Going home

Yesterday (Tuesday) I returned to Oregon. I woke at 1:30am to prepare to leave the apartment by 3am and reach Malpensa airport by 4:15am for my 6:15am flight. A couple of things didn't quite go to plan. First, the car I had planned to take to the airport wouldn't start, probably because I haven't driven it for two months (and have driven it only three times in six months). Fortunately the apartment owner's son Uli, who had agreed to drive me and return the car, was able to use his own car instead.

Just after we crossed border into Italy, we encountered a characteristically Italian bureaucratic cock-up: The freeway was closed, but there were no signs directing cars to an alternative route. In fact, all signs toward Milano brought us back to the same point where the road was closed, and we went around the same traffic circle three or four times at least. Twice we went through the traffic circle following a tour bus, but our initial expectation that the bus would know the right route didn't last. Eventually we did find an alternate route (without any encouraging signage — we came close to turning back before we started encountering signs to Milano again) and, when we reached a toll both on the freeway, we saw again the tour bus again there.

In the end it was fine. We reached Malpensa airport by 4:30, barely behind schedule, and everything went smoothly from there.

One of my two big bags held my Bike Friday Pocket Rocket Pro, a folding bicycle designed to ride like a racing bike despite a design that includes smaller wheels (20 inch rather than 27) and a monotube in place of the normal top tube and down tube. This is only the second time I've packed it into the suitcase (a standard plastic suitcase from Samsonite), so I was a bit nervous about that, but mostly it went smoothly despite the snug fit.

You can see the assembled bike in some of my earlier posts (e.g., Monte Generoso). Here it is coming apart and into the case.

Winter and Summer

We arrived in early January, and I'm leaving in late June.

Pun

This poster, along the street on the way to our grocery store, is from an alcohol education campaign associated with the European soccer tournament. In soccer, the referee pulls a yellow card out of his pocket to declare certain egregious fouls. He carries one yellow card, and one red card: One red card and you are out of the game immediately (and your team is not allowed to substitute for you — it must play short-handed the remainder the game). Two yellow cards in two games have the same effect.

And so the pun ...

"simulato" can mean "simulated", and can be used in the sense of acting (thus "fake").
"fallo" can mean "foul" as in soccer (and presumably faking a foul is itself a foul), but it can also mean "phallus".

My rough translation of "un bicchiere ... " is: "One drink too many, and love doesn't work." The illustration makes it pretty clear exactly what doesn't work if you drink too much.

Even if the pun was translatable, something tells me we would be unlikely to see a version of this poster in alcohol education ads in the U.S.

Last ride: Monte Generoso

I wanted to get in at least one more nice ride before returning home, but was resigned to making it a shorter ride. Bellinzona again? Back to where I watched the Tour de Suisse, and down the other side to Caslano? To Ascona, where I haven't managed to visit again? Another suggestion was Monte Generoso, a popular viewpoint where (I am told) you can see Italy to one side and Switzerland to the other.

I was ambivalent right up to the end, and nearly repeated my ride to Bellinzona one last time. And I'm sure I would have enjoyed that, and it would have been stress-free, whereas the first time I head toward a new destination is always a bit more stressful, not least because I can't really read a map and ride at the same time. But I'm glad I followed the suggestion and rode to Monte Generoso (or actually to Bella Vista, as close as you can get to Monte Generoso by car or bicycle).

It's quite a climb ... from about 1000 feet in Mendrisio to 3700 feet where the pavement ends (and then I hiked a bit further to 4012 feet). I saw just one other cyclist on the way up, but by the time I headed back down I was passing lots and lots on the way up ... far outnumbering cars. It seems to be a very popular climb for local cyclists.


The road (one lane, paved) winds through forest most of the way up, with fewer of the drop-offs that trigger my fear of heights on Monte Bre. A very nice ride.

Near the top I was hearing semi-organized percussive sounds. Some kind of weird drumming festival? No, that would be Eugene, not Switzerland. What could it be? Then when I rode along a small road along the ridge, the sounds became more distinct: Cow bells. In Switzerland, all the cows I have seen (and there are lots and lots and lots of cows in Switzerland) were wearing cowbells.












The view I got was of Switzerland (barely visible behind my bicycle).



To get further, it may be possible to walk, and there is a funicular train. You can see the teeth the train grabs to pull itself up the hill. There was a small restaurant and bar open at the end of the pavement, and I had a cappuccino there, but the restaurant at the Belle Vista funicular train station (0.7 km further on, on an unpaved trail that I judged too slippery for riding) was closed.





