From maxp@gavia.lcs.mit.edu Sun Jun 27 16:56:32 1999 Received: from gavia.lcs.mit.edu (root@maxphsd.ne.mediaone.net [24.128.175.30]) by amsterdam.lcs.mit.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id QAA27225 for ; Sun, 27 Jun 1999 16:56:32 -0400 (EDT) Received: from gavia.lcs.mit.edu (maxp@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by gavia.lcs.mit.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id QAA00936 for ; Sun, 27 Jun 1999 16:58:35 -0400 Message-Id: <199906272058.QAA00936@gavia.lcs.mit.edu> To: maxp-bike-trip@amsterdam.lcs.mit.edu Date: Sun, 27 Jun 1999 16:58:35 -0400 From: Massimiliano Poletto Hi, for those of you who still haven't heard, I'm done with my thesis and have about 3 hours left before I leave for the airport and fly to Norway. I'm taking a few months off to cycle across Europe, from northern Norway home to southern Italy. I will be back in Boston on October 15. You receive this mail because I thought you might be interested in hearing stories from the road now and then. I don't have a laptop, but hope to find Internet cafes, univeristy campuses, and so forth as I go. No guarantees. The mail is archived at http://pdos.lcs.mit.edu/maxp/bike/europe99/log.txt. If you want to be removed from this list, please send mail to eddietwo@lcs.mit.edu or cblake@lcs.mit.edu and hopefully they will be kind enough to remove you (I can't do this from the road). If you want to send me mail, send it both to my MIT address (maxp@lcs.mit.edu), and to poletto@hotmail.com. If you send it only to MIT, I may very well not read it until October. I guess that's it. I'd better finish packing. I hope you're all well. max ============================================================================== From poletto@hotmail.com Sun Jul 11 16:35:41 1999 Received: from hotmail.com (law2-f187.hotmail.com [216.32.181.187]) by amsterdam.lcs.mit.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id QAA07936 for ; Sun, 11 Jul 1999 16:35:40 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 68459 invoked by uid 0); 11 Jul 1999 20:35:09 -0000 Message-ID: <19990711203509.68458.qmail@hotmail.com> Received: from 129.241.93.153 by www.hotmail.com with HTTP; Sun, 11 Jul 1999 13:35:08 PDT X-Originating-IP: [129.241.93.153] From: "Massimiliano Poletto" To: maxp-bike-trip@amsterdam.lcs.mit.edu Cc: witchel@incert.com, bsm-home@erols.net Subject: greetings from Trondheim, Norway Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 20:35:08 GMT Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Sticky New England summers got you down? Tired of the monotony of endless California sunshine? Do I have a country for you! Norway, land of Vikings, polar bears (though admittedly to see those you have to go to the Svalbard Islands, about 700km north of the northernmost mainland tip where I started my trip), and cyclists with cold, cold extremities. In fact, I should say right way that, even after 9 winters cycling in Boston and despite the most careful equipment preparations, Norway has defeated me. The original plan was to cycle about 1600km from North Cape south to Trondheim, where Rosalba will arrive tomorrow to join me on the second leg of the trip, 40 days across southern Norway and central Europe to Prague in the Czech Republic. However, on Friday, drenched by days of freezing rain and buffeted by winds that sometimes reduced my maximum speed to 6 or 7km/h, I gave up cycling about 350km north of Trondheim, and took the train the rest of the way down here. This was a great decision, but rather alarming in some ways: a subtle indication that I might just be growing older or---perish the thought!---more mature. Just a couple of years ago I would have clenched my teeth, ignored my burning throat and numb feet, and cycled on through the storm. But on Friday I realized that my wannabe-macho self-image just wasn't worth three days of miserable suffering, and that I could have a better time by taking the train for a bit and spending three days in a pretty pleasant university town. It was quite a discovery, and now my throat is less sore, too. The first thing you notice about northern Norway is how much water there is. I have never been in any other place with more water. There's water in the fjords, water coming down from the sky, water collecting in huge lakes and swamps that stretch across endless thawing sub-arctic plains, water rushing by (and sometimes over) the road in noisy torrents, water seeping up through soggy sod in semi-flooded campsites. Fortunately wool keeps you (relatively) warm even when it's wet. I like wool. The first thing you notice about Norwegian people is how proud they are of their water. I'd stop at a gas station, point to a water fountain next to the gas pump, and enunciate clearly (I am rather embarrassed by my complete inability to speak Norwegian): "Drinkable? Trinkwasser?" The answer was never "no," but it was rarely a simple "yes": usually I would receive a look of bemused bewilderment, or even gentle condescension, as if to say, "What planet are you from? In my country even the drain water in urinals is drinkable!" I met a cyclist in northern Finnmark who told me that he'd stopped at a farmhouse to ask for water, and the farmer had simply given his bottles back to him empty and pointed him to a stream by the side of the road... The second thing you notice about northern Scandinavia is the sheer size and emptiness of the place. Prior to this trip, west Texas and eastern New Mexico had held the top spot in my list of barren wastelands. Of course, my perspective may be biased, because I traveled down there in a car in the company of my father, whereas here I was alone on a bike. However, I have never felt more isolated and in the middle of absolutely nowhere than I did in the first few days in northern Finnmark. At least in the southwest after a few hundred miles you can reach a relatively big city like San Antonio or Santa Fe. But up here, you can go for almost 1000km in any direction and never reach a settlement of more than a couple tens of thousands. Most towns have just a few hundred people living in houses along the only road. One particularly barren day featured almost 100km of almost nothing---no trees or vegetation other than scrub-like grass and wildflowers, no roads other than the one "Arctic Highway", and no houses, rest stops, or habitation of any kind except for a couple of tepees set up by the Sami, the nomad reindeer herdsmen who bring their herds north during the summer. Just a road, some power lines, lots of rivers and lakes, mosquitoes, a few Sami, and one large herd of reindeer. Once in a while a black speck would appear on the horizon in front of me and grow slowly bigger, occasionally disappearing in the dips in the road. It would grow to the size of a huge double-decker bus taking German and Scandinavian tourists to North Cape, rush by me in a stinging cloud of fumes and road grit, and then everything would be quiet again. Most Sami settlements are squalid and sad, uncannily reminiscent of some Indian reservations I've seen in the southwest. Apparently the similarities are more than just superficial. From what I understand, the Sami were the native people in Scandinavia north of the Arctic Circle; for a few centuries they were pushed back and forth as Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia squabbled over borders, and then in the early part of this century they were subject to various forms of "cultural homogenization"---forbidden to speak their language, forcibly encouraged to enter mainstream Norwegian life, and so forth. Not quite as bad as what happened to most American Indians, but not exactly great. Today things are better---the language is no longer banned, for instance---but the Sami I saw were reduced to roadside peddlers of reindeer antlers, ethnic costumes, and other stuff aimed for tourist bus consumption. Ultramodern buses stop and disgorge waves of rowdy and obese visitors while half-naked Sami children run around the battered pick-up truck and assorted rusty metallic refuse in the back of the encampment. It's depressing, and it doesn't smell very good. A couple of times I was tempted to stop and take a picture of the huge, surreal collections of antlers laid out by the side of the road, but I