Topics

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General Discussion / Free camping, stealth camping on a transcontinental bicycling tour.

« on: November 29, 2025, 02:26:25 am »

It used to be looking for an overnight sleep-site in the woods. Then it was called camping after that. The latest term for it is stealth camping. Some think stealth means hiding to prevent being caught. Actually, not being caught was never a concern. I had no idea what I could be caught about. I often used stealthy ways of searching out a sleep site at night, and that had nothing to do with not being caught. The big concern was the vulnerability. There you are asleep and out in the open. In a wooded area you may be far away from help if it is needed. This is a dangerous and uncertain world. Read the newspapers in any city about the crime, the robberies, murders, attacks. My use of stealth was always with that thought in mind. I was hiding from anyone with bad intentions who might have had a chance to see where I left the road and proceeded into the trees. Going 60 miles in one day in a car, and going 60 miles in one day on a bicycle are very different matters. The motorist is finished with his trip in 1 hour, maybe 45 minutes. A cyclist on a fully loaded bicycle could be out there 9 hours. In those 9 hours a great many more vehicles will pass him in both directions. He is vulnerable. It is possible he might attract attention from the wrong people or person. These things have been known to happen. My concern was always to protect myself against people with bad intentions. It never occurred to me that I was in some way hiding from the authorities or the police. It was a simple matter of security.

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General Discussion / Bicycling Italy. October 14, 1994. One Day of 11-Country Tour.

« on: November 26, 2025, 08:40:18 pm »

Bicycle tour. October 14th, 1994.

A truck pulled into the fueling yard just as I wheeled away. I stopped soon for a cup of delicious cappuccino coffee for $1.20. The sun beamed radiantly, the air was cool and the sky was deep blue. The cold required wearing a down-jacket and leather gloves. Stopping one time along the roadside, I propped the bike against an iron fence and ate the peaches out of a tin before pedaling the 22-mile spin into Bologna. In the city crowds of people huddled on block corners. A large parade marched through the streets. Some carried large signs emblazoned with swastikas and the hammer-and-sickle. I got off the road and hand-pushed this fully loaded touring-bicycle along the sidewalk. About 50 uniformed police led the parade. Behind the police, thousands of people walked, carried signs, chanted and blue whistles. It had something to do with supporting the Communist party, which I do not do, especially after seeing the former Soviet Union. When I saw the hammer and sickle I gave them a signal, not a friendly signal either. Walking quite a distance on the sidewalk, I reached the end of the parade, which was followed by 20 uniformed policeman. The police all carried automatic weapons.

From that point forward, the narrow road had buildings up to the edge of the sidewalk. Extracting 150,000.00 Italian lira from an ATM machine put $100.00 in my pocket. Having taken the northwest bend in the route the previous day, it was about time to enter highway SS 9 for the final approach to Milano. The route cuts through the cities of Modena and Parma.

By 2:45 p.m. I had pedaled this loading touring-bicycle 60-miles. Modena had been traversed and the wheels rolled along nicely on a super highway near Reggio. The Italians seemed to keep odd hours for their food stores. It was a trick finding one open, even in the middle of the day. That forced me to get meals in restaurants which were usually more expensive than the stores. A small bowl of soup, a small mineral water and a small dessert in a restaurant cost 9,000 lira, about $6.00.

The estimated time of arrival in Milano was tomorrow afternoon or night. That would put me in town for business on a Sunday. Certainly hotels would be open, and airlines could provide information. The sun disappeared sometime back, and a bright white haze permeated the air. Traffic was unending and faster than greased lightning. The shoulder, that narrow margin of safety, vacillated from nothing, to 1 foot, to 4 feet, to 8 feet as the road cut through stands of planted trees, through planted fields, fields being used and lying fallow, across bridges spanning dirty-water rivers, through towns and cities, and passed houses of the standard you see in upper middle class communities in the United States. Two conclusions could be reached with all certainty. The weather in coastal Italy this time of year is excellent for cycling. The motor traffic is bad for cycling.

Inland speeds range between 13 and 16 mph. Because of side-winds near the water, speeds range between 9 and 11 miles per hour. The terrain was level. Very little wind came from any direction. At a gas station/cafe, I noticed a good looking blonde haired waitress. Man, she did one hell of a fine job filling in a pair of jeans. I donned my windbreaker as soon as the air began to chill. Cold night mist cuts like a razor when you cycle through it. I was uncleaned, unshaved and wore the same clothes since leaving Thessoloniki, Greece on the 6th, and here it is the 14th. When grubbiness becomes the norm, it is not so bad. It is the transition from daily cleanliness to daily dirtiness that is difficult to endure. Once the transition is crossed and made, and you are used to it, being grubby and grimy is not so bad.

