Review: Great Philosophical Debates - Free Will and Determinism

 Niniane told me that Hoopla has a ton of Great Courses downloads available for free, and one of the free courses was Great Philosophical Debates - Free Will and Determinism. I ended up being disappointed, but not because of the lecturer or his coverage of the topic, but by how shallow the debate between free will and determinism is. It's quite clear that the world itself (because of quantum mechanics) isn't really deterministic. Of course, that doesn't mean that people have free will, since it hasn't (yet) been proved that quantum mechanical constructs are in human brains, or that you even have control over your decisions. So that debate is a dead end.

Now there are some interesting implications of whether or not you have free will, such as whether that means you have responsibility. But on the other hand, if you don't have free will, we'd still have to organize society in such a way that people who are dangerous to others should have any damage they do minimized, which effectively means our systems remain pretty much as they are.

Along the way, the lecturer explores many philosophical dilemmas some of which are much more interesting than the famous trolley problem. But it could all have been done in 6 lectures.

June 24th: Taxi Transfer Day - Hiking SassoLungo

 In 2018, Lukas Panitz of Base Camp Dolomites gave Bowen and I a ride to Selva Gardena after saving us several Euros in lodging simply by giving a phone call. This year, the Sella Rondo Bike Day was already over by the time we got to Bolzano, but there was an alternative that was intriguing, which was the Dolomiti Bike Day.  The route went from Corvara to Arraba to San Cassiano, doing Campolongo, Falzarego, and Valporola passes. But I'd wanted to show the rest of the family Cortina D'Ampezzo and so decided to do just the Falzerago pass and then use the lack of traffic to descend what would normally be an insanely busy descent to Cortina. (Hina crashed on this descent in the 2014 edition of the Tour) Since the bike day was the 25th, we needed a transfer to Arraba on the 24th, the climbs out of Bolzano being too difficult for me to contemplate doing on the triplet.

During the transfer in 2018, Lukas had mentioned that there were many trails where you could do a hut to hut hike, and I asked him if he could lead us on a hike during the transfer day. The additional cost was reasonable, though we'd be responsible for the cable car rides, lunch for him, and any additional fees. So on the morning I walked down with much of the luggage to the train statin, where Lukas informed me that the hoped for minivan was actually broken, so he would have to take us in his station wagon with a bike rack on it.

It took quite a bit of work, but even split the triplet into all 3 parts, took the ebike's battery off, and then loaded all the bags (sans anything we would need for hiking) into the station wagon before mounting the last piece of the triplet and the ebike (sans battery) onto the rack, locking everything with a giant lock. Lukas then drove us past Sella Gardena, and then towards the SassoLungo cable car, though not before the kids got completely bored with sitting in a car.

The cable car was unlike anything I'd ever seen. It was a little box/closet/phone box, reminiscent of the Tardis from Doctor Who, and it would shake and sway with the wind. Fortunately, there was not much wind that day, and we arrived at Sasso Lungo little worse for wear. We saw hikers climbing the mountain on the hiking path next to the cable car, and it indeed looked very steep.

Lukas's passion was climbing, so he showed us all the different routes that were available for climbing the cliffs of the mountain. I was very pleased. There was no way I would have found this hike by myself, and having him on the hike basically meant that I didn't have worry about route finding, planning, or getting back to the car. The forecast was for rain in the afternoon, but I trusted Lukas to pick a hike where we would finish despite getting poured on, though I'd packed the rain jackets in the backpack, which came in useful as there was still snow on the route!

The hike was unlike anything I'd ever done in the Alps or the Dolomites before. Rather than greenery, we started off with a bleak landscape (though the kids loved the snow and took every opportunity to throw snowballs at us). It was a steep descent, and I was very happy not to be trying to do it with cycling shoes! With the clouds swirling around us, the scenery changed from step to step, occasionally shrouding us with fog, and occasionally lifting above us to give us clear views of the valley below.