was always too embarrassed. Another odd thing in Norway is the gambling. Every public place---grocery store, supermarket, gas station, train station, ferry landing, you name it---has slot machines. It's pretty common to see a tough, wizened old man who looks like he's spent his life on a cod fishing boat drop Kr50 (about $7) into one of these machines, spend the next few minutes spinning wheels and pushing buttons to the flash of lights and the beat of Abba-style Scandinavian disco, and then leave emptyhanded with hardly a word or a shake of the head. Little kids love gambling too. The contrast between the rural outdoors, the relative poverty of the people, and the Vegas-like gleam and sound of the gaming machines is rather strange. About four days of cycling and 600km south of North Cape the scenery becomes more normal and predictable: snow-capped mountains, pretty coastline, small farms nestled in the thin strip of greenery between the ocean and the rocky mountainsides. The trees, initially small and stunted, gradually take on a more normal appearance. If you're ever in Norway, make sure to go to the Lofoten Islands. A little out of the way, but there's not much traffic and the scenery is splendid: they're a small gem that encases the best of what I've seen of Norwegian scenery so far. Unfortunately, south of the northernmost areas I only had a couple days of sunshine; after that, a week of rain and wind, with temperatures often in the high 30s (4-5 deg Celsius). 150km a day with frozen feet is not the greatest thing. By the time I took the train to Trondheim I had no dry clothes and the tent was soaked too. A warm room and a dry bed are pretty good stuff after a week like the last. To limit expenses I'm staying in a sort of student-run university youth hostel. 15-20 beds to a room and a cool coffeehouse downstairs---from which I'm writing this mail---that feels a little like MIT's 24-hour coffeehouse in the student center. Unfortunately, though, there are a few too many 19-year-olds with punk hairdos and Metallica T-shirts who look like they've run away from home; it feels like a time warp back to high school or something. Life is strange: a couple days of silly teenage metalheads and you start to miss the mosquitoes of Finnmark. Anyway, I think that's enough for now; this mail is unexpectedly long! More random impressions and stories when I next find a public workstation. Best, max _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ============================================================================== From poletto@hotmail.com Wed Jul 28 19:00:28 1999 Received: from hotmail.com (law2-f77.hotmail.com [216.32.181.77]) by amsterdam.lcs.mit.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id TAA05537 for ; Wed, 28 Jul 1999 19:00:27 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 13419 invoked by uid 0); 28 Jul 1999 22:57:33 -0000 Message-ID: <19990728225733.13418.qmail@hotmail.com> Received: from 195.82.217.86 by www.hotmail.com with HTTP; Wed, 28 Jul 1999 15:57:28 PDT X-Originating-IP: [195.82.217.86] From: "Massimiliano Poletto" To: maxp-bike-trip@amsterdam.lcs.mit.edu Subject: a note from Copenhagen, Denmark Date: Wed, 28 Jul 1999 22:57:28 GMT Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed On two separate occasions, while trying to escape from a maze of poorly sign-posted bike paths in rain-drenched Norwegian suburbs, Rosalba and I ended up in the parking lots of psychiatric hospitals. On a rational level, this may be an indication of the effect of long winters and dismal summers, and of Norway's commitment to bicycle accessibility. On a more personal level, I took this as a gentle hint to leave that frigid and sodden country before it became too late. Anyway, first the good news: we had two full days of splendid sunshine! Fortunately, the weather coincided with some of the most spectacular fjord terrain, near Andalsnes and Geiranger. In this area, sheer rock walls rise three or four hundred meters out of the water, wispy waterfalls become rainbow-colored mist long before hitting the water's deep green surface, and snowfields sparkle far above among the mountaintops. The sun makes all the difference here: dull and barren during a rainstorm, the fjord becomes magical at sunrise under a blue sky. The cycling was alpine---a typical road into or out of these fjords has an elevation change of 700-1000m with ~10% grades---but in good weather the views easily reward the effort. Unfortunately, the rest of our time in Norway was pretty wet and cold. Despite their enthusiastic assertions that, "Really, just last month we had two weeks of sunshine," most Norwegians agreed that we were having an authentic experience. In Bergen, on the western coast, it rains 3 days out of 4 throughout the year, and summer is the "wet" season. Next time I'll do better research rather than just looking at a map and picking some out-of-the-way location! While Rosalba is doing well, my bike and I are showing a few signs of wear. The list of troubles so far: - one tire worn through to the cords; - one tire with a ruptured sidewall; - one pair of breakpads (new on departure) worn to the metal; - cracked rear rim; - a few days of cold and bad cough; - two severe bouts of stomach sickness. The stomach sickness was painful but unspectacular. The worn tires, on the other hand, were quite an adventure. Both failures happened on Sognefjell, Scandinavia's highest mountain pass. At 1440m, it is not very high, but it's sufficiently far north that even in July there were 6-foot snowbanks by the side of the road and breathtaking vistas across frozen lakes and massive glaciers. If you've ever tried to patch a worn bike tire during a freezing rainstorm using a bit of electrical tape, you'll know how sweet my memories of Sognefjell are. The patch did not work for long, and we had to resort to hitch-hiking, bus, and ferry to cover the 250km to the nearest bike shop. These adventures, combined with the rest days necessary to recover from my various stomach problems, have shortened my trip so far by about 25% relative to the plan, for a total of about 2400km thus far. Since Rosalba must be in Prague on August 22 to return to the US, we're skipping northern Germany and taking the ferry from Copenghagen straight to Poland. I hear the weather's nice in Poland right now.. I must admit that my overall impression of Norway is a little dispiritng. I will remember the low clouds and wind-driven rain, the grand and harshly beautiful landscape, and the gaily-colored but often poor and slightly run-down wooden houses clinging for dear life to that little strip of green between rock and water. In Geiranger I heard stories of children at play tied to rocks so that they wouldn't plunge into the waters below, and saw farms that could only be accessed with ladders yet managed to eek out 60kg of apricots a season from the vertical rocks. Norwegians are incredibly resilient and proud of their land. The pride is touching, and I can understand its origins, but it still fills me with wonder. I find it strange that Italy is so much gentler and easier to live in, and yet that most Italians are so much less proud of their land. Maybe it takes effort to build pride, I don't know. One aspect of Norwegian national enthusiasm that I won't miss is the tourism promotion industry. I love the helpful tourist bureaus and the clean campsites, but I can really do without the constant Disneyland-like marketing of countless indistinguishable fishing villages turned tourist traps. Even on a bike---probably the most independent method of travel, as long as you bring enough spare parts---it's hard to avoid the advertising, and after a few weeks it starts to be annoying. Some of the Norwegians I met were wonderfully friendly and helpful, but on the whole the national character seemed rather reserved and quiet. What contact I missed with locals, however, was made up by encounters with other cyclists on the road, mostly Germans in search of adventure and various random luddites and idealists escaping civilized society. There was the German rasta-man with the fearsome tangled beard who had cycled all the way from Germany to North Cape on a battered old city bike (sort of like an old English 3-speed) with just a couple of canvas