That night in Parma, many people rode bicycles. Stores there sold the same items stores sell the world over, except that the buildings in which those items were sold appeared to be hundreds of years old. One part of the inner-city road was made of smooth asphalt. Another stretch was constructed of large flat stones. The stones forced an occasional dismount to pick the way carefully around bumps and cracks. Myriad, supremely good looking women were all around. In one particularly well-lighted plaza all a glow with restaurants, countless parked bicycles and throngs of people, the statue of a man towered prominently at the center. The plaza around it teamed with youthful exuberance. A short distance farther, upon crossing a bridge, the crowds thinned out almost instantly to nothing and nobody. Of all the villages, towns and cities on this tour, Parma was the most enchanting and attractive.

Bicycling again past sundown, the madding traffic and the cold sting of the night mist began a tug of war between my endurance and enthusiasm. I turned onto a narrow side-road that looped away from the main road. It shot back in the direction of a rural farming community. A long search uncovered a small planted orchard of 6 rows of bushes and trees. I slept that night in the grass under a pine tree. The temperature dropped. This spot did not conform to the rules for concealment when sleeping out near metropolitan areas. Such was the risk. It was all there was.

In my perspective, coastal Italian cities were genuinely enchanting. At night, when my greatly heightened senses blended with the eerie glow of city lights, there was a feeling of mental, emotional, physical, mystical, spiritual oneness with the surroundings. I pedaled my fully loaded touring bicycle 88 miles this day.

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General Discussion / The Southern tier. East to west.

« on: November 21, 2025, 06:50:14 pm »

At the age of 76, I am entertaining myself with the fantasy that I can pedal a fully loaded touring bicycle from southeast coastal Florida to San Diego, California, just one more time. I told somebody about this the other day. He asked if I were going alone or with someone. I told him the possibility of finding someone to do a trip like that with me is not absolute zero. It is so close to zero that you cannot tell the difference. I know when I begin this trip I will be on my own. The most likely outcome is I will begin, go a long distance, and then call it off and return. There is the possibility I will actually go all the way to the west coast.

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General Discussion / Friday August 12, 1994. Bicycle Touring West to East in Germany.

« on: October 01, 2025, 03:54:41 am »

FRIDAY  August 12, 1994: Breakfast was canned apricots and a hazella sandwich and it tasted good. I scraped the sticky brown clay off the tent stakes for packing. The rainfly was folded wet. Some bicycle touring books advise you to hang wet tents and rain flies to air dry before packing. That can be impractical. Drying can take a long time under wet cloudy skies. Cyclists often do not want to wait that long. However, if the articles are damp, and there is sunshine and a breeze, you can spread them out before breakfast, and start the day with dry gear. Another way is to spread out the wet articles when stopped for breaks during the day. I carried all the gear to the base of a large oak tree near the road. After loading, I knocked the dried clay off the cycling shoes, mounted my heavenly loaded touring bicycle and entered the highway headed east.

A slight following wind push me along. There were the usual stops for food and drink during the day. At one stop, in a small parking lot next to a large field of sunflowers, I had just made two sandwiches, and eaten one, and was just beginning to devour the other, when it started raining again. I put on a raincoat and I spinned down the road. The rain stopped in a few miles. There were two stops at bicycle shops. One was at Metz and the other at Saint Avold. Neither sold 27 by 1 and 1/4 inch tires which was a cause for concern.

A small flyer in the shop at Saint Avold advertised a campground near Felsberg. The owner of the shop gave directions for getting there. The flyer said that campground was only 12 francs or about $2. That seemed much more than reasonable. Getting there required cycling quite some distance through heavy City traffic, and up steep hills. In the office at the campground they wanted 29 francs which was more like $6. I decided to move on. It was not that the place was not worth it. It most certainly was. Out front was a large, clean, modern A-Frame restaurant. It had clean hot water showers. The international youth hostel federation managed the place. But Americans dislike being quoted a lower price to lure us in, only to be charged more than twice the quoted amount. Some people do not realize how used to standardized prices they are. When prices are switched on us at the last minute we get miffed. We feel we have been tricked, and almost invariably, the second price is higher than the first. That was my take on it after being penurious most of my life. Highway N3 running East out of town was excellent. Traffic was heavy. Pollution was minimal.

An elevated railroad track pointing east and west crossed the highway at one of its many bends. Immediately passed the tracks to the right, a rough dirt road wended west off the highway, juxtaposed to the base of the earthen berm supporting the track. The track was 10 ft above the dirt road. On the other side of the road began a moderately steep Hill that peaked about 300 ft to the north. The hill looked smooth enough for sleeping. Hand pushing the bike 100 ft up the hill at an elevation still below the level of the tracks, I strung the nylon rain fly between two trees. Dinner was fish sandwiches and canned pineapple. It was a rough night of sleep because of the lumpy uneven ground, and the din of trains rattling by in the dark. 43 miles.

