be 50% unpaved, I realized that my Lumotec/Shimano generator hub combination wasn't going to cut it. Unfortunately, the cheap LED solutions such as the Cateye 301s weren't going to cut it, so I asked Pardo what he used, since he had a fancy, tiny flash-light looking thingy mounted on his bike. His answer was the Exposure Joystick Maxx.

This is a tiny light (18mm diameter), and it's light --- 80 grams! The mount is a simple U-shape mount that the light snaps into, and it claims a 3 hour run time at a 240 Lumen rating, with other modes lasting as long as 24 hours in the lowest beam, and a near infinite lifespan in flashing mode. It also comes with a helmet mount that I didn't bother to test (why mount your light further away from the ground?).

In head to head with the Lumotec light, there's no question. At maximum beam, the Joystick kicks its ass, even though it's mounted higher. At low beam, it's only as bright as the Lumotec. The beam pattern is clearly not as good, but with the overwhelming amount of light provided, it doesn't have to be to provide sufficient light off road for riding.

I then took the light on the Tour Across France. We didn't use the lights much, but it was a test as to whether the self-discharge rate of the battery was low enough that it would last 3 weeks of intermittent use. It went through the tour with flying colors, with the battery indicator indicating that there was plenty of charge left at the end of the tour.

My one big criticism of this unit is that the built-in battery is not user-replaceable. Of course, I hate that, but on the other hand, not having a separate battery pack makes this unit lighter and more compact, and that's why I bought it, so that's really not a valid criticism. It is also expensive --- $240. Then again, Dinotte charges almost as much for a light that's not as compact or as light. Recommended with the above caveats.

Bourg-en-Bresse Rest Day

This rest day composed mostly of us riding around meeting Roberto's old friends, then coming back to the Solers' house where Roberto & Mike did some heavy lifting by moving firewood out of the yard into the garage. After that we moved into a hotel in Bourg-en-Bresse and Roberto treated everyone to a get-together dinner.

Athens Slideshow

The last slideshow I have from Greece. This was the day I spent walking around Athens.



Note you can view the high quality version by double clicking on the video and going to the Youtube website directly. The pictures look a TON better there!

Remuzat to St. Julian en Vencors

We woke up in the morning to consider whether or not to go over to Rosans to attempt Col de Pommerol (1072m). On second look, not only was the traverse to Rosans a red road, it was also a climb in itself, and I didn't know if we had time to do 4 climbs today, so we headed North on D61 while the day was windless, riding through la Motte-Chalancon and Bellegarde before the road went over Col de Premol (964m). The descent from Joncheres was pretty enough, but at the bottom we had no choice but to head North on an unpleasant main road in the area, D93 towards Die.

That in itself wasn't too bad, but the road headed directly into a painful headwind, lending only morbid amusement to the phrase We are going to Die! Even with moderate pace-lining, my legs weren't what they should have been by the time we entered Die for a light lunch and some grocery shopping.

Then we began the climb up Col de Rousset (1367m). This was a tough climb, not because it was steep, but because several places in the climb, I was blown to a complete stop. I got to the point where I had to draft Roberto while going uphill, which was a pain in the neck, something I only had to repeat before in St. Christophe in 2005. Near the top of the switch-backs, the wind helped up some sections, but I got hungry so I stopped to eat a banana. Roberto would say that this was the first time he'd ever see me stop because I was too tired to keep going, but I guess the previous times I'd done it he wasn't anywhere near to see it.

Col de Rousset ends in a tunnel, and we zipped through that with a tailwind, and immediately stopped on the other side to put on everything we owned because it was cold! We descended D518 down towards La Chapelle-en-Vencors, but fortunately, there was not much wind there. At St. Agnan-en-Vencours, we chose to take D103, the scenic white road towards St. Martin-en-Vencors, and scenic it was, running along a babbling brook, with farmland to the right, and a hill on our left.

In St. Martin-en-Vencors, we found that the only hotel in town was under reconstruction, so we had no choice but to ride on past Herbouilly and St. Julien-en-Vencors, where the hotel in town was fully booked. However, the owner was kind enough to call around, and found us a B&B named The Tranquil Coin. By this point I was bonking, and despite chewing through a couple of gu packets still wasn't quite myself. But The Tranquil Coin wasn't too far, so by the time we got there it wasn't too bad.