bags strapped onto the pannier racks. There was the Swiss-Canadian couple on the road for about two years, from Switzerland to Ukraine, then from Turkey across southern Europe to Scandinavia. There was the crazy German with panniers that were made of sheet metal and covered with solar panels to drive the impressive array of electronics (walkman, computer, you name it) on his handlebars. Not to mention the Norwegian luddite who thought that modern knowledge (even electricity!) was evil, and who had been sleeping in his tent and living more or less off the land for the last year. I mentioned that his bike was the product of an advanced steel-making and petroleum-refining industry, but this did not seem to alter his reasoning. Now I understand that I am a luddite only by MIT standards, if at all. The friendliest (and in many ways most normal) cyclist I met was Bernd, a German triathlete on a grand cycling tour of Scandinavia. We cycled together for almost a week, until he ended his journey in Trondheim and I stopped to wait for Rosalba. His company helped to keep me sane during long days of rain. Whereas I bought a kitchen scale to decide what to pack for my trip, this guy had the opposite philosophy. He is into handicrafts (metalwork, woodwork, etc.), and if he saw a cool bit of junk by the side of the road that could come in useful for his tinkering, he'd strap it onto the end of his bike. By the end of the trip, the bike and gear weighed 59kg! Despite that, he was still quite fast, even on long hills! Maybe we'll ride coast-to-coast some year... My Danish experience is in many ways better than the Norwegian one. The sun shines. Sometimes there are tail winds. Supermarkets carry more than one kind of cheese. Really, unlike Norway, Denmark doesn't feel like a frontier region, and after enough time cycling up north I really appreciate that. Gone are the wind-whipped fishermen's huts. In their place you find rows of elegant red brick houses with luxuriant flower gardens and meticulously manicured lawns. In many parts of Norway, people's energies seemed focused on surviving. Snowplows are mounted on 16-ton tanks. In Denmark, people can afford to spend time picking the weeds that grow in between the bricks in their driveways. Well-fed cattle wander happily through lush rolling fields. I haven't even seen a snowplow yet. And Copenhagen is a true European city, comparable to places like Paris and Rome: it has large immigrant communities (the first I've seen so far on this trip), good cheap restaurants, and splendid architecture. Copenhagen is also a bicycle paradise: major roads have the equivalent of a full lane in each direction devoted to bicycles, there is a small bike store on average every 5 or 6 blocks, and downtown I would say that bikes outnumber all other vehicles by about 2-to-1 or more. Bikes are so common that I've even had trouble finding a bicycle postcard, even though I've searched really hard for one... I must go now: as usual these public internet places are not the best for long email. Thanks to all of you who replied to my previous mail: it's great to receive notes from friends when you're on the road. Unfortunately I can't reply individually---just not enough time or money to pay for these Internet cafes. I'll be better at replying when I finally get home and can hog my dad's computer for a couple of days. Talk to you later! max _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ============================================================================== From poletto@hotmail.com Mon Aug 23 09:10:16 1999 Received: from hotmail.com (law2-f218.hotmail.com [216.32.181.218]) by amsterdam.lcs.mit.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id JAA21276 for ; Mon, 23 Aug 1999 09:10:15 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 53652 invoked by uid 0); 23 Aug 1999 13:09:40 -0000 Message-ID: <19990823130940.53651.qmail@hotmail.com> Received: from 194.213.199.17 by www.hotmail.com with HTTP; Mon, 23 Aug 1999 06:09:36 PDT X-Originating-IP: [194.213.199.17] From: "Massimiliano Poletto" To: maxp-bike-trip@amsterdam.lcs.mit.edu Subject: news from Ceske Budejovice, original home of Budweiser beer Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 13:09:36 GMT Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Eastern Europe is not yet the best place for email access. And itīs not just the crazy keyboards with three accented letters per key (the symbol '@' is generated with the key sequence Alt+6+4). Sleepy villages lost in the Polish countryside or perched on a Bohemian hilltop are about as far away from the Internet as anywhere in Europe. And big cities are not much better. Take Krakow, for centuries the seat of Polish kings. The official Telekomunikacija Polska Internet lounge is located in a stylish marble and polished wood hall on the wonderful main square, but the quality of the connection has a long way to go to match that of the surroundings. In Prague the computer situation was much better, but the crowds there made me run away as fast as I could. I was really curious when I boarded the ferry from Copenhagen to Swinoujscie, on the northwestern tip of Poland. My Mom is Polish and I speak the language, but I'd never been back after my second birthday. In the early 80s, when my grandma was still alive and living in Poland, I remember news of curfews, martial law, and long lines for little food at grocery stores. Mail would come through opened and stamped by censors. To call Poland, you'd dial the international operator, place your request, then wait at home, sometimes for a day or two. Eventually the operator would call you back, and you'd start paying big money for your (probably monitored) line. Of course, I knew all this is now a distant past; I almost feared the opposite, a country overrun by MTV and McDonald's and happy to drop its distinct character in favor of some imported ideal. What I found made me happy: beautiful landscapes, friendly people, and a country that is quickly becoming wealthier but remains deeply rooted in its Polishness. Whereas Norway was mountainous, cold, and wet, Poland was flat, hot, and dry. Poland's nature and weather took me by surprise: I expected green rolling countryside and a temperate, maybe humid, climate. But no: apart from the hills that rise to meet the Carpathians in southern Poland, the country is as flat as a pancake. Despite this it feels uncannily like southern Italy (and, to a lesser degree, parts of California): vast pine forests, dry earth, crickets making noise in the sun-scorched grass. The pine forests are fragrant and offer respite from the summer heat. Out among the endless golden fields, heat waves rise from the road and the wheels of a loaded touring bike leave a little concave line in the hot asphalt, like a finger moving through sand. Eerily, even roadkill sinks---or is pushed---into the asphalt: only parts of a small rib cage emerged from the road, white pattern on black background. Odors are pungent in the heat: flowers, dry grass, and manure fill the air. My favorite smell is that of Polish railways, a rich, heavy, clinging scent of hot tar and grease and dust. Considering Poland's recent history---it was overrun by Germany from the west and Russia from the east in a period of three weeks in September 1939, then almost completely destroyed (6 of 30 million Poles died, I believe) in WWII, and finally ravaged by 40 years of communist rule---its economic comeback is quite amazing. Of course, the transition has not been smooth, and not everyone is happy. For the first time in decades there are homeless and unemployed people. In Bydgoszcz, not far from Warsaw, I talked with a middle aged former employee of Poland's biggest bicycle factory, once "bolts to bicycle" but more recently globalized into an assembly point of mostly foreign components. He helps his two adult but unemployed daughters make ends meet, and has trouble deciding whether he prefers the current system over the former (communist) one. Formerly, one waited in line up to ten years for a house, but there was never any doubt that one would eventually receive it. Today one can buy a house on the spot, but according to him prices are completely out of reach of most common people. My acquaintance was also disturbed that