Messages

31

General Discussion / Re: Fit for Touring?

« on: July 09, 2024, 03:50:01 am »

Fit for touring? In May of 1990, at age 40, pedaling a fully loaded touring bicycle, I went from Stuart, Florida to Bangor, Maine in 20 days of cycling. That route was about 1800 miles. On average----90 miles a day. Averaged 70 a day from Florida to California. I had a young woman from England with me. She had been bike touring since her early teens. Her father was an international cyclotouriste.

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General Discussion / Re: camera choice

« on: July 06, 2024, 10:39:13 pm »

I am not and never have been a professional photographer. I did use a 35mm Canon film camera SLR. On one of my wild adventures I did get some photos that made it into history.  I always advise to keep a camera handy, and keep detailed daily journals. Journal keeping is easier than ever before because of the speed and ease of voice to text. Seriously, you just never know what you might encounter. I ran into things so unbelievable that when I told others exactly precisely what happened, people insisted I made it up. Therefore, I keep it to myself. I seriously doubt you would encounter such people and events crossing America by bicycle, but you just never know. It's like a box of chocolates.  You just never know what you are going to get.

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General Discussion / Re: Cycling Ukraine September 10, 1994.

« on: July 06, 2024, 10:25:23 pm »

I know what you mean about the so-called food stores and restaurants.  Some restaurants were so nasty, filthy, scummy and obviously hazardous to human health it is almost impossible to describe without wanting to throw-up. Such places, if they tried to do business in the US, would be prohibited by law from opening their doors to the public.  Their owners would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. What food stores?  A loaf or two of bread, unwrapped, covered in flies from the step toilet just outside the nearest window, and a jar or two of suspicious looking slop were normal fare in a food store.

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General Discussion / Re: Bicycling southern tier, side roads near I--10 Van Horn to El Paso, border towns

« on: June 12, 2024, 09:03:13 am »

I have read that in other parts of Mexico, and in parts of South America, kidnapping and holding for ransom or something of a cottage industry. They say it used to happen all the time. When people needed money they would go out and find some rich executive from a foreign country. They were kidnap him and hold him for ransom. That was how they made money.

35

General Discussion / Starting my first ever bicycling tour.

« on: June 11, 2024, 11:14:34 am »

Thursday, July 14th, 1984. The flight arrived in Gatwick this morning around 9:30. I put my bicycle together they're on the spot in the baggage room, trashed the box, and took the train into Victoria station, a 35 minute ride. There four other men and I were approached by two females who were getting people to go to a certain hotel chain. The affair commenced in a van ride around town to two hotels or hostels around town both of which had no vacancies. We ended up back at the station. I made one call and got a room in a hostel where I am now, 3 lb a night. Today I rode my bike around Westminster for a while, but this city traffic is a bit much for me. Notwithstanding that, I had lunch of fish and chips, dinner at mcdonald's, and saw Westminster abbey, the Thames River, Buckingham palace, the British museum, two major squares, green park, Hyde park, and the immediate general vicinity. It is now 1:00 a.m. on the 15th. Four of us are in a dorm just talking, playing cards and sleeping. Today I met a man who retired from the Royal Marines. We talked about military life, England and the best routes for bicycling to Canterbury and the South coast.

Friday, June 15th, 1984. This morning at 9:30 I woke up from a sound sleep at the gayfere hostel on gayfere Street just one block or two from Westminster Abbey. I packed my bicycle and took off for Canterbury by 10:00, with a stop at the corner restaurant for toast and marmalade, coffee and a roll. The way out of town was extremely busy as was the rest of the journey with the exception of a few miles out of the 60 miles traveled. The road, a2, was lousy for cycling, and tomorrow I am getting a Bartholomew's one in 250,000 which shows the country lanes. The trip took all of 7 hours owing to Long steep hills which I almost gave up on, heavy traffic and traffic lights as numerous as the Stars. The route took me through several towns, the biggest of which was rochester. On the way I ate two apples, and orange, one and a half pounds of green grapes, a box of strawberries and a box of farmhouse biscuits and four bottles of water and a chicken dinner with carrots string beans and boiled potatoes.