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General Discussion / Why did you decide to ride a bicycle transcontinentally?

« on: August 30, 2025, 09:49:34 pm »

There was a topic on this forum. It was a person who claimed to write a book about why people became long distance bicycle tourists. I was looking for it. Not such good eyesight anymore. I did not see it.

I answer it saying this. The impulses set forth in my life that led me to that particular course of action came very early in life. The story is real. I think it is too deep a subject to discuss on a forum such as this one and others. It is a deep personal issue with me. The original impulse came from where, I have no way of knowing. I remember some events. The boy my age who told me that sometimes limitations are really only in your mind. He taught me how to ride a bicycle. He was known as Johnny Mann. That was in Stuart Florida in the 1950s. That was the first one I could remember. Pedaling a bicycle, to me, at times seemed almost like a surreal fantasy.  It was wonderful until I started getting punctured tires. Getting patch kids and pumps and a new tubes was a big problem. The cycling dropped off. When I was very young, maybe eight or nine possibly, our Father drove the family to Mexico for the summer. We were there a while and returned it to Florida over the road. You've been there. Motels, gas stations, restaurants. After returning to Florida for some odd reason I have this compelling drive to ride a bicycle back to the West. The East was bad news. Government were as crooked as a corkscrew. The judge or the sheriff might have done something about it if you could catch them sober, which some of them seldom were. I sensed this place, Stuart Florida, at a very early age. Right across the street from our house, just off the shore of the St Lucie River, they found a woman drowned and dead. She was the mother of four children. I'm not sure they found her in that particular location. I did see the body there in that location. The tide might possibly have carried her farther down the river. I can only speak from what I saw. There was all kinds of underhanded treachery. Well I will not say all kinds but there was underhanded treachery no doubt whatsoever. I thought it would be really cool even at a very early age to ride a bicycle back toward the west and to Texas. I really I thought Texas was great. Of course you have to consider I had the cognitive development of a child 8 years old. Any compulsion or action in your life is the culmination of what they call multiple causation. There is no one simple explanation for why people behave the way they do.

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General Discussion / Bicycle route---southern tier---Perry, FL to Santa Rosa Beach, FL.

« on: August 22, 2025, 10:05:16 pm »

You are at the corner intersection of highway 19 / South Byron Butler parkway. Looking west go straight across 19. You are on West Hampton Springs avenue / 98. Follow the northwestern bend on 98 for some distance and then it goes around to the left. Pack some water and food because there is a lot of green here.

This is a long distance. You will go over the Saint Mark's river and in a short distance turn right on to highway 267 / Bloxham Cutoff road. Right on 267 just passed OutzToo oyster bar and grill. Continue 267 across 363 and across the St Mark's bike path straight across on 267. Go through Bethel and Hilliardville. Continue on 267 through a lot of green until you intersect with highway 20 and go left on 20.

20 goes through many small towns for a very long distance. Once you get to 331 that is east of Miramar beach and Sandestin and Santa Rosa beach, you can turn left on 331 before you get to Freeport. It will take you to highway 98 which is where you want to be next. If you do not turn left at highways 331, you can continue through Freeport to Choctaw beach and across a bridge to Bluewater Bay and turn left on 293 to get to 98. I think I would take 331. And here you are at highway 98 where you have to turn right. Keep going on other roads to the ferry boat at Fort Morgan, Alabama.

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Routes / Bicycling from Perry FL to Santa Rosa Beach, FL.

« on: August 21, 2025, 07:52:50 pm »

You're at the corner intersection of highway 19 / South Byron Butler parkway. Looking West go straight across 19. You are on West Hampton springs avenue / 98. Follow the northwestern band on 98 for some distance and then it goes around to the left. Pack some water and food because there's a lot of green here.

This is a long distance. You will go over the Saint Mark's River and in a short distance turn right on to highway 267 / Bloxham cutoff Road. Right on 267 just passed OutzToo oyster bar and grill. Continue 267 across 363 and across the St Mark's bike path straight across on 267. Go through bethel and hilliardville. Continue on 267 through a lot of green until you intersect with highway 20 and go left on 20.

20 goes through many small towns for a very long distance. Once you get to 331 that is east of Miramar Beach and sandestin and Santa Rosa Beach, you can turn left on 331 before you get to Freeport and it will take you to highway 98 which is where you want to be next. If you do not turn left at 3:31 you can continue through Freeport to Choctaw Beach and across a bridge over to bluewater Bay and turn left on 293 to get to 98. I think I would take 331. And here you are at highway 98 where you have to turn right.

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General Discussion / Transcontinental Bicycling Tour in the USA, East to West, 1999.