too much wealth is being concentrated in the hands of too few people. One encounter with a post-Soviet nouveau-riche man and one's tempted to agree: BMW with tinted glass, ostentatious black suit, cell phones (plural), an escort of a couple women in tight tops and vertiginous mini-skirts. Nothing better than a little cellular pose in the old town square on a sleepy afternoon. Still, most people---especially younger people---think that Poland is moving in the right direction, and I agree. Take, for instance, the kind lady in the little village of Pajeczno who offered us free food and lodging. She could understand why my Mom hasn't been back if she left under communism, but today she proudly displays her bustling and well-stocked grocery store. A relatively large and well-off middle class seems to be emerging: normal Polish families vacationing in Prague like the Germans and Italians, good fresh food in modern grocery stores open around the clock, rusty and dirty old FIATs and Trabants replaced by safer and more efficient modern cars. If Poland's wealth is new, its Catholicism is not. The Church is rooted in the landscape. The first thing you see of a distant town is its church steeple; sometimes the only hint of the existence of a little hamlet among the trees on the other side of a big field is the bulbous wooden dome of the local church. Every year half a million Poles (over 1% of the population!), many of them on foot, make a pilgrimage to Czestochowa to venerate the holy icon of the Black Madonna, Queen of Poland. As we ourselves approached Czestochowa by bike, we saw many, many people walking there, on schedule for the Marian celebrations of August 15. Most people walk in organized groups of 50 to 100: teens in reflective vests direct traffic, guitar players and other musicians entertain, priests preach over loudspeakers mounted on other people's external frame packs, and the whole merry band moves on. At first I could only stare in astonishment: some groups were walking almost 1000km in the middle of summer, 40 or 50km per day! Then I was a little scared by so much religious fervor. But in the end I could only smile at the energy and good humor of most of these people. Alcoholism is strongly opposed by the Church, but like the Church, it's a fact of Polish life. Enter a bar in any little farming village at 11am on a weekday, and you'll find a handful of middle aged men smoking at a table, a couple of empty beer pitchers and maybe a half-empty bottle or two of vodka in front of them. One evening Rosalba and I sat in a restaurant and watched a handful of Polish soldiers and a few friends quickly finish off five or six bottles of vodka to the sound of old Polish folk music. Wanna-be hard-core US frat boys should come to Poland (or maybe Russia) for a little training. Teens and twenty-year-olds drink too, but they prefer to accompany the alcohol with a repetitive "thump thump thump" from the subwoofers of their black VWs. In the Polish countryside it is disturbingly easy to run into relatively scary young men: Nazi-skinhead look, loud thumping music, vodka at 10am. Speaking of music, I feel as if the entire former East Block is living in an 80s time warp. Cycle through any village in Poland, Slovakia, or the Czech Republic, and you'll hear pop hits I hadn't heard since high school or earlier: Cliff Richard, Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys, and much, much more. It's tough to cycle all day when your head is filled with Simon Le Bon (there was a time when Italian 15-year-old girls swooned at the very name) shouting "Wild Boys" over and over. The exception, of course, is Prague, proud of its association with Mozart, Dvorak, Smetana, and other famous composers. Almost every other church hosts daily or more frequent performances of classical music; you can hear it as you walk the quaint little streets of the old town. The idea is good, but the repertoire somewhat stagnant: Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" and Mozart's "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik," over and over, just so grandma on the tour bus from Milan or Barcelona can enjoy a feeling of recognition. Bleh. Unfortunately, "bleh" is sort of how I feel about my whole visit to Prague. To say that the place is overrun with tourists is an understatement, sort of like saying that the Mariana's Trench is overrun with water. There are areas of the old town and the castle where you literally cannot move, more or less like in St Peter's Square in Rome when the Pope holds a Mass or blessing there. Czech is far from the most spoken language in the historic center, trailing Italian (by far the largest single nationality of tourists, many of them retirees there for one day on frightening "Europe in a week" bus tours), Spanish, English, and maybe even German and Japanese. Restaurants, hotels, and even youth hostels make a killing, charging rates many times higher than elsewhere in the Czech Republic. There are 19 McDonald's restaurants and one of the largest Dunkin' Donuts I've ever seen. After accompanying Rosalba to the airport, I was quite eager to get back on the bike and out of the city. If I ever return it will be in the lowest possible season, maybe March, or November. Krakow, Poland, the other major city we visited, is less impressive architecturally but rather more pleasant. The huge main market square, apparently the largest of its kind in Central Europe, is the ideal place for sitting back, relaxing, and eating some "Wloskie Lody"---Italian ice cream, what else? The crime rate is low, especially by western standards: the only visible problem is the occasional drunk who pisses on the wall or harrasses a tourist. Such rowdies are easily kept at bay by mean-looking young men who work for private security agencies. They carry big sticks and wear intimidating all-black outfits. The backs of their jackets prominently display the name of their security agency: Justus, Komandos, and other names that seem made to order for a Schwarzenegger movie. I can just see Arnold starring in the role of a Polish security officer. And if Krakow is still too big for you, there are plenty of small and splendid towns: Torun, the birthplace of Copernicus and a wonder of Gothic architecture; Litomysl, a quaint town that grew as a Moravian trading center; Ceske Budejovice, the town I'm in right now, famous for its breweries; and many other beautiful and often tiny places. There is also one place that I'll always remember, but not for its beauty. The neighboring towns of Oswiecim and Brzezinka are, unfortunately, much better known by their German transliterations: Auschwitz and Birkenau. This was the site of the largest Nazi concentration camp: approximately 1.5 million people died here in a period of just over three years, more than one thousand per day. There were two main camps, Auschwitz-I in Oswiecim, and Auschwitz-II (Birkenau) in Brzezinka, which was built to accommodate the "overflow." There were also forty or so minor camps in the region, but most of these no longer exist. I don't feel I can write anything adequate about these places, but will nonetheless share my main impressions. First, there was surprise at the unexpected appearance of Auschwitz-I. Trees were planted on the camp after the war: the tidy red brick buildings set among shady tree-lined gravel lanes reminded me of nothing so much as a New England college. Dumb tourists posed all-smiles under the communal gallows, just like tourists pose in front of John Harvard's statue in Harvard Yard. Externally, only the miles of barbed wire along the perimeter hinted at the real story. My second indelible memory is a picture of kittens washing themselves and children at play in water. Of course, any killing, and especially such mass killing of civilians, requires inordinate amounts of cynicism. I had arrived ready for a lot of cynicism and cruelty: after reading Elie Wiesel (I hope I'm spelling the name correctly, it's been a while) I was prepared---as much as one can be, at least---for the gas chambers and the ovens, and even for the chamber of death by hunger, and that of death by suffocation, and that of death by whipping. I even managed to deal with the asphalt roller that was pulled by inmates who were whipped