Cycling is popular and well-supported in Switzerland, but even more popular and well-supported is walking. The sign in the last photo (about half way from the end of the paved road and the Bella Vista station) seems to be giving times to walk to different destinations. One can walk back to Mendrisio, where I started, in two directions, depending on whether one wants to take 2.5 hours or just under 2 hours.

What is that thing?

When we first saw these things, I was puzzled by them. Mailboxes? Maybe these look obvious enough to you and you'll recognize them right off. It was somewhat later when I first saw how they are taken care of. Good thing I didn't try to post a letter in one.

Tour de Suisse

The Tour de Suisse is a major professional bicycle race, albeit a step below the Tour de France, Giro d'Italia, and maybe the Vuelta d'España. Like those, it is a “stage” race, meaning it is divided into a series of one-day races that together make up the “tour”. Wednesday, Stage 5 of the Tour passed very close to Lugano, so I had a chance to watch it. I did so in the traditional fashion: riding my bicycle to a good spot to watch from.

Stage 5 was a mountain stage, passing over 4 “rated” climbs. Climb ratings range from 4 to 0 (actually rating 0 is called “hors category&rdqo;, or beyond classification). The climbs for stage 5 were rated 3, 1, 3, and 2. Monte Ceneri, a feature of my several rides to Bellinzona and beyond, was rated 3. (It's nice to know that this hill I've taken so many times earns a rating for professional racers.) The final category 2 climb was Cademario, a small town near Lugano, and that's where I decided to watch it.

It was a long climb, but no steeper than others I've grown used to. I left myself lots of time to get there because I didn't know the way, and because I didn't know what to expect from a category 2 climb. Finding my way turned out to be easy enough. Near Bioggio (on the plain below Cademario) I saw lots of cyclists heading the same direction, so that had to be it. As I got further, there were advertising banners, crowd control devices here and there, an occasional arch over the road ... and now and again a clump of fans, or another cyclist grinding up the hill. I passed a few and wasn't passed, but I noted that the strongest-looking cyclists made their way up the hill later than those of us who were less sure of how well and whether we would make it up.



I was looking for a spot a little below the crest of the climb, and ended up going a bit beyond Cademario to a tinier town called Lisone (though I didn't know that at the time). That was at 2672 feet altitude, starting from a little under 1000.

You see much less of a race watching it in person than watching it on TV. Being on the uphill side of a hill helps, because the riders are moving more slowly, but the leaders still pass within a minute or two. The rewarding part is just having ridden the same road you see top professionals riding over.






Frank Schleck of CSC was alone in the front as he passed; he would soon be joined in the escape by one other rider, together ahead of the main group. But, a little beyond where I was, Schleck misjudged a corner and went over a siderail. (I did not learn about this until I got home.) It looked pretty awful ... you could fall a long way off the edge of these roads. But Schleck was lucky. He landed in a tree that broke his fall, and in about a minute he was back on his bike (probably a replacement bike, since the bike he was riding took a pretty bad tumble too). He finished well out of the lead, but well enough to continue to the end of the Tour.

So where does a racer get a quick replacement bike? As it turns out, you see a lot more support cars than riders in one of these races. (We saw them too in the Giro, and probably many of them were the exact same cars since many of the same teams were competing.)









There are also lots and lots of motorcycles, including motorcycles with still and TV cameras.




Overall it was fun, and I'm glad I went, mostly for the novelty.

Dalpe ride

Riding to Dalpe has been on my "things I want to do before returning home" list for months. I'm going to count it now as accomplished, although looking at my GPS map it appears that at the edge of Dalpe I actually turned into the nearby village of Cormone.





It was overcast most of the day, and I encountered some rain coming over Monte Ceneri on the outbound leg. I brought both my open-back windbreaker and my light rain-jacket, and used them both individually and in combination, though at other times I felt quite warm. A few thousand feet of elevation can make quite a difference in temperature.






I took just a few snaps along the way. In Bellinzona the shafts of sunlight over the Castle of Sasso Corbaro were quite dramatic, but I didn't have the skills or camera equipment to catch it well.



Old churches are something you see a lot of here, but I particularly liked something about this one near Giornico.



The last shot is taken between Prato and Dalpe. The high alpine valleys look like they are right out of The Sound of Music.