« on: August 02, 2025, 12:03:18 am »

 January 30th, 1999. This is my third day on the road and this is the first writing I have done about it. When you are 49 and beginning a cross country Continental bicycling tour for which you have not physically prepared yourself, there is enough of a drain on body and mind dealing with the road, the weather and the traffic to write about it right away. I have not yet connected the cyclometer, but as far as I can scale from the map, I have come about a total of 215 miles. I am now in a Burger King in Tampa Florida on 21st Street across from Hardee's, just a few blocks north of Adams road. The time is 18:10.

After my Beijing to Detroit to Palm Beach international airport flights, Greyhound got me too late to Stuart to check in at the U-Store-It, so, I slept across the street in the bush from the storage area. I did walk to Kmart and Walmart in Stuart for a bike tire and two tubes. And it was now the next day on the 27th. I had breakfast at McDonald's and then checked into the storage unit. I searched through the van for 2 hours, emptying it of 80% of its contents before I realized my bicycle tools were in the very back and easy to get to. It was a royal pain getting everything assembled and ready. It was  8 hours of working steadily. I had to make several runs to the cold drink machine to keep from dehydrating. A fellow named Brian, who I met there, invited me to stay at his place for the night before taking off, so, I pedaled my fully loaded touring bicycle about 7 miles south to his apartment in Mark's Landing in Hobe sound.

We sat in his living room, watched TV, talked cycling and went to the deli at Publix in Hobe Sound for a roast chicken dinner and salad which we ate at his apartment. On the morning of the 28th I cycled to Grumpy's restaurant at US1 and Bridge Road in Hobe sound, and he drove there and we had breakfast. I bought an extra tube at a bicycle store. We made a visit to the chamber of commerce. I was on the road by 10:30. The day's route went like this. Bridge Road in Hobe Sound to State Road 76 to Port Mayaka on lake Okeechobee to 441/98 to Okeechobee City to 98 North where I camped in the bush between Bassinger and Cornwell at the Bassinger game and wildlife area. It was the only opening in the fence line on both sides of the road. All I did was roll out the closed-cell foam pad and bag between a barbed wire fence and some bushes about 25 ft from the highway. I got some photos today. I remember I snacked at Jay. S. Fish camp, tand ate a burger meal at Barlow's restaurant. It was dark by the time I got to Okeechobee city. Highway 71 West was really bad. It was bad for cycling. It was two lanes, no shoulder, much truck traffic, so I got on 98 instead. At least 98 did have a paved shoulder for a good long ways.

The next night's camp was on highway 64  just near the line of Manatee county. 98-66 and 64 were only two lanes and had no paved shoulder. That made cycling hectic. It is mostly all cattle and swamp land there and camp was about 1/4 of a mile or more off the highway in a small clearing in the forest. I did stop to eat in a Spring Lake restaurant and a convenience store.

This day I pedaled highway 64 to the Lake Manatee fish camp where I drank one quart of milk, some juice and got a shower and shave in their shower equipped restroom. From there I pedaled out to highway 301 which I stayed on all the way to Tampa where I turned left on Amato, right on 22nd Street and here I am. A thrift auction in the city of Parrish sold me 12 homemade cookies for a dollar and a hat for 10 cents. The cafe at the north end of town gave me a dinner of liver and onions for $5.25. I stopped again in Riverside Florida.

It is dark now. I am planning to go north on 21st street, and west on Martin Luther King boulevard to near the Gulf of Mexico. Today is January 30th, 1999 Saturday. The transition to long distance bicycle touring is trying and demanding, but already I am beginning to feel a little more comfortable with the rigors. Up until today cycling has been mostly countryside. Starting around 4:30 this afternoon it is Urban. I have been eating far too much meat. I better start eating fruits, vegetables, yogurt soon or my bowels will start stonewalling me. I know one thing for sure, I cannot camp anywhere in this big city of Tampa tonight. Hopefully my handwriting will improve during the writing of this journal.

Sunday January 31st 1999. It's about 3:00 p.m. at a Dairy Queen on highway 19 / 27 in Spring Hill, Florida. Last night I made it through Tampa and west on Hillsborough avenue to very near highway 19. West of the town of Odmar near East Lake Road it was all City cycling with heavy traffic that kept me up on the sidewalk 90% of the time. I met some bum type dude twice. Once to ask him directions, and another time I saw him on a bench at a bus stop where he bummed $2 from me. At one food store I got and devoured one quart of orange juice and one small container of peach and strawberry yogurt. I searched out a few areas to sleep, but most places were either too open, or the bush was so thick and interlaced I could not get into it far enough for concealment. I finally settled on a patch of trees near where Tampa Road goes over to 19. This was a narrow ditch with a fence alongside it, a chain link fence, with a shopping center to the east of it with a Target store. On the other side of the canal was a long rectangular mowed field about 1200 ft by 250 ft. The bush growing along the fence line was too narrow for concealment, but across the field was a thick stand of trees where I slept on the pad with the bag thrown over me.