into moving on even when one of them would collapse into the path of the roller. The proverbial straw that broke my back were the drawings in the men's "washing room," a couple of troughs that were used by hundreds or thousands of prisoners. There, above the filth, were pictures of happy men bathing, children at play, and the kittens washing. Maybe they were the work of an inmate; otherwise, I don't know what to say. My third memory is size. 1.5 million is too large a number to really picture. But the Auschwitz museum still contains the loot that remained in the camp when it was liberated: 40000 pairs of shoes, a mountain large enough to fill a large classroom to the ceiling; several tons of human hair; huge piles of toothbrushes, spectacles, and other belongings. All this pales compared to Birkenau. Unlike Auschwitz-I, Birkenau was partially destroyed by the retreating Nazis; today there is no museum there, just the camp more or less as it appeared to Russian troops in 1945. But it's still by far the most shocking sight. At 175 hectares (equivalent to a rectangle 1km x 1.75km), I believe it is bigger than the MIT campus. At dusk we stood in the middle of the camp, on the railway tracks where victims were unloaded, and there was nothing but chimneys and the remains of prison huts in every direction, almost as far as the eye could see. It filled me with a strange fear that is difficult to describe; not a rational adult fear so much as the feeling that I had when I was little and afraid of the dark and of the ghost in the closet of my grandma's room. It was less than an hour before I could no longer stay; I cycled away as fast as Rosalba could follow. It's odd to be pedaling alone again after so many miles with someone---first my new German friend Bernd in Norway, then Rosalba all the way to Prague. I cycle faster and longer, but it's not really as much fun. People say it's easier to meet strangers when you're alone, but that's not always true, especially with Rosalba there to offset my tall-gaunt-sunburned-scary-man look. Tomorrow I'll be leaving the Czech Republic and entering Austria. From there, it will be another day or two to Rosenheim, in southern Germany, where I'll stop to visit Bernd. Then I'll head south, across the Alps and into Italy. Hopefully Internet access will be easier to come by there. My best to everyone. max _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ============================================================================== From poletto@hotmail.com Thu Sep 30 09:58:01 1999 Received: from hotmail.com (law2-f201.hotmail.com [216.32.181.201]) by amsterdam.lcs.mit.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id JAA05651 for ; Thu, 30 Sep 1999 09:58:00 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 97196 invoked by uid 0); 30 Sep 1999 13:57:28 -0000 Message-ID: <19990930135728.97195.qmail@hotmail.com> Received: from 151.4.224.2 by www.hotmail.com with HTTP; Thu, 30 Sep 1999 06:57:23 PDT X-Originating-IP: [151.4.224.2] From: "Massimiliano Poletto" To: maxp-bike-trip@amsterdam.lcs.mit.edu Subject: Finally home Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 13:57:23 GMT Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed My big bicycle trip ended around 5pm on Wednesday, September 15, after exactly 80 days---of which 60 on the bike and the rest spent looking around cities or nursing my Norwegian colds---and a total of 7029 kilometers (4369 miles). It's been tough to return to civilian life after my little stint as a superhero. While those panniers were strapped to my bike, I felt invincible, unstoppable. By the end, well over a hundred miles of asphalt slipped beneath me every day. 6000-foot mountains were my appetizers. The main course, every day, was a pound of pasta, three pounds of full-fat yogurt or cottage cheese, half a pound of Nutella (for those of you living beyond the outer limits of civilization, Nutella is a delicious, heart-choking chocolate and hazelnut spread that most people put on bread, but that I devour plain, with a spoon), a large hunk of bread, some muesli, half a pound of honey, half a pound of chocolate, half a pound to a pound of assorted sugar cookies, several bananas and other fruit, and two gallons of water. Sometimes I'd still be hungry, so I'd add a pound of mozzarella and a quarter pound of ham, and maybe a little extra chocolate. All that, and I still lost ten pounds over two months. I owned the road, I was king of the mountains. I belched, spat, urinated, and blew my nose in full view of oncoming traffic. I mooed at cows, bleated at sheep, and waved at prostitutes. Grime collected under my fingernails. Dust covered my hair and formed little brown gobs at the corners of my eyes. Sweat drew pale trickles through the dust down my face. I blasted downhill through remote mountain villages. I joined pacelines and outsprinted guys on racing bikes. Ladies smiled with motherly tenderness, old men reminisced about their youth, and adolescents burned with envy. Occasionally an attractive girl even glanced at me, though most of those were probably looks of disgust at the indelible sweat stains on my jersey. Then, on the 15th, I cycled through the gate of my father's lumber company to find him sitting on the office steps with a camera ready. I was happy: happy to be home, happy to see my parents, and happy to have accomplished something I had set out to do. But I was also strangely empty: suddenly I was once again just "maxp", professional nerd, and I really, really wanted to be a superhero again. I've procrastinated for a long time: weeks have passed since my last mail from Ceske Budejovice. From there it was only a short ride to tiny Krumlov, a fairy-tale town in Southern Bohemia that joins Rothenburg ob der Tauber (Germany) and San Gimignano (Italy) on my list of cities killed by their own prettiness, places in which nothing real goes on any more because they've become what tourists expect them to be. Don't let me discourage you from visiting Krumlov---it's very picturesque---but don't let it be the only place you visit in Bohemia unless you want to see only what you already imagine. There are many, many more tourists than locals in Krumlov, and the locals are all there to cater to the tourists. I encountered two main kinds of tourists in Krumlov: wealthy German couples on a romantic weekend getaway in their BMWs, and pennyless English-speaking backpackers who got there on a Eurail ticket from Istanbul or wherever because that's what the Lonely Planet book on Europe said was the best thing to do. Some of the tourists like it so much that they stay a while, like the Puerto Rican kid who runs one of the hostels for pennyless backpackers and clearly burns with unrequited love for the pretty Czech girl who runs one of the other hostels. There's torture even in paradise. Leaving the Czech Republic south of Krumlov you ride through a vast and beautiful forest but eventually find yourself in a slightly dismal little border town, the roadside lined with billboards that advertise porn clubs and stands that sell grotesque plastic dwarves and giant mushrooms to Austrian visitors looking for cheap garden ornaments. You cross the border post, climb a little bit to the top of the ridge, and suddenly northern Austria opens up before you in all its incredible greenness. It's probably my imagination, but the grass seems greener in Austria. The entire country looks landscaped, not a blade of grass out of place. Fat cows lie in the sun contentedly chewing the grass. Tidy roads snake across rolling meadows, joining perfectly maintained wooden farmhouses and little villages where every window-sill overflows with geraniums. Crews of men in orange outfits canvass the roadside for discarded cigarette boxes and tiny scraps of paper. Linz is a major industrial and commercial center, but it's easy to cross, and soon you're back in splendid countryside that continues uninterrupted all the way into Bavaria, the southeastern "Land" of Germany. Of course, things aren't always as pretty as they look: electoral billboards in Austria were obsessed with unemployment, job security, and "family values," and the few comments I heard about Turkish and Polish immigrants in Bavaria made me hope that less tidy fields indicate a more