Nevertheless, we had a complication --- the owner had an event at 7:30pm, and wasn't intending to serve dinner. We asked if there was another restaurant nearby that was open, but when she called it, it wasn't open. Looking at us in pity, she immediately offered to cook us dinner at 6:30pm, which we promptly accepted and then had the fastest 4 course French meal we'd ever had!

Exhausted by 109km of headwind, and 1831m of climbing, I slept like a log that night.

Orange to Entrechaux

We woke up to a breakfast buffet that was satisfying, and then started riding North to Entrechaux. A stiff headwind blew in from the North, which I took as a good sign, despite the presence of clouds overhead. Riding into a stiff headwind is no fun, even though I had Mike and Roberto to paceline behind much of the time. Since we were heading North-East, and a big mountain was directly to the East of us, we soon faced a headwind, which made pacelining impossible given that we couldn't use the full width of the road.

At Rasteau, we finally had to head south for a little bit, and the relief was immense. Then we rode through Vaison-la-Romaine, where I realized we should have headed the day before, since there seemed to be plenty of lodging in this town. A stop at the bike shop to search for a replacement center-set screw for the one that had fallen off Mike's bike yielded nothing. Riding out of Vaison, however, Mike suffered another front flat, which once again proved to be a glass shard.

Riding into Entrechaux, we spied a castle on the hill, but in town did not find a tourist information center except a map with hotels listed. Calling the first hotel yielded no answer, but the second hotel answered and we made a reservation and rode there to find that it was actually a vineyard near St. Marcellin. We booked a Demi-Pension and then went in for lunch.

After lunch, it was 3pm, and the overcast clouds started to threaten rain, so doing Mt. Ventoux was out of the question. I rode into town instead to get more batteries to feed the GPS, some snacks, and some soda, and got rained on a little for my trouble, but the rest of the afternoon and evening was uneventful.

A super short day, with only 48.7km and 432m climbed, though the stiff headwind made me glad to finish.

Long Term Review: Custom Frame from Carl Strong

I first got my custom frame in February, just before moving to Munich. Since then, it's seen almost daily use, whether on my commute, or on long tours through Germany or France. It's seen a lot of rain, wore through 2 chains, and wore through a tire. It's seen century/day rides, and slow plodding days. It's seen mountain days in the Pyrenees and flat days in the Salzburg Lakes.

The bike's been everything I wanted, and my only regret is not buying it years ago when I started touring the alps. The Tektro caliper brakes work much better than cantilevers ever did, while surviving wet Munich relatively well. (I'm almost through one set of Kool-stop Salmon brake pads)

The bike has a dual-personality. With 25mm tires, it rides as nice as my old Fuji, with a little less immediate responsiveness on out of saddle springs and climbs, but with a little more give here and there (which I didn't believe until I observed the fork flex during braking). With wide tires and a load, it behaves as well or better as the Heron Touring frame back when I was using one, with the supreme advantage that the brakes don't suck.

Things I'll change about the bike in the future: ditch the spoke holders --- they only serve to interfere with the chain. I would also raise the brake bridge a bit (to 54mm) so I don't have to file down long reach caliper brakes to get the pads to square with the rim.

But otherwise, all I can say is that all bikes should have this geometry. I see no reason to change! Thanks, Carl!

Review: Traffic

Tom Vanderblit addresses a problem as old as the first cities --- traffic. Each chapter of this book (Kindle edition) is relatively independent, and addresses just one or two topics, making this an easy read for those who are frequently interrupted. Topics covered include: social interaction on the road, and why bad drivers never get better.

One of the most fascinating points the book makes is that most of us never get feedback about minor carelessness or infringement --- that's because most of our weaknesses don't cause accidents most of the time. So if you're a bad driver, there's no feedback telling you that you're a bad driver, so you just get more and more reckless and worse and worse until you finally crash.

Another interesting segment of the book is the section on traffic calming --- it turns out that things like bumps and traffic islands don't do a lot of good, but making the street clearly different from an inter-city highway changes things dramatically.

There's also another section on varying culture's approach to traffic. For instance, Americans happily accept that 30000 people will get killed on US roads every year, 10 times that of the September 11th terrorist attacks, yet everyone seems to think that there's nothing you can do about it. The opposite approach is Sweden, which at only 60 deaths a year, wants to reduce it to zero.

