Author: chas

How to Bike Up a Mountain

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My Bike Gearing

This blog post might have been more aptly titled ‘How to Bike Up a Mountain When You’re Over 50 and Don’t Want to Kill Yourself’ but that seems just a little too long, so I shortened it. As I contemplate heading out to Cyclefest later in the summer and riding up to the McDonald Observatory, it occured to me to jot a few notes on climbing big, long hills.

First of all, let me establish what I mean by climbing up a mountain. It’s probably obvious and it doesn’t matter that much what ‘category‘ of climb we’re talking about as far as I’m concerned. What I mean is any climb of a few thousand vertical feet over an extended course of many miles at a grade ranging from >5% to upwards of 10-15% or more. The climb up to the McDonald Observatory qualifies if you believe the route profiles I’ve found online.

First of all, let’s assume you have some basic level of fitness and a medical authority of some sort like a doctor has taken a look at you and told you it’s ok to consider getting your heart rate up to 180 over an extended period of time. Maybe you’re lucky and just super fit. Congratuations. This should be easy for you. If not, you can still do this but you’ll at least need to be somewhat fit.

I’m mostly a weekend rider. I don’t have time to ride every day and I’m not a super athlete. But I like to be able to bike any route I want and a mountain shouldn’t stand in my way. In fact, the views are great up there so that’s where I want to go.

The secret is not that big a secret: get the right gearing. The ‘right’ gearing is something you’ll need to figure out, but I think what you want to find is gearing that let’s you keep a cadence that doesn’t blow out your knees and allows you to stay just this side of completely winded. You’re going to be huffing and puffing, but it can’t be so bad it’s unsustainable. If it’s unsustainable, keep tinkering with the gearing until you find something that works. If you find they just don’t make gearing that low, well, maybe this isn’t for you. But I bet you can easily find the right chainring and cassette combination.

Over the years I’ve become a fan of the Ultegra triple chainring gearing. With a chainring of 30 teeth and a cassette cog of 28 teeth in the back I have found I can settle in and ride up the likes of Ventoux and Alpe d’Huez. These days you don’t have to go with a triple chainring setup though if you don’t want to. Compact cranks are made that effectively give you the same gearing.

Below I’ve made use of Sheldon Brown’s good old gear calculator to take a closer look at how the Ultegra Triple compares to, for example, the SRAM Apex line of cranks. The first graph is the gain ratios plotted for the 3 chainrings on my current bike (taking into account wheel, tire, crank length etc) with a cassette that goes from 11-28. The second chart illustrates the gain ratios for a similar configuration with SRAM Apex and with a cassette that goes from 11-32. Note the Apex uses a compact crank of 34 teeth instead of the granny 30 tooth one on the Ultegra Triple. From low to high the range covered by either setup is identical. In both cases, there’s also plenty of overlap between chainrings. This shows me I could quite easily switch to Apex and ride on the same as always. Happy climbing.

Shimano Ultegra Triple

SRAM Apex Compact

Another good Bertram to Burnet Ride

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Chas biking to Burnet

This weekend’s ride with Jim and Tony was an old familiar favorite. Click through the link for the route map. This time we did the ride clockwise in part to avoid a steep climb when you do it counter clockwise. In the end, of course, the elevation gain over the course of the loop ride is gonna be the same, but the grades in a few places are different so it can seem slightly less intimidating.

We were fortunate to have cloud cover for a good portion of the ride. When the clouds lifted and the sun came out it was obvious it was going to heat up quickly. We’d gotten a fairly early start at 8:30 but that still had us out there late morning to finish up the 40 mile route.

A stiff wind out of the southwest had the first part of the ride kind of a slog. Once we rounded the corner of the loop though and headed north toward Burnet we made really good time though.

We stopped at one point and took a few pics with the phone cameras. Tony snapped the one of me alone and then Jim took the one of me and Tony.

Chas and Tony en route to Burnet, TX.