liberal mindset. But I crossed the region too quickly---just three days---to really get a feel for these issues: all I can say for sure is that the cycling there is superb. And the cycling only got better. The first northeastern spurs of the Alps, the mountains of the Salzkammergut, gradually became visible just a few miles southwest of Linz. They rose like magic, twinkling in the sunlight, suspended in the sky above a layer of grayish-blue haze. As I rode up the river Inn from Rosenheim in Bavaria, the mountains grew ever taller around me; by Kufstein, where I reentered Austria, the Inn flows in a deep valley, 7000-foot peaks towering on either side. The Alps are marvelous for cycling: clean air, gorgeous views, challenging climbs, exhilarating descents. Weather and light change constantly and interact with the mountains and valleys, producing a dynamic spectacle of unique beauty. Some days are grey and wet, like the morning on which I left Gries im Sellrain, a village in the Austrian Alps, and headed into the clouds towards the resort town of Kuehtai, 2017 meters (6656 feet) above sea level. Rainy days are often the best for tackling big climbs: there is usually not much wind, the chilly air helps delay fatigue, and rain drips off my helmet and down my face, washing the salty sweat off my glasses and out of my eyes. I've traveled the road to Kuehtai three times, and each time there have been many cows, even by alpine standards. This time, cows even wandered into the avalanche-protection tunnels that cover a good stretch of the upper part of the road. The deep musical tinkle of cowbells was everywhere: loud and resonating in the long concrete tunnels, fainter and prettier in the cloudy whiteness that enveloped the pastures on either side of the road. Other times the weather is perfect, and I pant and squint under the brilliant blue sky: sweat runs profusely down my face, collects in annoying salty pools at the bottom of my glasses, drips off my nose and chin, and glitters on my bicycle. But early in the morning or late in the afternoon the weather is cooler and cycling is more pleasant, and the mountains glow with magic light. One such Kodak moment was the top of Grosse Scheidegg, a comparatively low pass (1962 meters, 6475 feet) in the Bernese Oberland (Switzerland). My cousin Tommaso and I had huffed and puffed up the long 15% grade from Meiringen under a blistering mid-afternoon sun, but by the time we reached the little resort of Rosenlaui, nestled under tall trees at the edge of a vast green meadow, the air was cooler and the colors brilliant. The rest of the climb was a struggle between Tommaso's sudden burst of energy and my tendency to stop and take pictures every few meters. But even Tommaso had to stop at the top of the pass to admire the sunset: the vertical walls of the Wetterhorn (3701 meters, 12213 feet) glowed pink to our left; behind us distant clouds and mountains stretching towards Canton Unterwalden were lit by streaks of fire; and directly in front of us the Schreckhorn (4078 meters, 13457 feet) and Eiger (3970 meters, 13101 feet) rose imposingly above the village of Grindelwald far below us in the valley. Perhaps my best alpine ride this year, though, was that over Timmelsjoch, which at 2509 meters (8280 feet) above sea level is the highest paved border crossing between Austria and Italy. Today the border post no longer exists. An Austrian and an Italian flag flap loudly in the wind, and the inscription on a rectangular block of granite proclaims that peace and border-less unity are the key to our prosperous future. Of course, in some places peace and the future come more slowly than in others: down in the Italian side of the pass, which became Italian at the Treaty of Versailles that followed World War I, Italy is still viewed with some degree of condescension and hostility. Over the years, I have often obtained better service by speaking English or broken German rather than Italian. But that's a whole other story. August 27 was a cold and foggy day on top of Timmelsjoch. The climb from Oetztal, on the Austrian side, had been a game of hide-and-seek with the clouds: first under heavy overcast, then up through the clouds until I was sandwiched between two layers, puffy white clouds below me and menacing grey ones above me, and finally still further up, up into the menacing grey clouds themselves. But of course, every German knows that Italy is the place to get a suntan, and indeed the descent was glorious: 50 kilometers downhill all the way to Merano, resort town and Italian apple-growing capital. Half a mile beyond the pass I was out of the clouds, on the edge of a rocky cliff 7000 feet above the bottom of Val Passiria. The road is carved into the cliffside, switchbacks stacked almost vertically one on top of the other; it descends gently at first and then ever more steeply through a series of unlit tunnels. The last tunnel is the longest, 500 meters of cold silent darkness disturbed only by the whir of my freewheel and the dripping of water from the walls. The darkness, barely punctured by the pinprick of light at the far end, was suddenly shattered by a bright yellow light and the echoing roar of a motorcyclist entering the tunnel behind me. But then I was out in the light again, wind in my ears and the motorcycle reduced to a muffled rumble. To the right rose Hoherfirst, "Monte Principe" in Italian (3403 meters, 11230 feet), one of the eastern ramparts of the Oetztaler Alps, a wild area of tiny villages and steep winding roads wedged between the craggy and vertical Dolomites to the East and the imposing Ortler and Bernina massifs to the West. Clouds enveloped the top of the mountain; the glacier appeared grey and brooding, occasionally lit by streaks of sunlight that pierced the clouds. Below, however, the valley was lush and welcoming, sprinkled with small wooden farms. My ears popped as I plunged down into ever warmer and more fragrant air: soon there were insects in the air, and the smell of grass and overripe apples filled my nostrils. What a strange and beautiful ride: barely 30 kilometers separate an environment almost as harsh as that of North Cape from some of the most fertile farmland in Italy! In recent years, returning to Italy has felt just a little bit strange, as if there were something out of place, like when you see a photo of yourself and it looks familiar but a little odd, because it's the mirror image of the face you see every day in the mirror. I told people that I'd ridden my bike here from Norway, and it rarely crossed their minds that I might be Italian. The first question was almost always the same: "Wow, great, where did you learn to speak Italian so well?" Other times I was greeted with a "Deutsch? Are you German?" And when I protested that I grew up here, in southern Italy, I was dismissed without a thought: "What? No, you seem foreign." Then there was the incredible bar tender in Capannoli, not far from the picturesque town of San Gimignano, in Tuscany. I entered the cafe and asked for a bottle of ice tea. "You're American, aren't you?" "Er, no, actually, I was born in Rome." "Oh, Italian? Strange. But you live in America, don't you?" "Er, yes." "I'll tell you something else. I bet you live in the northern part of America, Boston or New York, don't you?" "What the ...? Yes, Boston. May I ask how you guessed?" "It's easy, stamped on your forehead and across your back. Big bold letters: USA. All of you, you're all the same." I fumble with the change for the ice tea. "And you know what? I bet you're an engineer, aren't you? Airplanes... or computers, right? I know your type, you're all the same." So there you have it. Lean, sunburned, hair bleached by 4000 miles of sun and wind---yet I enter some random cafe in central Italy, and literally within 60 seconds the bar tender figures out I'm a computer geek from Boston. Wow! I didn't know MIT left visible scars across the forehead. Whenever I return to Italy I am filled with wonder and frustration. I am filled with wonder because I always forget the density of beauty in Italy. With all due respect for Norway, I'd say there are tens of towns in Italy, each one with the artistic and architectural wealth of all of Norway. There is so much art that people become