Even stuff I knew about, like Risk Compensation is covered well and the book is in general well written enough that I was always happy to read "just one more chapter before going to bed."

Recommended for both entertainment and edification.

Equipment Review: Vibram Five Fingers

When one of my colleagues mentioned that he used Vibram Five Fingers as his touring shoes, I was intrigued. These shoes looked like they compressed very well, and they looked like they might well be comfortable. For my last 2 or 3 bike tours, I had made to with only wearing cycling shoes every where, and while it was OK, cycling shoes do have a tendency to dig a bit here and there, and after a day of cycling in them, the prospect of having to wear them for dinner puts me off a bit.

So I gritted my teeth, ordered a pair for me and a pair for Lisa, and had Roberto send them over.

First of all, they take a bit of practice before you can put them on fast. The trick for me is to spread my little toe a bit and slide that into the pocket, and then pull on the rest of the shoe. Otherwise, it can be a bear! You also have to be careful not to snug up too much the strap, or you can end up cramping your toes.

The shoes have no padding at all. Let me repeat. Zero padding. You walk in them and you can feel all the texture of the ground beneath you, whether it is grass (pleasant), cobble (less pleasant), or asphalt. It really does feel like walking barefoot, which means that as someone who's not used to running around barefoot outside my apartment, I am actually a slower walker in these than in my cycling shoes! And of course, they don't take orthotics. There's all sorts of debate as to whether that's good for you or not, but I figure I didn't walk enough in them to make much difference. These are, after all, off bike shoes. They do look like they'll be great for sailing, so I'll try them for my next sailing trip. But would I use them for long distance hiking or running? No way.

What I was not prepared for, however, was the kind of attention these shoes would get me. My first clue was when I tried them in the office and walked around in them. First of all, women notice shoes. The very next day, I had women from the office ask me where I got them, how they felt, and can they try them on if Lisa's pair would fit them? The cuter and more fashion-conscious the woman, the more attracted they seemed to be to those shoes!

My next clue was when Guy Kawasaki visited Google. He derailed his talk for 3 minutes to talk about those shoes!

Then in Bordeaux, while wearing those shoes out to dinner, I got so much attention from the women on the tram that we took to and from the restaurant that I felt, for the first time in my life, as though I was attractive to women. (I was not --- but my shoes definitely were!) Then in Argeles-Sur-Mer, a beautiful blond approached me while I was doing the geekiest of all activities, playing Air Hockey with Roberto. All because of these shoes.

All I can say is, if you're a single man, get yourself a pair of these shoes right now, before they become so popular that they become common! Your guy friends will make fun of you, and call them Monkey Feet, but you will be a hot person for all of the time it takes before the novelty wears off. And if you're a dorky guy like me, that's a novel and strange experience, and well worth the $70. (Heck, if you're not a single guy, buy a pair for yourself and your girlfriend... then you can be hot together)

Assling-Chiemsee-Grafing

 

With the weekend forecast to be sunny, I wanted to do a ride, but not something painful, since we'd just come back from the Tour Across France. When Radina suggested a ride to the Chiemsee and back, using her newly discovered method of using the MVV ticket on the Deutsche-Bahn, I agreed. Radina, Mike and I met at the Munich main station at 9:20 for the 9:40 train, which arrived in Assling at 10:15am. Meeting us there was Frank Spychalski.

Since it was Radina's route, she led the ride, though occasionally from behind, as Mike and Frank seemed to be feeling strong today. It was cold and overcast, surprisingly so, and I found myself in need of food as soon as we crossed the bridge at Rott-Am-Inn. Riding with a 1:75000 map, we still occasionally got confused and found ourselves lost every so often. Nevertheless, as we approached Gstadt-am-Chiemsee, the sun finally broke through the clouds and we got ourselves a little warmer at lunch.

After lunch, I saw Mike putting on sunscreen --- an optimist! I myself kept my arm and leg warmers on, and eschewed the sun. We rode off along the Chiemsee for a bit, with beautiful views to the left of us --- it was quite windy, as evidenced by the number of sailboats out with sails full, but with the wind behind us it was much nicer than having the wind in front of us. Nevertheless, it still felt chilly in the shade.