Liberty Hill to Bertram, Just another Sunday Bike Ride

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Route map

Today’s ride was planned kinda last minute. We’d thought about doing a ride out of Blanco that mimicked yesterday’s Real Ale ride but it wasn’t in the cards today. So Jim and I ended up going for an old familar favorite out of Liberty Hill. The route picture at the right shows today’s 36 mile loop. Click here for the details.

This is always a scenic ride and traffic is usually pretty limited on all the roads. I like doing it counter clockwise because it’s more scenic on the south side of the loop as you finish up. You’ve got to cross hwy 29 a couple times – once in Liberty Hill and then again later in Bertram – and that traffic was pretty high today, but thankfully we didn’t actually have to ride along hwy 29.

Central Texas is still surprisingly green and the temps are surprisingly moderate compared to what we’ve come to expect for late May. Usually by now it’s getting just plain hot. But with some cloud cover and a light breeze, it was down right pleasant out there this morning.

Despite low traffic on the roads, a ride out this way doesn’t seem to be complete without a few knucklehead drivers to give you grief. Today was no exception. Early in the ride a cretin in a black pickup floored it and blew by us at full throttle. He was easily going 80+ by the time he blew by us. Why? who knows. We were single file on a rolling country road. The road is probably unsafe at 60 mph. A complete pinhead.

Later in the ride, a black SUV gave a quick swerve toward us on a straight wide section as we headed back to Liberty Hill. More friendly hill country cedar choppers thinking it’s fun to put the fear of God in us I guess. Where does this kind of thing come from? I can’t explain it. Yeah sure, there’s probably a few bad apple cyclists that at some point have been hogging the road out there and made them slow down a second or two but it’s still uncalled for. It’s unfortunate some cyclists feel entitled to take the whole road at times but there’s got to be something more to it than that.

Anyway, it was otherwise a good ride. I had to stop and take a picture of a favorite windmill scene I’ve ridden by many times over the years but have just never taken a photo. Today the cows, colors and windmill made for a good shot and I snapped this one. I took it with the iphone camera and it still came out pretty good I think.

A favorite windmill spot that just happened to have cows in the foreground for a change.

ExperiencePlus! Northern Argentina Bicycle Tour 2012 – Day 3

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Our hotel in Purmamarca
The colorful hills around Purmamarca
One of a thousand sleepy dogs in Argentina
Group dinner in Purmamarca
Me on the salt flats

At the end of the 2nd day, we arrived in Purmamarca. Our hotel was a great little place called the Hostal Posta de Purmamarca. Click thru for their web site. Nice place and a beautiful setting. The colors of the hillsides in all directions were impressive, especially in the late day sunshine. One of my photos here is a shot of the hotel from its parking lot.

Like Tilcara, a lot of the little town was gravel streets, so pretty much everything was a little dusty. There was a great little market around the town square in Purmamarca. Our guide on the tour said they didn’t really negotiate on prices but things were not terribly expensive and as it would turn out, relatively economical compared to other towns further south. Lots of interesting bags, hats, blankets, rugs, sweaters, metalwork and jewelry. Picked up a bag for Kem here. One of the other guys on the tour, Grant, found a great sweater here. I wish I had looked for one. We didn’t need one in Purmamarca, but it’d turn out later that I’d really want a sweater.

A hill right in the middle of town had a trail up to it and it made a great spot to get a birds eye view of the town and take some pictures. Herb and I hiked up and took some photos.

The next morning, our 3rd day of the tour was a pretty jam packed one. It was intended to be a ‘rest day’ where you explore Purmamarca but it was effectively only the 2nd day or the tour and the 1st day wasn’t all that taxing a ride. More than a couple of us were up for a ride that morning. Plus, the weather that morning was outstanding. Little or no wind, bright blue sky, cool temps.