indifferent, unaware: you need to leave to really appreciate it. All through middle and high school, I walked a mile each way through downtown Rome to and from the school bus, almost blind to sights on which today, as a "tourist," I would burn a whole roll of film without a second thought. A few years ago some guy wrecked a statue overlooking Bernini's "Fountain of the Four Rivers" because he thought it would make a fine diving board. The basements of museums overflow with busts, statues, columns, what have you: there is no place to display them all, no one to restore and document them. Churches and palaces that would make the centerpiece of many a Polish or Austrian town square are just one more place in front of which to park a dumpster; grass grows among the cobblestones, smog coats the once resplendent walls, and a stray dog occasionally lifts a hind leg and adds to the rich, pungent odour of decadence. The same density of beauty applies to nature, too. During Christmas you can sometimes ride out of my dad's lumber yard (800 meters, 2600 feet, above sea level) under bright sunshine, climb up to 1400 meters (4600 feet) for some snow-shoeing among the fir and beech trees, then plummet down through stands of chestnuts, olive groves, and citrus plantations all the way to sea level, and end the ride with a swim in water warmer than Massachusetts Bay in July: all within 50 (relatively steep) kilometers (30 miles). Italy is small and steep enough that it's easy to find such dramatic changes in environment. On September 7, I left the splendid lake region near Lago Maggiore, just minutes away from tall alpine peaks, and headed south. I crossed endless farmland, huge rice paddies lined by rows of poplars, romantic at dawn under their veil of mist lit by the rising sun. After a few hours hills appeared around me; rice gave way to vines and olive trees as I climbed to Passo Scoffera (674 meters, 2224 feet) through land that was once home to Fausto Coppi, who is to Italian cycling as Babe Ruth is to American baseball. Then a long descent fragrant with vineyards and pine trees, and I found myself in Chiavari, on the Ligurian Riviera, where a brilliant sunset and dinner by the ocean were the perfect finishing touches to a beautiful ride of 230 kilometers (142 miles). As you travel south, the environment becomes drier and the smells more pungent. Plots of dry tilled earth cover rolling Tuscan countryside in a pastel-colored checkered quilt, gentle shades of yellow, brown, ochre, and red under an electric blue sky. Isolated farmhouses dot the hilltops. Long rows of cypress trees demarcate the landscape and cast spectacular elongated shadows. Further south, lone pines cling to rocky cliffs above turquoise seas. Cicadas fill the air with their loud, rasping calls. Hornets and wasps buzz in the dry grass. In the stifling heat, roadkill is shocking, iridescent under swarms of bluebottles. Southern Italy appears in Goethe's "Travels in Italy"; it inspired Mignon's song ("Kennst du das Land, wo die Zitronen bluehn?") in "Wilhelm Meister"; it still calls to a few Germans or Americans looking for something exotic. Occasionally you run into a herd of sheep or cows blocking the road, an old herdsman and a couple mangy dogs following behind. Along the coast, the air is rich with the smells of citrus and of the sea; 900 meters (3000 feet) higher, the clinging, acrid smoke of charcoal kilns adds to the rich scents of fir trees and wet earth. All this beauty, yet often I feel angry and frustrated by how much better Italy could be. Postal clerks always perform personal favors by accepting my mail. I went to the "carabinieri," the military police, for routine passport bureaucracy, and they didn't even have a copier with which to xerox my passport: I had to cycle to my dad's company to find a working photocopier. Waiters in Pisa smirked at "dumb" tourists, cockily certain that the leaning tower and other wonderful attractions will continue to bring in the hordes, no matter how bad the service. Construction on a road near my home town began when I was in elementary school. I was a graduate student by the time a couple of miles were finally finished, over a decade past schedule and having consumed the budget for the entire 20- or 30-mile planned stretch. Hospitals, especially in the south, are usually filthy and always scary. To quote my father, who's lived there for half a century, "the best hospital in the south is the airport." As long as the air traffic controllers aren't on strike, of course. Huge steel mills and other mastodontic industrial works deface otherwise beautiful southern coastline, unused and rusting monuments to misguided state-financed industrialization projects that took into account the wallets of local politicians rather than the economic viability of such ventures. Italo Calvino wrote a wonderful, bitter novel entitled "La Speculazione Edilizia" (roughly translated, "Speculation on Housing Construction"), set on the Ligurian Riviera that I mentioned earlier. It describes a problem that unfortunately is not limited to the Ligurian coast: ugly housing blocks and cheap summer homes sold at exorbitant prices clutter and disfigure scenic places from Genova to Amalfi, from Palermo to Brindisi. Often, houses are built on dangerous or unsuitable terrain, and no one cares until an earthquake or landslide kills a few people: then there's a lot of wailing and hand-wringing, mamma mia!, but after a few days everything's back to normal, and the homeless settle into prefab containers where they'll live for the next twenty years while their destroyed homes are ever so speedily rebuilt. Urban planning, so highly developed as far back as the Romans, has somehow been forgotten. Many cities are ancient jewels surrounded by miles of anonymous and dispiriting housing blocks worthy of the worst Stalinist tradition. Poor traffic planning and a mad passion for cars result in gargantuan traffic jams, hellish smog pits punctuated by the high-pitched buzz of motor scooters and the colorful oaths and hand gestures of cab drivers. I should stop: when I start on one of these rants, I just go on and on. Leo Longanesi, famous Italian graphic artist and man of letters, was of course much more elegant and succinct in his criticism: "Gli italiani preferiscono le inaugurazioni alla manutenzione" ("Italians prefer inaugurations to maintenance"). As a cyclist, you understand this truth viscerally, all the way to the core of your jarred joints, as you roll off Swiss asphalt and onto Italian asphalt. Much further south, road signs serve as target practice for local gangsters, hunters, and other trigger-happy Latin males. Those parts that are not blown away by bullets are made illegible by streaks of rust that flow down from the bullet holes when it rains. "Raccolta differenziata," "separate collection" for different kinds of garbage, such as glass and paper, has recently been introduced with great media fanfare in southern Italy. Colorful green and yellow containers decorate the odd street here and there, but mostly they serve as homes for stray cats and dogs. In many places, people haven't yet figured out the use of normal trash cans and dumpsters. Garbage bags and old washing machines lie in tall grass by the roadside, beautiful sights and delicious smells for the unwary bicycle tourist. Maybe as I grow older I'll learn to just enjoy the good and make the best of the less good; patience is supposed to be an Italian trait. Enough pseudo-sociological randomness, and on to more practical stuff. For the bike nerds among you, and for those thinking of going on an extended bike trip, I thought I'd share a few details about equipment and technical problems. Bike: I used my every-day commuting and utility bike, a red 1991 Bridgestone MB-4 mountain bike fitted with semi-slick tires and drop bars like those of a road bike. Mixed drivetrain: Suntour XC Pro front derailleur and XCE cranks, Shimano STX rear derailleur, LX bottom bracket, 12-25 8-speed Dura-Ace cassette, Sachs chain. Shimano 747 SPD pedals. Home-built wheels: Shimano LX hub, DT swaged spokes, and Sun double-walled rim on the front, Shimano XT hub, DT straight-gauge spokes, and Mavic double-walled rim on the rear. 8-year-old Ritchey headset. Salsa stem. ITM drop