This morning I went to the Target store first thing to buy tent stakes, but theirs were all too large and heavy for my needs. The McDonald's across the street from there served up iced tea and coffee. From there I took Tampa Road to 19 and headed north. At Walmart I got the tent stakes I needed. I got a bagel and iced tea at a Dunkin Donuts in Holiday, and ate six oranges at a produce stand farther north.. I bought some icy cold and analgesic rub at a Family Dollar store and rubbed some in my hands. The day started totally gray, overcast, and cool and has changed to sunny, partly cloudy to a sky which is now shrouded in dark rain clouds. For the past few hours I have been beating against a direct on headwind. The terrain is beginning to roll slightly. A short while ago I saw a road sign that said Perry 150 miles. The headwind is definitely getting stronger. I am watching it flogging the flags through the window of the very cold air conditioned room I am in. This is the land of Pine and myrtle. I was thinking that I'll probably get into Perry, not tomorrow night, but the night after that. I think I bicycled about 76 miles yesterday, and about 35 miles so far today.

That headwind was every bit and more the hindrance I thought it would be. The day's total mileage was 53 to Homosassa Springs. After the stop at the dairy Queen I went 6 miles farther to a Hardee's. I think it was and had a dinner of fried chicken. There I waited till after dark for the wind to die down, which it did, somewhat, not very much. Starting north again after dark I found myself passing a roadside saying bear habitat next 12 miles. I admit I was a bit concerned about confronting a Florida black bear in the dark because I had nothing with which to defend myself. However, there was plenty of traffic which probably keeps them away from the highway. Highway 19 / 98 has been four to six Lanes with a grassy median and a four to five foot paved shoulder which is sometimes not there.

By the time I got to Homosassa I was dog tired. It must have been around 9:45 p.m.  The wind had picked up again with a dark sky and rain clouds. I set up camp in a wooded area about 150 yards behind a convenience store across from Emily's Restaurant. It looked like it might rain. The nylon tent I had will not stand a shower, but it did have a polypropylene floor, so I faced the floor to the sky and pegged one edge into the ground and elevated the other edge with tent poles so I would have a lean to for sleeping under. As it turned out it did rain.

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General Discussion / New Orleans history on the ACA map.

« on: July 26, 2025, 11:46:48 pm »

The bayou state, south coastal Louisiana, New Orleans and vicinity. There was a recognized language group there, and I suppose there still is, I think they called it Acadian or Cajun English. Normally I would not have known about anything like that. I taught English as a foreign language in Korea, China, Kuwait, Yemen and Saudi Arabia. I had a bachelor's degree. I continued my studies in EFL with a further 18 months of intensive studies. One course was on the history of the English language.  French settlers populated the northeastern part of the United States. It was called Acadia. This was the 1700s if I remember correctly. The British invaded. They attacked. There was a forced march from somewhere around north of Maine south to New Orleans and vicinity. From what I read, this forced migration was no picnic. People died of starvation and exposure to inclement weather. Some died of disease. Many were beaten along the way and there were murders. In American history, not including the forced migrations of Indians, the coerced removal of the French and marching them down to south coastal Louisiana was one of the three main forced marches in the history of this country. There they learned to use English as well as French. There is also the tidewater dialect, as they called it. And you have the southern. New England. Bronx which is largely derived from Dutch. And then you have the Pennsylvania Dutch. I heard some of them talking English. Very interesting. I had no idea. The adventure cycling route, I was told, now has an extension to New Orleans. I don't know, possibly that little bit of information about that state's earliest settlements might be something you would mention on a map.

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Urban Cycling / Extremely unusual anomalous loud noise.

« on: April 26, 2025, 12:24:48 am »

I have cycled urban areas many times, and not everywhere of course. I'm not sure what others are used to when it comes to noise on the road. I have noticed in Florida what I would call psychotronic weapons. These are illegally modified exhaust of cars and trucks that are made to produce and amplify extremely unusually anomalously loud, ear piercing, mind numbing, penetrating noise. I have bicycle 37,000 miles through 19 countries and in some of the biggest cities in the world. Nowhere on Earth have I heard anything like this not even remotely like this anywhere. One in Titusville Florida was audible at a mile. It would shiver and shake and vibrate all your internal organs when it came near. The worst one was in North Florida and that was audible at 3 miles. I have heard hundreds of these in Florida. They are all in direct violation of state laws and federal laws. The offenses seemingly continue with the complicity of government and law enforcement. Has anybody else experience these extremely loud offensive illegally modified noises?

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General Discussion / The Long Distance Bicycle Tourist a High-Profile Traveler.