Past Rimstim, we rode towards the Simsee, but missed a turned and climbed a purely gratituous 9% grade before turning around and riding towards the Simsee for more beautiful views. At that point we got lost trying to get to Vogtareuth, and ended up at the local airport. Fortunately, a local pointed us in the right direction, and soon we were along the Inn river bike path, and then crossing the bridge.

Once over the bridge, the GPS took over and we navigated quickly towards Grafing, but Frank chose the direct route back to Assling. The sun was now low in the sky and we were treated to gorgeous sunset views of the surrounding houses and landscape --- Germany at its best. Unfortunately I'd forgotten my camera and Radina's camera wasn't good for shooting on the move.

We rolled into Grafing Bahnof just as the S4 pulled in, so we boarded in the nick of time at 6:00pm. A surprisingly beautiful ride at 1134m and 108km of riding.

Pictures of my feet on Guy Kawasaki's blog

Guy Kawasaki visited Google Munich on the day of my departure for the Tour Across France, so he caught me wearing my Vibram Five Fingers and was so taken with them he derailed his talk for about 3 minutes. (I don't know if his talk's up on YouTube)

He also took a picture of Mike Samuel's Smoothie ES because of his cowbells:


I'll post a thorough review of these weird shoes later as part of the Tour writeup.

Equpiment Review: Bagman Saddlebag Support

After years of using a saddlebag without saddlebag support (and wearing holes in my Nelson Longflap as a result), I finally gave in this year and bought one, mostly because I had switched away from my beloved Brooks B-17 in favor of a plastic saddle that won't go bad in the rain. (This also saved a ton of weight)

Bagman saddlebag supports are apparently quite hard to find, but a call to Wallingford Bikes turned one up. I ordered one without the quick release (because Ti versions weren't in stock), but the one that showed up turned out to have the quick release feature instead (which weighs a bit more).

The support snaps onto the saddle rails with an allen screw, and installation takes no more than 3 minutes, even if you loc-tite the assembly. However, the Bagman has a fatal flaw, which is that the struts supporting the bag proper are mere rods that slip into a hole in the saddle attachment, which is then held entirely with friction by a couple of small screws (about 3mm in diameter) and a bolt.

Whoever designed the Bagman has never done a major bike tour involving rough roads or rough stuff, because even though I applied loc-tite to all of these screws, after about 15 days of rough riding (or 3 months of daily commuting on my Munich Commute) and the rods would slip out. The first time this happened it was in heavy Munich traffic, which was quite disconcerting. Fortunately, the design is such that you won't lose the small screws if that happens.

Since then, I've tightened the screws periodically, and just before any long tour. Even so, during this past tour, my bagman came loose in this fashion not once, but twice. The proper solution is to undo all the screws, mark the rods, and then put in divots in the rods to prevent this sort of motion in the future. But seriously, it's poor engineering to expect the customer to put in fixes for obviously bad design.

The quick release feature also turned out to be quite a bit of a mixed blessing. First of all, it truly is only a quick release --- putting the bag back in is just as laborious as the pins aren't precise enough for you to thread it through and already looped leather strap --- or at least, I can't do it. Secondly, the pins are basically tied to a screw tip which pushes back against springs. Guess what --- they unscrew themselves with sufficient bouncing on the saddle, and come off. If this happens during a tour when you happen to drop the pins and the springs, good luck! So on a tour you have to check these pins for tightness and periodically tighten them.

I cannot therefore recommend the Bagman for serious cycle tourists who are not mechanically savvy and willing to perform the modification. This is a pity, since I still think saddlebags are a better solution than panniers for light touring, but given my need for CPAP therapy, perhaps my days of light touring are past. The search for a better solution continues...

Luz-St.-Sauveur to Arreau

From Screen Captures

We had shopped for groceries the night before, so we ate breakfast in the hotel room, and got ready for an early start for the Col du Tourmalet (2115m). The climb started out gently enough, and in fact never really exceeded about 8% grade throughout the entire stretch, reminding me a lot of Sustens pass in that respect. It was, however, wild and desolated as promised, with relatively little traffic except those of the van-supported 6-day Pyrenees riders.