We eventually reached the first hike, but Lukas determined that it wasn't wise to stop, as if we sat down for a long meal, we might not make the end of the hike before the forecasted rain showed up. I was so happy that it wasn't me communicating the bad news to the rest of the family, as it was an absolutely gorgeous looking mountain hut!

Past the hut, the scenery changed from being bleak to being full of flowers and greenery, and the trail became easier to walk on, so we could make better time.

Wildflowers became plentiful, and our pace once again slowed down as we repeatedly stopped to take photos.

We eventually reached the second hut, but not before an amazing series of exposed trails, going under a cave, and then climbing out of a gully. It was definitely an adventure, and to add excitement, it started raining just as we got to the second hut, where we walked into the restaurant to eat a meal.

Lukas gave us an introduction as to what the local specialties was, and we ordered food. He also expressed surprise at how much the prices had inflated. Clearly inflation was not an American-only phenomenon.

The rain stopped just as we finished lunch, and then we hiked back to the car with no incident. We were running late, but Lukas delivered us to Arraba and the hotel with no problems, and then helped me put together the triplet and I paid him with cash afterwards. But after I assembled the triplet and moved the triplet to the hotel's garage, I realized that I'd left my wallet in his car. I called him but he was already in Selva Gardena. I should have just offered him the contents of the wallet to turn around with the wallet. The contents weren't that important, but it had my driver's license and the luggage tickets for the luggage in the hotel in Zurich! While it was unlikely they would give me a hard time about the luggage tickets, it added unnecessary worry to the rest of the trip.

This was in a different valley from the Bolzano valley, so different rules for dining applied. I told the kids and Xiaoqin that when dinner opens you have to show up right away, as there's a feeding frenzy for the buffet and the good stuff disappears. This would apply to breakfast as well. The dinner was great, and there was plenty of food for all. Despite a storm blowing through, our clothing would mostly dry by tomorrow. It was only hiking clothing so it was no big deal, but wet stuff is heavy!

Review: Paradise Falls

Paradise Falls is a book about a section of the town of Niagara Falls known as Love Canal. It was the site of chemical dumping by the Hooker Chemical. The story revolves around the women who lived in their area and the health effects, as well as the activist movement they started to get remediation. In parallel, we get a view of the Superfund program and its founding, as well as the politics around it, much of which was very new to me.

It is astonishing to me how evil the bad actors in the story were. For instance, the health commissioner of New York State at that time, David Axlerod, not only refused to admit that the site was dangerous (even with high levels of dioxin found near the house where one of the kids died), but actively pursued a vendetta against one of his staff who was helping the neighborhood women collate and collect statistics about the medical problems of the folks who lived in the area.

The CEO of the company that owned Hooker Chemical, Hammer Amaud, himself was also quite evil:

When he faced criminal charges in the mid-1970s for making $54,000 in illegal campaign contributions to Richard Nixon—and attempting to conceal the donations by making them in the names of other people—Hammer made sure Nizer was standing next to him in court. The well-known lawyer helped keep Hammer out of prison. Noting Hammer’s advanced age and declining health, a federal judge sentenced him to probation for his illegal donations and ordered him to pay a mere $3,000 fine—the Armand Hammer equivalent of loose change found between the seats of the family car. Now the wealthy oilman was apparently hoping that Nizer could pull off a similar trick with Joan Malone and Luella Kenny. The goal: negotiating a truce before the shareholders’ meeting. Occidental didn’t want them to come. (kindle loc 4569)

 The story does have a happy ending. It takes years and the damage to the residents were considerable, but eventually the government buys out the residents' housing and relocates everyone. Even so, the science isn't fully settled, and David Axlerod was never made accountable for pursuing his vendetta against his staff.

Even worse, the Superfund law has been gutted (by the Republicans of course), and there's no question that if something like this happened today it'd be much harder to get the government to do the right thing. It's quite clear that polluters making a lot of money still have more political power than most of its victims.

You should read the book. It's unpleasant but the issues in it are very real.