« on: March 17, 2025, 04:46:25 pm »

There were some people on some internet forum discussing an aspect of bicycle touring. They all agreed that long-distance bicycle touring is a low profile manner of traveling. I must disagree. In a car you are a nameless faceless blank in a motorized cocoon. People notice the cyclist. In a car you move with traffic. Only those around you even know you exist. By the end of a day, thousands of drivers will have seen the man on the loaded bicycle, and he will spark their imagination. In a car you pull into a gas station / convenience store, you pay, pump and go. Your presence causes no curiosity to anyone. Come pedaling in with a fully-loaded touring bicycle people may react. They ask questions. Where did you start? Where is your destination? How long did it take you to get here? How many miles do you ride in a day? When did you start your trip? You have a long road ahead of you. I have thought about bicycling across the USA since I was a teenager etc.

The long-distance, fully-loaded, bicycle tourist is a high profile traveler because he is seen by many thousands of others on a transcontinental ride, and he, to some degree or another, makes an impression and stimulates curiosity.

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Routes / Self-mapped Southern Tier Bicycle Route.

« on: March 17, 2025, 04:07:29 pm »

Using the bicycle option in Google maps, I wrote down a route from southeast coastal Florida to Ocotillo, California. And if you cannot get from Ocotillo to San Diego on dead reckoning, there is no way you could have gotten to Ocotillo. It is that very small settlement just where you begin to climb to over 3000 feet elevation going west on Interstate 8. Restaurant, small motel, small store, small population and many white wind-turbine towers marring the land.

It is written out in detail, double and triple checked. It is not offered to anyone for using. Well, maybe for getting through a large city. Anyone planning bicycling the southern tier, as I have done five crossings, ----Use maps from Adventure Cycling Association. It takes a lot of the guess-work out of it. My route looks good, and I was careful to choose roads with shoulders and side-lanes, however, it is unknown. The pre-mapped routes from ACA are well known. The popular ones seem to have developed a bicycling infrastructure. On these routes you are very likely to meet others going your direction, and the other way. If you want pre-mapped bicycle routes, get them from ACA.

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General Discussion / 26 by 1.5 Schwalbe, the tube maintenance from hell.

« on: February 15, 2025, 01:44:00 am »

What can be easier and simpler than swapping out tubes on a bicycle. I had this touring bicycle. The last trip on it was 550 miles around south Florida in 2024. The C 2 C bike trail was one route. I let the bike set for a year. I thought about another ride and thought to install new tubes. The wheels are 26 by 1.5, double wall, approved for tubeless. The tires are 26 by 1.5 Schwalbe Marathon also approved for tubeless.
Taking the tires off the wheels required extraordinary imagination, ingenuity and elbow grease.

The tires molded to the wheels. They glued themselves tight and strong to the metal. It was impossible to press the sidewall away from the rim. It was locked in place. I laid the wheel down and stood and pressed my heels against the sidewalks of the tires with all my weight. The contact-rubber did not move away from the rim. No tire lever could pry it loose, this 26 by 1.5 Schwalbe Marathon. I had patched punctures at roadside in ten minutes. Now here it was, 30 minutes later, and I could not even get a tire to budge. I hit on an idea.

I mixed Tide liquid laundry detergent with water. Using a small sponge brush I pushed the mixture in between the tire and the rim. I gave it time to penetrate. Using a narrow thin screwdriver I kept digging between the rim and the tire and dripping the mixture there. After twenty-five digs the tire moved and the screwdriver caught on the bead and I levered to the top edge of the rim. The mixture did the job and lubricated other lengths of the bead. Finally, the levers could be fitted under the bead. Using three levers and a screwdriver one after the other, it did the job. That is only one side of the tire. Getting the other side to leave the wheel is much easier, but still much more difficult than removing other tires.

Getting the tires back on the wheels was an anomalously unusual pain in the neck. One side remounted was no problem at all. The other side of the tire would press  into the rim by hand, but for only about 60% of the perimeter. Levers were necessary after that. The problem was levering one length of bead onto the rim on the right of the wheel pulled bead out of the rim on the left side. There was no preventing that by hand and levers. It was impossible.  I hit on another idea. I tied a two-foot length of small rope extremely tight around the tire and rim until the tire was smashed down hard flat. Using metal tire levers and starting on the right side of the wheel, I levered the bead into the rim of the wheel. The tire part tied down tight to the wheel stopped the bead to the left from being pulled loose from the rim. The tire was now mounted.

This troublesome tire was on the wheel. Was it mounted so there would be no thump on each revolution? I knew from experience that even more would have to be done to make these wheels ride ready. Before inflating I brushed in another bunch of mixture between the tire and rim. That was in the rim the full circumference both sides. Then began the inflating. As the air was pressed into the tires there came crackling and snapping sounds of the tires releasing from where they had stuck to the metal. If they had not released it would have caused a slight uneven thump in the tire.