The summit, however, was quite cold, and when I got there I immediately put on arm warmers, leg warmers and a jacket. Mike had been waiting for quite some time, and by the time Mike and I got into the cafe and placed our orders for lunch, Roberto had just shown up. We had a nice meal in quite a reasonably priced restaurant, then put on everything we owned before starting the fast and extremely steep descent on the East side of the pass. Whatever else I can say about the Pyrenees, the descents on the East side of the passes are as rugged and fast as anything I've encountered anywhere.

At the bottom of the hill, we looked for water at St. Marie-de-Campan, but the only fountain in town had an Eau Non-Potable sign attached to it. We went ahead and started climbing Col d'Aspin (1489m) anyway, trusting on faith that we would find something. That faith was justified a little later when I saw a man in a driveway pulling his bike out of his car. I stopped and asked if he could give us water --- even though my French was next-to-non-existent, as soon as I pointed to my bottle he knew what we needed and proceeded to fill up our bottles.

After Col du Tourmalet, Col d'Aspin felt like a really short climb to me! We wound around some hill sides, seeing paragliding lessons being given to a few clients by a local outfit, and then into a line of long, lazy switchbacks that eventually led us to a beautiful overlook which turned out to be the summit. What Aspin lacks in height, it makes up for in scenery --- it is really beautiful, with long views down into the valleys in the region, as well as good looks at surrounding peaks. While the Pyrenees aren't as spectacularly pretty as the Alps, they have their own beauty that makes them worth a visit.

We hung out there at the summit for about 15 minutes admiring the view, before deciding to brave the descent to Arreau to spend the night. The descent was fun! At a steady 9% or so, great sightlines, dry roads, and few motor-vehicles, we all hit speeds in excess of 55kph. In Arreau, the tourist information service pointed us to only two hotels. The 3 star Logis de France place was far too expensive for us, so we took a room at the other spot.

With plenty of time left in the day, Roberto & Mike visited an internet cafe while I bought some groceries for breakfast the next day. Dinner was at a local restaurant where we met some British cyclists who were there for a few day rides and then a drive to see a stage of the Vuelta. Using discount airlines and good timing, their flights were cheaper than our train tickets! But then they had to rent a car for their entire trip of only a few days, so it was probably a wash.

A relatively short day at 62.4km but with 2037m of climbing.

Cycling Culture Differences

Sitting in the office cafeteria the other day with Sara-the-Intern, we had the following conversation:

"I don't like cycling."
"But why do you bike to work?"
"It's faster than walking, and cheaper than transit."

So there, there are many women in Germany who dislike cycling, and yet ride their bikes to work. Conversely, there are many women in Mountain View (an arguably better place for cycling year round) who won't even consider cycling to work.

When asked why, most women would say that it's just too dangerous, even if they lived close enough to work to do so. But Munich is just as dangerous --- the bike paths have intersection conflicts that will drive most American League Cycling Instructors wild.

The big difference is in perception --- very few utility/commuters in Munich wear helmets. Cycling to the average person, is no different than walking --- you wouldn't wear a helmet to walk, even if the statistics tells you otherwise. (In fact, if you believe the statistics, you should wear a helmet when driving your car --- head injuries are a common cause of serious disability in car accidents!)

The minute cycling perception shifts to: it's so dangerous to ride a bike that you must wear a helmet, then most women give up cycling. Not just because it's dangerous, but also because wearing a helmet will screw up your hair, which many women know is a no-no, even if they refuse to admit to that little bit of vanity. The resulting reduction in the number of women cycling (by darn near 100%, if you compare the number of women cyclists on the road in Munich versus women cyclists in Mountain View) does eventually make cycling more dangeous, because the easiest way to reduce cycling accidents is to make cycling more popular!

I've heard this opinion articulated before, but living in Munich has really driven it home to me --- it's not uncommon here to see a woman go out on a date on a bicycle --- complete with high heels, making up, and dresses, and of course no helmet. By making cycling seem dangerous, cycling safety advocates and helmet advocates have really made cycling more dangerous for everyone, even those of us who do wear helmets. The irony is rich, and I wish I knew what to do about it.

Bielle to Luz-St.-Sauveur

We woke up this morning excited, because we were to climb none other than Col d'Aubisque (1709m), a storied climb that had seen many famous battles in the Tour de France. We started this morning with a detour onto a dirt road, however, looking for a beautiful place to photograph the mountains coming out of the surrounds. Then it was off to Laruns, where I ignored my pre-plotted GPS route in favor of following a few other cyclists up to the official start of the climb onto D918.