bars with cork tape. Dia-Compe brakes and brake levers. Stylish late-70s Raleigh bar-end shifters. Vetta racing saddle. Front and rear lights powered by a Union rear-wheel generator; also a flashing rear light powered by AA batteries. Vetta C15 computer. Mt Zefal fenders front and rear. Sturdy Blackburn rack. Bags: Jandd Mountaineering, indestructible after 5 years of touring and day-to-day use. Two big rear panniers hold most of the gear; the tops unzip and expand to fit extra stuff. The panniers are relatively water-resistant, but I lined the inside with heavy duty garbage bags, and sealed all items separately inside ziploc freezer bags. In Norway, everything got wet anyway. A large handlebar bag carries most of my camera gear and important documents; a quick-release mount and shoulder strap allow it to become a comfortable shoulder bag in seconds. Extra garbage bags, ziploc bags, and nylon straps or bungee cords always come in handy. Gear: - Lightweight 2-man tent and groundsheet. - Small foam sleeping mat (just enough to cover shoulders and back). - Synthetic-fill mummy bag rated to 40 deg F: very light, and generally all you need when cycling in summer. In Norway, though, I was sleeping fully-clothed and with a wool hat on my head. - Camera gear: Nikon N70 SLR, 24mm/f2.8, 50mm/f1.8, and 85mm/f1.8 lenses. Camera and lenses travel in home-made protective pouches made of electrical tape, bubble wrap, and foam. Small lightweight (1.5lbs) tripod with QR mount. Polarizing filter. Spare batteries. Cleaning kit. Roughly 60 rolls of Kodak and Fuji slide film, mostly Kodachrome 64 and Fuji Sensia 100. I use prepaid mailers because they're cheaper: $5-8 for a 36-exposure roll and development, depending on the type of film. Every couple of weeks I stop at a post office and send a package with recently exposed rolls and corresponding mailers to Kodak or Fuji labs, together with instructions to send the results home to Boston. - Maps: mostly scale 1:400,000 or 1:300,000. That's pretty low detail (recommended maps for cycling are 1:100,000 or 1:200,000), yet I was still carrying over a couple pounds of maps. I'm not a big fan of buy-as-you-go: for me, dreaming in front of a map at home months prior to departure is a big part of any trip. - Tools: patch kit, tire levers, pump, an assortment of wrenches and Allen keys, flat and Philips screwdrivers, cone wrenches (1 tool has 14mm, 15mm, 32mm, and 36mm, plus a bottle opener for when the job is done), spoke wrench, cassette breaker, chain tool, crank bolt wrench, Shimano cartridge bottom bracket tool, electric tape, chain lube, small flashlight. - Spare parts: inner tube, tire, spokes, brake pads, rack bolts, seat bolt, crank bolt, light bulbs. - Clothing: 2 bicycle outfits (wool jersey, lycra shorts, wool socks), cycling goves, polypro liner gloves, waterproof outer shell gloves, wool hat, excellent Burley rain jacket, waterproof pants, Burley waterproof booties, Shimano SPD-compatible cycling shoes (good both for cycling and walking), plastic sandals for walking fearlessly into sketchy showers, 2 pairs of underwear, 1 pair of shorts, 1 short-sleeved T-shirt, 1 long-sleeved T-shirt, 1 synthetic wrinkle-free quick-dry outfit (short-sleeved shirt and long pants), 1 fleece, 1 extra pair of wool socks, 2 pairs of polypro socks. - Hygiene (heh!): toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, comb, nail clipper, razor, shaving cream, liquid soap, quick-dry camping towel, roll of toilet paper. - Medical: ibuprofen, bronchial dilator in case of allergy-induced asthma attacks, disinfectant, gauze and band-aids in case of minor cuts and scrapes. Also some fungus killer for use after very sketchy showers (see plastic sandals above). - Documents: passport, tickets, cash, ATM card, notebook, pens. - Food for the day (or days, in the vast wastes of northern Norway) sits in a big sack that is strapped across the top of the rear panniers together with the sleeping mat, tripod, and spare tire. Replaced parts: - Front and rear tires, both "Continental Avenue" 26x1.3 semi-slicks, new at start, replaced in Bergen (Norway), after just 1500km! The rear one was worn to the cords, and the front one had a ruptured sidewall. Replaced with "Schwalbe City Jet" 26x1.5 semi-slicks. The replacement rear tire was worn smooth but still ok by the end of the trip (I'm still using it). The front tire is fine. Norwegian roads were bad but not that bad: maybe I just got a bum pair of Contis. - Rear rim (Mavic 517) cracked around a drive-side spoke in Norway after just over 1500km. Not sure why: wheel was true and tension on all spokes seemed normal. Replaced with a similar German rim in Thisted, Denmark. The new wheel creaked and groaned terribly in the Alps, but a thorough loosening and retensioning fixed things again; it's still true after 6000km. - Rear brake pads (Ritchey red type), almost new at start, had to be replaced in Viborg, Denmark, after about 2000km. Replaced with Kool-Stop red type, still going strong 5000km later. - Front break pads (Ritchey red type), new at start, replaced in Oetz (Austria), after a very, very scary descent in the rain from Kuehtai. Replaced with anonymous but excellent brand purchased in Denmark. - Chain and rear cassette (Shimano Dura-Ace 12-25), new at start, replaced in Abano Terme (Italy), after about 5000km. Cassette is a cheap Shimano clone: original 8-speed Dura-Ace costs approx.$180 in Italy (U.S. price is approx.$50)! - "Bridge cable" that joins the rear brake cantilevers, not new at start, became frayed and had to be replaced in Abano Terme. You don't want frayed brake cables in the Alps. Problems: Norway aside, my trip was incredibly trouble-free. I had to slightly true my rear wheel (all the load except for the camera equipment and a few sundries was on the rear) four times, and the front wheel once. The headset required tightening a couple of times, as did the cranks. I oiled my chain a few times after heavy rain. The quick release mount for the handlebar bag cracked on the very first Polish pothole, just a few meters after I rolled off the ferry, but an extra nylon strap fixed the problem perfectly. I suffered two flats due to complete tire failure in Norway. After that, I only had 5 flats: one in Denmark, two in Austria, and two in Italy. If you ignore Norway, that's just a bit more than one flat every thousand miles: not bad, considering the load. Shameless unpaid commercial: Fix your bike at Broadway Bikes, 351 Broadway, Cambridge, MA, and you too will enjoy miles of trouble-free cycling! (As long as you avoid Norway, of course.) I hope that you've enjoyed my sporadic email notes, or at least that they weren't totally annoying. In a couple of weeks I'll be back in the US, where 2000 slides wait to be sorted. I hope to find a few good ones: when, or if, I finish my planned web photo-diary, I'll send one last mail to this list to announce the URL. If you ever need a bike touring partner, you know whom to call. My best to everyone, and to those of you in Boston, see you soon! max ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ============================================================================== From maxp@gavia.lcs.mit.edu Sun Dec 12 17:37:22 1999 Received: from gavia.lcs.mit.edu (root@maxphsd.ne.mediaone.net [24.147.20.63]) by amsterdam.lcs.mit.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id RAA26687 for ; Sun, 12 Dec 1999 17:37:22 -0500 (EST) Received: from gavia.lcs.mit.edu (maxp@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by gavia.lcs.mit.edu (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id RAA04642; Sun, 12 Dec 1999 17:35:34 -0500 Message-Id: <199912122235.RAA04642@gavia.lcs.mit.edu> To: maxp-bike-trip@amsterdam.lcs.mit.edu cc: lauraperna@hotmail.com cc: snrub1@aol.com, drosenthal@dcmc.com, Megan_Jasek@trilogy.com cc: awal089@student.auckland.ac.nz, ntao@austin.rr.com cc: derberndimnetz@gmx.de Subject: web site Date: Sun, 12 Dec 1999 17:35:34 -0500 From: Massimiliano Poletto Hi everyone, I've finally put together a web site about my bike trip last summer. It has text, over 200 photos, a map, and more. The address is http://maxp.lcs.mit.edu/bike/europe99/ I hope you enjoy it. Best, max ==============================================================================