Mounting the wheels on the bicycle took 30 seconds. I rode the bike a short distance outside. It rides smooth and easy. I never had so much difficulty with tires before in my life, and I have been doing long distance bicycle-camping-touring since 1984--37,000 miles through 20 countries.

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General Discussion / Contrasting the ACA route and any way you want to go.

« on: December 16, 2024, 01:40:52 am »

You can cycle many miles of interstate highways. You can expect many multiples of punctures in your tubes. They are punctured by radial wires. You will suffer far fewer flats on the mapped bicycle routes.

Mapped routes could ensnare you in the convenience-store trap. Multiple dinky little towns where cafes are closed, where only health-altering junk foods are available are irresistable to energy-hungry bicycle tourists.  Going your way gives freedom to chart a course where real nutrition is available

Using unknown roads could get you into a jam, e.g., extreme noise, pollution, fast and furious insane traffic, grueling long climbs, crumbling deteriorated road-surfaces, unanticipated complications. The ACA mapped routes are very well known. Those problems are solved for you before you spin your first revolution.

Using mapped bike routes, you are just another cyclist passing through. Same old, different day. Adventuring your way could take you to places where cyclists never travel, and here you are the talk-of-the-town. I cycled through a foreign country that showed on television secretly-recorded videos of me cycling there. I have no idea how they got those pictures. I had no idea until I cycled into these villages. People approached me in the streets. "American, American. You are on TV television."

Five times for me from Florida to California. Twice from FL to El Paso, Texas. Mostly I free-camped. Quite a few motels. Van Horn was my favorite. Used designated campgrounds only a few times. I took many routes not on the ACA maps. I took many that are on the maps. On a broad scale of equalities, I say using the mapped routes is the best way to go. But not always because of variables.

15

General Discussion / Bicycle-touring Ukraine and Moldovia in 1994, Former Soviet Union.

« on: December 03, 2024, 12:04:01 am »