The initial part of the climb switched backed around the area, granting us a view of the Laruns area that reminded me of the climb up Alp D'Huez 3 years ago. However, past Gourette, the scenery takes a dramatic change that's all unique. You rise steeply up along the ridge, and on a sunny clear day, which that day was, it granted outstanding views of the valley and the roads below. At the summit there were 3 gigantic bicycles, one for each color of the Tour de France winner's jersey (overall, sprint, and mountains), and big groups of cyclists taking photos of themselves with the various memorials in the area. We ate a small lunch at the summit cafe, omelettes and bread, and looked forward to more riding.

If the Col d'Aubisque climb was beautiful, the Col du Soulor (1474m) climb was even prettier --- after dropping down through two tunnels, gentle winding climbs along a ridgeline, with fog or clouds blowing through, you arrive at a beautiful intersection with a steep and fast descent down towards Argeles Gazost. When laying out this ride on Garmin Mapsource, I had taken the trouble to wind the route through small roads which also stayed as high as possible before getting to the Gorge de Luz. The net result was that this was one of the prettiest rides through the area, with short climbs interrupting middling long descents next to rivers, falls, and staying out of high traffic areas in a way that I wouldn't have been able to do with paper maps alone. The GPS unit definitely paid for itself that day.

At the bottom near Villelongue, Roberto got a glass flat, which took quite some time to fix. Looking at the map, it looked like Luz-St. Sauveur was at the bottom of the gorge, so I told Roberto we could stop there if he liked. "I like." came the reply. Unfortunately, I had lied about the height of Luz-St. Sauveur --- it was at the top of the Gorge, but since there was a massive tail wind blowing us along the road, I didn't complain --- it wasn't very steep, and even the two tunnels were not very threatening. Nevertheless, tailwinds help me more than they help Roberto, and when we got to Luz, he was lagging a bit. At an intersection, I asked Mike if he thought Roberto would kill me if we kept going up the hill. Mike said, "There's no if about it."

So we stopped, even though it was only 4:30pm. It took a couple of tries, but we found a nice hotel in a relatively quiet area, and ate dinner near it. This was when I learned that French dinners could take not just 2 hours, but could easily be 4 hour affairs. It was becoming clear that the Amazon Kindle is an essential French dining accessory, if only because of the long waits between services.

With only 74.5km covered and 1762m climbed, we looked forward to the highest point on the tour, Col du Tourmalet the next day.

Day 3: Oschagavia to Bielle

Despite Roberto's protests, he seemed quite recovered the next day, but in the interest of trying to cover some ground, I gave up on the idea of attacking the triple climbs Portillo de Lazar (1129), Portillo de Eraice (1578), and Col de la Pierre St. Martin (1760m). I will admit that part of that was driven by the desire to escape from Spain as quickly as possible.

The alternative, Port de Larrau (1573m) and Col d'Erroymendi (1362m), was marked as scenic on the michelin map, and indeed it was quite pretty, but for most of the climb we were dogged by a large number of flies which whirled around our head creating an annoying buzzing sound. As we neared the summit of the climb, we saw the reason for them --- there were lots of horses, goats, and sheep on the road (no cows, though), and the fecal matter on the road was substantial. Once we got through the summit tunnel, however, we were exposed to a North wind that got rid of most of the flies and descending speeds meant that no flies could keep up with us.

Past Col d'Erroymendi, the road got really steep, and the descent was amazingly fast. Even Roberto admitted to pulling on the brakes out of fear at some points during the descent. In Larrau proper, Roberto asked for a lunch stop, and we treated ourselves to a two hour French lunch after the anemic Spanish equivalents the evening before.

Unfortunately, French lunches take no less than 2 hours, and it wasn't till 3:00pm that we ste off again down D26 towards Tardlets-Sorholus. Once we got to the intersection with the minor road D759 at Atherey, however, I couldn't resist the white road and chose to head towards Haux and Montory instead, which took in the minor pass Col de Serra (368m). That dropped us off on D918 where a minor climb to Lanne-en-Baretous led us to a descent towards Aramits, then Arette, and the major road towards Escot and the Col de Marie-Blanque.