I got an earlier start than usual and then I didn't push the speed and took several stops to stretch. I also had a very nice sandwich in Fiasso before starting back. Perhaps as a result I had less trouble with knees and neck
Stats for the day: Low elevation 690 feet (210m), high 4064 (1237m); 6082 ft (2073m) total climbing; 122.8 miles (197.6km).

I was tired last night after returning, and my stomache didn't want a real meal ... but I slept well and feel great today. I'm feeling really good about the ride, both because it's a goal accomplished and because it's just a fantastic, scenic ride, at the right level of difficulty to be challenging but reachable.

More Barcelona snapshots

Here are a few more snapshots — click to enlarge. Many have problems (stray body parts in the frame, bad lighting, etc), but they include a few details and viewpoints that were omitted from my earlier selection. The panorama taken from Parque Güele was stitched together in Photoshop.

Barcelona

Together with Giovanni and Alessio, I made a quick (2 day, 1 night) visit to Barcelona for a project meeting. Although we went straight from the airport to meetings, and spent most of the time indoors, we did get a chance for a walk around before our flight out on Friday.







Barcelona is in Spain, but don't assume they speak Spanish. In fact, by local reckoning, “Spanish” is a language spoken in Latin America. In Spain, the main languages are Castillian, Catalan, and Basque. People in Barcelona can speak Castillian, the language of Madrid, but their language is Catalan. This airport sign is bilingual. One sees both languages on signs around town, but signs by and for the locals are mainly in Catalan.



We stopped at a market so Giovanni could buy some jambon to bring back to friends. The good Spanish jambon is eaten thinly sliced, like prosciutto crudo. The flavor is a bit more robust and maybe a bit saltier. Both are wonderful, but distinct.



Then we walked up to Parque Güell, which features several sculptures/buildings/whims by Gaudi. Although rain threatened and then briefly made good on the threat, we managed to get back to the hotel without getting soaked.

Airolo

Sunday, June 1, I rode from Lugano to Airolo and back. This is roughly the same route I took three weeks ago, but instead of turning around at Fiesso I continued on to Airolo, at the base of the San Gottardo pass. San Gottardo is also know as the Gothard pass. It divides German-speaking Switzerland from Italian-speaking Switzerland, and is also a continental divide with respect to rivers; to the north of San Gottardo they drain to the Atlantic, to the south they drain to the Mediterranean.







Gottardo is a prime example of the Swiss penchant for going through mountains instead of over them ... there is a 17km tunnel in operation, and the tunnel currently under construction will be 57km long, the world's longest. Meanwhile, the older highway snaking up and over the pass still exists. Across the valley on stilts is also an option for the freeway ... this bridge connects directly to a tunnel. I shot it from the older highway snaking along under it and then up and around the side of the mountain that the freeway pops through.

While planning this ride last week I briefly entertained the idea of trying to climb the pass, but when I looked at the altitude gain it became clear that I'd never make it up and back in a day, if I made it up at all. And by the time I got to Airolo, it was clear to me that there was no way I'd make it up. I was thoroughly cooked. I stopped for a coffee and an ice cream cone and started back.







There are a handful of older Swiss-style buildings along the way. Most building is in the modern Italian style, although there are still lots of older stone buildings as well.




I don't snap a lot of photos when I ride, because photos require stopping. Besides, there is really no way for static snapshots to convey what I see out on the road. Maybe in a few years when helmet-mounted video cams are cheap and high resolution, it could make sense to try to capture a ride that way, but I'm not sure even that would do it. Anyway, it was a fantastic ride.

Physically it was right at my limits. I made it home fine, but I was really crawling up Monte Ceneri (below 4mph at times). A knee was bothering me a bit, so I took some Advil as an anti-inflammatory (not so much for pain as to prevent injury) and was extra careful with it on the way home. Upper and lower back and neck pain got pretty bad at points, but were helped by stopping to stretch ... basically my body was telling me that I was not trained up for this length and intensity of ride, with just 50 miles the previous week and none the week before that. My back is fine today (the day after), my knee is a little tender but will be fine with a couple days of rest.

Stats: 200km (125 miles), from 8:19am to a little before 7pm, with 9 hours 34 minutes moving time (which means about an hour or so of time stopped to eat, stretch, etc). 6544 feet of climbing, with the lowest point being 708feet in the plain of Bellinzona (below my starting point of 970 feet in Lugano) and the highest point being 3877 feet near Airolo.