Wednesday, September 28, 1994: I showered, shaved, changed clothes and ate  breakfast by  8:00 that morning. Dema and I talked briefly before he left for work. He asked questions mostly. I  would get half an answer out of my mouth when his mother would chime in with, “We know, we know, we know all this.” I  thanked  her and left that place for the unknown.
      I walked the bike along sidewalks to the cafe where I savored a cup of coffee. Two women sat at a table there. We did not talk with one another. I pushed to the sidewalk cafe where I met the beautiful German woman the day before. I had 2 more cups of coffee and some good conversation with a delightful, very lively, beautiful, young Russian woman from Moscow. Her name was Helen. She was a singer. She had been living in this fantastic flat in Odessa for 1 month. After that, I pushed  about 5 blocks  to the top of  Pushkin Square. There I sat and made entries to the  journal dating from the 25th to the 28th.
      At 1:30 p.m. I finished writing. I marched to where the bus was supposed to be, and there it was at 2:00 p.m. Of course, the driver looked me over, thumbed through my passport, and spoke the opposite of what was said the day before. There would be problems with getting a visa. He said I needed a $50.00 transit visa for crossing Moldavia, and another for Romania. This time their mish- mash was expected and ignored. They did not catch me off guard. It was a matter of being either forced off the bus at the border of Moldavia or paying a toll.  No-one told anything straight, and if they had, it would probably have been a lie.
     Maximov Tours Company owned the bus. It was one hell of a ride.  A woman in the seat in front of me carried a puppy which she kept in a metal cage under her seat. When it needed to defecate and urinate, she carried it to the stairwell behind my seat and let it do its business on the floor, which reeked the entire bus. She also let it urinate in the aisle and underneath her seat. It nauseated and disgusted me. Was there no escaping these odors in this part of the world? Other passengers seemed not to notice it at all. What Pigs!  In the seats across the aisle, a young woman and man had sexual  intercourse. 
      Maximov Tours Company did get me inside the former Soviet republic of Moldavia. We stopped at the fenced border manned by armed guards. A man on the bus collected passports and handed them to a uniformed man seated at a table outside in the dark. In 30 minutes all the passports were returned, and the bus continued. Then, we stopped at the  Moldavian border. This was attended by soldiers carrying automatic rifles slung across their backs the way Indians carried quivers of arrows. A voice from the front of the bus called, “Hey American.”  A uniformed guard asserted that I would not be allowed to pass because my passport did not have a Moldavian visa.  Looking in the passport, I saw that it had not been stamped. Mentioning the notice I saw at the American embassy in Kiev brought only a laugh.  He insisted, no visa. “ You must travel to another town in Moldavia and pay $50.00” he said. I achieved some small measure of relief in calling them a bunch of Communist bastards. A tall, thin, pukey-looking Bulgarian fellow with incredibly foul breath  insisted on acting as  interpreter, and it was sad work he made of his new avocation, for when he finished I knew less than when the conversation began. The upshot was  they admitted me without a visa and refused to let me exit without a visa, which probably made sense in the C.I.S. It was underhanded entrapment and I was angrier than ever. Slipping Ukraine brought some consolation, but what about this region? Was this going from the frying-pan into the fire? A terse, apt description of Moldavia was this. Apply everything you have already read about Eastern Europe, and the C.I.S. except it was  poorer and  dirtier. It was more important to escape Moldavia than it was to get away from Ukraine.
      Repeated talks with the army men in the guard-shack who understood not a word of English brought no change of circumstances. At one juncture, it was agreed that if the border guard were to suddenly become $50.00 richer, and the puke on the bus were given the same, the American could continue traveling, visa or no visa. When I insisted on a receipt for the money, they made it clear no receipt would be forthcoming. At that I refused to go along with their scheme. It was a no win predicament. I off-loaded the bike and gear. I had to argue with the puke on the bus to get back the $20.00 for the bus ride to Bulgaria that never was. I  yelled to him several times, “If you are not taking me to Varna as promised  I want my   $20.00 back.” He finally handed it over. The guard in the small shack called people on the phone. He said I must  go to a town named  Lay-oh-shin-ah to get a visa.  I stayed at the border a while after the bus left.  The soldiers were nice enough to help load the panniers back on the racks. However, when we were alone and it came time to leave, 1 officer stood blocking my path, and the other soldiers formed a circle around me.  The one  insisted on seeing my passport after he had already seen it 6 times. He kept pointing to the handlebar bag and saying something about seeing the big papers. I  kept shaking my head from side to side and telling him no. I  straddled the bike and inched forward as we talked. They made-way, and I cycled into the cool night air.
      The night was dark as pitch. It was past midnight. The  narrow, smooth road was bounded on both sides by  steep drainage ditches, and large fields of corn that grew as far as the eye could see. A  metal drop-gate across the road was easy to cycle around. Suddenly, a voice commanded, “Halt.”  “Oh hell,” I thought.  I should have known that back there was not the last of it.  I stopped immediately. I noticed a small, gray, concrete shed next to the gate. A uniformed guard with an automatic weapon slung across his back walked out of the shack and over to me. “Passport,” was his only word.  I  fished it out of the handlebar-bag and handed it to him. He hardly  looked at it. He returned it and walked back to his shed. It was getting cold by this time. My only desire was to get down the road. It was dark enough that the surface of the roadway was completely invisible. Thank God it was  flawlessly smooth. My memory flashed a scene from the bus ride that turned my stomach.
      Roughly 3 miles farther, a concrete bridge supported the roadway for about 200-feet across an irrigation canal. Extremely frustrated and tired, the most pressing immediate need was sleep. Perhaps underneath the bridge would be a good place for it.  I propped the bike against the guard rail, and went below to inspect. The ground was sandy. Sand is not the best surface for sleeping because it tends to get into everything. A soft grassy surface is best for sleeping out. But far worse than sand, the odiferous smell of fecal matter wafted through the atmosphere. It repelled me immediately. I scrambled aloft and pushed to the other end of the bridge and went below and found the same thing there. Everywhere I pointed the light were small piles of human waste and tatters of used toilet paper. I went back aloft, mounted  and pedaled away.
      Three-hundred feet farther, a small, concrete, vacant house, about 12-feet by 20-feet, sat a few yards from the side of the road. Its small back-yard was a concrete slab that extended 15 feet to the verge of an irrigation ditch. Vast fields of corn lay on the other side. I was too tired to go any farther. I  propped the bike against the wall away from the road, laid out the pad and the bag on the concrete slab, and stretched out. While lolling in reverie the scuffling of booted feet on concrete alerted me.  I looked up in the direction of the sound. An old man in the garb of a peasant-farmer stepped to the edge of the slab, pulled down his pants, squatted and defecated. The bright blue sleeping bag must have caught his eye, for when he finished he came near and spoke.  I spoke back in English and flashed the light on him. He walked away.
      Whether in France, Germany, Czech or Ukraine, wherever I bedded down for the night, a dog or dogs began barking soon afterwards.  Sometimes they were 100-feet away, sometimes at farm houses, and sometimes they were so far away as to be barely audible, but always came the sounds of the hounds, and this night was no exception to the rule. In fact, it was a greatly amplified affirmation of the rule. A long, low hill, the top of which was a ridge with a  road upon it, stood about 200-yards away. Many small shacks were huddled together from the base of the hill all the way to the top for as far as the eye could see, and every one must have had at least one faithful watchdog. Maybe they got a long-distance whiff of  me and sensed an alien. One dog started the racket about 10 minutes after I lay down. Then another dog started barking. Others joined the chorus until at least 100 were all howling, barking and baying simultaneously. This canine chorus went on for hours. It strangely echoed and reverberated from the hillside. I did not record mileage for this 53rd day.