It was at this point that we first encountered the official Raid Pyrenees groups --- unloaded cycle tourists who'd committed to doing 18 cols and 720km in 6 days. Being unloaded meant that they could do longer distances a day, but having to have support meant that they couldn't decide which hills to do on a daily basis, since the Raid Pyrenees organization decides which Cols must be done. They passed us in a maze of color, and we watched them go buy, knowing that we were paying half their costs by carrying lugguage ourselves.

Co de Marie-Blanque (1035m) was our first tough pass, averaging between 10-13% grades almost the entire way from about 300m or so. Coming in at the end of the day, it was a fun challenge, but the overcast skies made the climb quite enjoyable. Light traffic meant I could eschew my helmet in favor of my cycling cap, and made me feel like I was really touring. I was hoping to get to Laruns that day, but by the time I got to the summit, it was nearly 6:00pm, which made that unlikely. Fortunately, I ran into a French cyclist at the summit who knew the local hotels, and he called and made us reservations at a hotel in Bielle, though apparently the hotel was not serving dinner that night, so we'd have to go elsewhere to eat.

When everyone arrived at the summit we started the descent. Given the fading light, we could have gone fast but the descent was so pretty that we slowed down often or even stopped to take pictures. Not that photographs could have done the scenery justice --- the descent was gentle swooping curves overlooking a valley, with pastures and beautiful houses to the side, and an occasional rise so you could see how much more descending you had to do and how high you were with respect to the valley.

The hotel was a Logis de France operation, and pointed us at a restaurant in Castet a good 3km away, so we had to drop our lugguage, put lights on our bikes, and ride to the restaurant for dinner. All in all, a good day with 97.9km, 2116m climb, as respectable as a day in the Alps.

Appendix B: Tour of the Pyrenees Statistics

We totaled 1649.7km of riding over 28331m of elevation gain. The spreadsheet with daily breakdowns show that while in previous years we had many multiple days exceeding 2400m, we had none this year. We also had no days exceeding 113km, while in previous tours we usually had one or two days in excess of 150km.

Most of this was the result of us being out of shape at the start, but part of it was due to the French lunches --- at 2 hours per lunch, it really cuts into your riding time. Our longest days were the days when we chose to forgo a sit down lunch and went with a grocery store lunch instead.

The short riding days and the small amounts of elevation gain make this the easiest single bike tour in the last few years, even though I at least felt the difficulty more, showing that condition is by far the biggest variable in what makes a tour easy or hard, rather than the actual physical distance covered or elevation gained.

Day 2: St. Etienne to Ochagavia

We woke up to cloudy overcast skies. Roberto felt that the pace yesterday was a little too much, and asked for a shorter day. I didn't point out that some of the excess miles were due to a language misunderstanding rather than a desire to drive hard and exceed 2000 meters the first day. Using the GPS to guide us, we rode to St. Jean Pied-de-Port and proceeded immediately up D953 to Col de Ibaneta (1057m), our highest point so far, passing a couple of recumbents and a group of elderly cycle tourists. Roberto had brought a Pizza and I had brought an Apple, so we ate that at the top of the col, and then proceeded down the relatively short hill to NA 140 towards Alto de Remendia (1040m).

The day was quite warm, and we had to fill up with water any chance we got, and the scenery reminded me of California desert --- low shrubbery, but with quite a number of streams that told us that this place got regular rain. At the top of Alto de Remendia, Roberto asked if there was a lot more to go, and I said that there might be a retro grade between here and Ochagavia, but that was about it.

Well, there was a retro-grade, and then a swift descent past quite a bit of construction. Uncharacteristically, I descended ahead of both Mike and Roberto and waited at the intersection at Ecaroz where the road turned uphill again towards Ochagavia. We arrived there at 5pm, got a map at the tourist information, and then proceeded to discover that the hotels, B&Bs, and other tourist places were either closed or not responding to visitors knocking on their doors. This experience soured us badly on Spain, and we made it a point not to stay anywhere in Spain for the rest of the trip.

We ended up backtracking and finding dormitory accomodations at the campground outside town, which served mediocre food and a passable breakfast. We only covered 78.8km and climbed 1765m, but judging from Roberto's noises, it still wasn't considered easy.