The towns were old and interesting, the countryside was lush and deep green, the roads smooth and the people friendly. Now arriving in Canterbury I find that the used hostel is all booked up. So I have made a reservation for Saturday and I am now in a nice little b&b for only 5 lb. It is now 10:50 p.m. and I am going to hit the hay. The address here is 7 South Canterbury Road and I am looking forward to a good breakfast in the morning.

36

General Discussion / Re: Do u have favorite cycling sounds (i.e, not music : ) ???

« on: May 17, 2024, 04:53:37 am »

The staccato taps of light to medium rain on a poly-tarp suspended between two trees and staked to the ground in an A-frame was a sound that put me to sleep fast.

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General Discussion / Re: Watch the weather. It isn't back home on the block.

« on: May 16, 2024, 06:34:00 am »

I got out to make a phone call at the phone booth.

You might have to describe what a "phone booth" is for our younger generations, especially if it was a rotary dial phone. 

You know those phones. Some phone booths were semi-open. Most were enclosed on all four sides. The phones were rotary. They were pay phones. Coins went into a slot. If you did not have the fifty cents, you could still make a call. Strip  the small rubber tips off a bobby pin. Stick one leg of the pin into the mouthpiece so it makes contact. Pull out the change receiver and touch the pin to the bare metal with the pin. It made the connection same as when coins were inserted.

38

General Discussion / Journal---Bicycling Florida to California, 2009-10.

« on: May 15, 2024, 12:07:30 am »

Now in Zen hostel in Gainesville December 10th 2009. Started Monday December the 7th from Vero Beach. Did 78 miles to Mims. US1 had a nice shoulder most of the way except in Melbourne where it disappeared and the sidewalks suck for cycling. Stopped in a dunkin' donut for 40 minutes. Also had to wait for the rain for 2 or 3 hours at a roadside arcade run by Rich Cummings. Mims was all wet when I got there. Two women at a convenience store said highway 46 was dangerous, two lanes, with a lot of accidents. I found a place in the trees to string up the tarp at the northeast corner of US1 and highway 46.

December 8th 2009. I awoke and packed. I noticed I had camped about 150 ft from a house. I prefer to stay clear of houses when I can, but I did not see it in the dark. It was about 11:00 p.m. last night when I finally got set up to sleep. So late due to the rain. I cycle West on highway 46 to McDonald's where I had a breakfast of pancakes, yuck. I left there around 9:30 a.m. 46 was a very good road for cycling east of sanford. It has a good shoulder. The scenery along the way was quite swampy. West of Sanford traffic increased very much and the road took on more of what the women had described the night before. I took various roads to eustis where I got on highway 19 going north through Ocala national forest. The area is rolling. The growth on both sides of the road was so thick and interlaced like a flora fence I could not get the bicycle in anywhere to sleep. And there was hardly any place to lay down. I finally did find a short road to a tower. I got off into the trees and bushes behind a fence around that Tower. I just lay on the ground and threw the tarp on top of me. No rain. I had already searched several places to sleep before I found that place. It was very cramped. 77 miles.

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General Discussion / Re: Watch the weather. It isn't back home on the block.

« on: May 13, 2024, 04:05:15 am »

Tornadoes were not a concern in south Florida. I was not exposed to those devices and social attitudes. I was cycling east to west across the southern tier of counties in Tennessee. It was intuition more than any thing else that alerted me. Televisions in cafes and restaurants mentioned the weather but it all seemed sketchy, equivocal, indistinct. I wheeled up to a convenience store and went in. A group was around a television inside. I asked about the weather. I was told the weather was fine. Good weather they said. But my intuition told me all hell would break loose, so I stayed around the store. This debacle from hell hit within an hour. Multiple tornadoes, hail, heavy rain, howling straight-line wind and a stroboscopic lightning show that turned night into day. It was an all time record high for tornadoes. 57 touched down in one day. Nobody was hurt. The tornadoes hit away from inhabited dwellings.  They closed shop. I asked if I could rack out in the front seat of a truck there. Yes I could, and I did and that storm lasted for hours.

If I had continued cycling and not stopped there, I would have been well into a heavily wooded area with no shelter anywhere except under a tree.