June 23: Lago di Fie and the South Tyrol Archaeology Museum

 We packed up everything and dropped the keys to the apartment off and then walked down to Hotel Regina, where of course we were too early to checkin but they allowed us to leave our luggage there. I'd considered just cancelling the reservation and extending our stay at the apartment, but the reason I'd picked Hotel Regina was that it was right across the street from the train station, making loading passengers and luggage into Lukas' car the next day easy. I thought we should visit the Otzi museum first, but we were so early that Xiaoqin suggested that we go swimming at Lago di Fie first. I'd already packed all the swimming gear and a towel into the backpack, so we were ready to go.

The bus ride was pleasant --- the bus takes a route that's not insanely steep compared to what a cyclist would use, but the traffic on that road would make cycling unpleasant! Once off the bus, we were greeted by amazing scenery, the equal to what we'd see anywhere else. The hike itself was short, and with our new working shoes it was not a burden at all!

Upon arrival at the lake, we discovered that it was very organized: there were 2 restaurants, changing rooms, and even lockers! We grabbed a table and ordered some snacks, and then I went in for a swim, and after playing a bit in the water, the kids did as well. It was a pretty perfect swimming temperature, much warmer than most alpine lakes in the Sierra, but cooler than a heated pool so you could swim as hard as you liked.

There was some grass and seeweed growing in the middle of the lake, so you had to take care for it, but I took my time exploring the various structures, swim ladders, and diving boards built around the lake, and then returned. Bowen had managed to swim to one of the other structures ,but didn't know how to navigate the grass, so I jumped back into the water, swam to a clear spot, and had him join me before leading him to a route back.

After that, it was time to have lunch, which was very good food, with huge portions suitable for cyclists and hikers. hike back. It turned out that there was a way back that didn't involve backtracking and let us visit another lake, so we took it.

The second lake wasn't nearly as inviting, with green water that didn't make you want to swim in it, but the hike back showed us more scenery, and we didn't have to wait too long for the bus to take us back to the train station where the day had become much warmer. We checked into the air conditioned hotel, took a quick rest, and then headed back out to the Otzi museum, though in the afternoon heat we made sure we stopped for ice cream first. I had ordered a replacement GoPro mount from Amazon, and it showed up, so now Xiaoqin could use her GoPro again!

I expected the kids to enjoy the museum, but I didn't expect them to like it so much. We spent almost 2 entire hours in there, and the kids so enjoyed the material that Xiaoqin would be showing them videos of Otzi the iceman and various documentaries going forward. We had more ice cream when the museum closed, and then went to the same place for dinner, since the kids liked it so much yesterday. We bought some food for the hike, and then went to bed. The next day was a taxi transfer day, but we'd also scheduled a hike as well!

June 22nd: Vetzan to Bolzano

 We had a nice early breakfast, and now that we knew where the exit from the bike path was, had no problem finding the bike path and rolling down it. We probably spent too much time at a playground that didn't have a zipline, but the kids had been playground deprived for a couple of days and wanted to play more, and I knew that while rain was coming, it wasn't going to be a cold rain and so was unconcerned.

The piece of the bike path before going into Merano is easy and fun, flat, mostly downhill, and winds through interesting towns with plenty of fruit stands. But once in Merano, the bike path signs peter out and you're on your own trying to guess how to get back to the bike path towards Bolzano. Unfortunately, it started raining in Merano, and the rain started getting heavier as we left Bolzano.

With warm rain, the kids didn't want to put on their rain jackets. I did put on mine so I could try out the Goretex rain jacket I'd bought, and it performed beautifully.

In Bolzano, I made a mistake, trying to use Google or Garmin navigation instead of just following the bike path to old town. Xiaoqin got frustrated and suggested I took the ebike to scout instead. Well, when I arrived downtown what did I find but that the apartment checkin was in the same identical place Bowen and I checked in at Bolzano 2 years ago! Right down to the bike parking which was outdoors at the Parkhotel Mondschein! I didn't like the parking since it was raining, so after receiving the keys I dropped by the train station and spoke to Lukas, who was happy to store our bikes at his office, which was the left luggage service at the Bolzano train station.