Google comes up with weather forecasts for towns as small as Van Horn, Texas.   Sometimes weather systems form for days and weeks like hurricanes. Easy to track them. Weather conditions known to produce tornadoes can be identified and tracked. One-day in the 1980s I was driving north on US 1 in Stuart, FL. I got out to make a phone call at the phone booth. At that moment, a twister came down. It flung things off a roof.  It knocked down a big sign onto the roadway. It went across US1 shaking a bunch of pine trees and went  back up.

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General Discussion / Watch the weather. It isn't back home on the block.

« on: May 12, 2024, 06:27:26 am »

With a view to these latest rounds of storms and tornadoes, it is good practice to stay ahead of the weather. A cyclist touring long distances could find himself wild-camped away from a roadway when some unprecedented wild powerful storm suddenly appears and wreaks serious damage. It happened three times to me.  As far as I know, googling weather forecasts for different regions should yield accurate reliable information.  When you do not know severe storms are coming, they can take you by surprise.  I cycled the southern tier one summer east to west. It was hotter than hell, but otherwise the weather was great.There was 25 minutes of rain in Slidell Louisiana, and one night of heavy rain near Las Cruces, New Mexico. That was it for a two month tour. Doing the southern tier again there were extremely serious very dangerous radical changes in the  weather. On another crossing it was a miracle I survived it. Doing a transcontinental bicycle tour can bring you to very nice weather with rain here and there. It can also steer you into a seriously hazardous situation, if you do not keep yourselves forewarned. I ignored the weather advisories. I also woke up to a tornado shredding trees all around near the Mississippi in or south of Minnesota, 1987. I got myself into a number of fixes with the weather while bicycle touring because I was not prepared.

41

General Discussion / Re: US dogs

« on: May 08, 2024, 02:48:23 am »

When we cycled highway 90 in the winter of 1984 in north Florida going west, free-ranging dogs were all over the place. We had several loud snarling barking run-ins with them. Frequently they lay dead in the road, smashed by motor vehicles. Several years later I cycled that same highway in winter. Not one single dog did I see anywhere along the length of that highway 90 in north Florida. Generally  speaking, there is nothing to worry about in the US. In other parts of the world there are dogs that would rip a man to shreds and devour him. I encountered two of them.  All I can say is thank God for that chain link fence. I would say dogs have chased and slowed me to a halt 100 times.

42

General Discussion / Re: Amtrak lounge access with a bicycle

« on: May 07, 2024, 10:47:18 pm »

I would just open the door and push the bike inside and lean it against a wall. Call the train people and ask.

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General Discussion / Re: Bicycling southern tier, side roads near I--10 Van Horn to El Paso, border towns

« on: May 06, 2024, 11:34:22 pm »

Did route 9 along the eastern New Mexico - Mexico border a couple years ago. Plenty of drones, planes, mobile monitoring sites, and border patrol cars and vehicles. Due to the heat, I was riding in the dark in the early morning - have to admit to a rare sense of edginess.

Long distances bicycle touring in that area give me a very good idea of what you saw. I cycled through there in 2022, for the sixth time.  I found it a very good area for cycling. How many times did I cycle, loaded with 40 pounds of gear, up that long steep road in downtown El Paso?  They have those electric eyes all over the place, and some you cannot see, hidden, cleverly concealed.

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General Discussion / Re: Bicycling southern tier, side roads near I--10 Van Horn to El Paso, border towns

« on: May 06, 2024, 11:20:27 pm »

At first it seemed like a false report, this last incident, the robbery and murders of two men from Australia and one  American.  And they dropped the bodies down a well. It is almost inconceivable.  It is unthinkable.  There have not been any such catastrophes for touring cyclists on the American side of the border.  Or have there been---even 0ne? I never heard of it.

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General Discussion / Re: Bicycling southern tier, side roads near I--10 Van Horn to El Paso, border towns

« on: May 05, 2024, 05:51:53 pm »

Baja, CA, MX is a popular destination for cyclists. I have not been there.  I understand that some or most of the cycling there is on dirt roads and sand.  As everyone probably already knows, three young men recently went there for surfing. They were robbed, murdered execution style (shot through the backs of their heads), their bodies thrown down a well, and their truck set ablaze.  The burning was to conceal evidence, they said. When it comes to cycling the southern tier, which I have done completely 5 times,  I would STAY on the AMERICAN side of the border.