I returned to the wife and kids, ate lunch with them, and then led them to the train station where I took apart the triplet and gave that and the ebike to him and then we walked to the apartment with the panniers turned into shoulder bags.

Once into the apartment we all took showers, got cleaned up, and took advantage of the washing machine to do laundry. While Xiaoqin took a nap, I grabbed the kids and took them to the Sportler shop where we shopped for shoes and new socks for Bowen, shoes for Boen, and shoes for me. My criteria was simple: the kids had to have shoes that didn't have laces, and I had to have shoes that didn't have laces and were as light as possible. Boen had no problem finding a pair of running shoes that had velcro. They didn't have the same model sized for Bowen, so he ended up with hiking shoes with drawstring pull straps. I scored a major find, a pair of Salomon SLAB Sense 8 trail runners that were the lightest shoes I'd ever tried, and were 40% off at 111 EUR! Xiaoqin thought they were garish and horrible looking but the price and the weight won me over and I really loved them. We spent just over 250EUR on shoes and socks, and I debated buying new hiking pants for Bowen but he said he was happy wearing swimming shorts instead.

Bowen was sneezing so I bought some zyrtec at the local pharmacy, figuring it was easier than eyedrops (and their eyes weren't itchy anyway), and was way better than the placebo pills I'd been sold earlier. I had cracked my screen protector earlier on in the trip (on the ride to Fluela pass), and asked various cell phone shops if they had a replacement screen protector for me. The disadvantage of owning a Pixel 6 was that nobody in Italy had ever seen one before, so no help could be found.

We had a kitchen but the kids wanted Sushi so we ended up at Iki Experience, a Japanese restaurant run by Chinese people and it actually served pretty good food. By the time we got back to the apartment the washing machine had actually finished doing the load (it took no less than 3 hours) and we could hang it up. Tomorrow was a zero day, so we anticipated getting some rest.

But before going to bed, however, we discovered that one of the lights in the apartment wouldn't turn off. Luckily, I always pack some electrical tape, so I got the kids to give me a bunch of books (the light was an upward facing shelf-light!), climbed up, and electrical taped the books and any light leakage to the point where we could sleep. The cleaning staff would discover this the next day, and the apartment managers would immediately cancel our reservation, giving us 40EUR back. You might ask why they would do this --- the reason is that if they cancelled our reservation we wouldn't get to leave a bad review, and giving the customer 40 euros back was a fair price for avoiding a potentially poor review. So now you know why all the apartments in Bolzano handled by this management company had nothing but positive reviews!

Review: Garmin quarter turn watch mount

 I've been using the old style Garmin rubber mount for many years. It works, but is always sloppy and finicky. I recently discovered that Garmin now made quarter turn mounts for the Fenix 6. These new style mounts make use of the quick release bands on the watches, which you unlatch and then the bars those bands mount onto turn into latches for the plastic mount that comes with the kit. You then quarter-turn that onto any Garmin mount, which remains the most effective mount I've ever seen for bike accessories.

The old rubber mount weighs 54g, and the new plastic mount weighs 9g. 2 industrial rubber bands weigh 1g, and the quarter turn bike mount and the rubber washer weigh about 2g, so it's about a 40g weight savings for about $30. There's also an Asian knock-off of the same kit for about half the price, but unlike the Garmin version you have to know which of the 3 mounts that comes with the Garmin kit which is a hassle.

You might think that you can just buy one of the Chinese knock-offs on Amazon if you know exactly what your watch size is. But I actually tried one of them, and believe it or not there's a quality difference. The Chinese knock-off wouldn't let you pull your watch out without using a pair of pliers, so this is truly the only version you should get.

This is clearly a superior way to turn your watch into a bike computer. Recommended.

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.