The ride choice that day though was non-trivial. Especially considering it wasn’t really a ‘supported’ ride day. Route 52, our road for the day, goes through Purmamarca toward Chile and over the Andes. It quickly heads up at a steady 7% grade or more to a mountain pass that peaks at 4,170 meters. That’s about 13,600 ft. My Garmin data for the day indicated our overnight stay in Purmamarca was roughly at around 7,400 ft. Given all the hills and mountains around us it was hard to imagine we were already at altitude. So to get to the summit is a considerable climb from Purmamarca of about 6,000 ft.

Our bikes for the trip were outfitted with triple cranks and some really low gears. The extended 7% grade wasn’t going to be that bad in low gear. My main concern with doing the ride was running out of water and what the effects of altitude would be. We weren’t backed up by a van that day and there’s literally nowhere out there in that part of the world to stop and get water. It’s basically a desert and few people live there. I would have loved to give a shot at going all the way to the summit that day but it would probably have taken 5+ hours at the pace I was going and certainly more water than I had. I started out with 3 water bottles and went as far as the water allowed.

Aside from the limited water, our group was on a timetable that day. We were supposed to shuttle up to the salt flats starting at 1pm, beyond the summit on route 52. If I wanted to join that excursion I kinda wanted to get back in time to shower, grab a bite and be ready by 1.

The ride that morning was great mostly because of the stunning views and fine weather. Thankfully the road was good as well. There were a few places where it had crumbled or been washed out but otherwise much better than I imagined it would be.

These kind of climbs are not bad if you just find a gear you like that allows you to spin and then keep a pace that has you just this side of breathless. No doubt at that altitude it’s a little easier said than done to keep from being breathless but my pace was quite slow. You can look at the Garmin data again (that link has 2 days of data, so look at 2nd day) to see that my pace hovered somewhere around only 5 mph. I rode up somewhere above 10,600 ft and then the Garmin seemed to quit registering for some reason. Maybe it only quit telling me what the grade was, I don’t know. In any case, as I headed to 11,000 ft I was down to my 3rd water bottle and I wanted to be ready by 1pm so I turned around and flew back down to Purmamarca.

It may have taken 2.5 hours to climb up but to get back down it took very little time. Trust me, you want to bring a jacket or more to wear going back down. It gets cold. You’re no longer working hard and you’re going fast and you’re at altitude. I had good weather even but later in the day the clouds rolled in and I would have been riding through fog on the way back down. Assume the weather’s going to be bad.

The photo here of the road behind me was taken shortly before I made my U turn back toward Purmamarca. The view back down the mountain gives you some perspective of the winding hair pin turns you take as you ride up. Going back down the turns are a bit treacherous because many of them are strewn with gravel. You have to go pretty slow on the descent. I never got over 30 mph going back down.

It’s taking me forever to get my notes written up on the tour. Can’t believe I’m only on the 2nd day. I want to get notes down before I forget what the details of the trip were like….

Looking back on the road/mountain I've just climbed.ju

ExperiencePlus! Northern Argentina Bicycle Tour 2012 – Day 2

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Chas and cactus at the ruins in Tilcara
Herb north of Tilcara

Day 2 of our tour was the first we’d actually get some riding in. All the gear we’d brought – pedals and seats – were fitted and we made adjustments. I’d sent my bicycle geometry in advance and aside from fitting the pedals and seat, I didn’t have to adjust anything. Later it would be clear the headset had some issues and they would eventually replace it but it wasn’t a major problem. Just maybe a little unnerving to hear that thing rattle every once in awhile when the going got bumpy.

Our first day of riding was a pretty easy one from a level of effort perspective. Ultimately our landing point for the day would be Purmamarca and but because that wasn’t very far away and it’d be interesting to say we’d made it to the Tropic of Capricorn we first rode north till we got to the sign that marked the Tropic of Capricorn and then turned around and headed back south.

There aren’t that many paved main roads up in that part of the world. The road we traveled was a pretty major road. There wasn’t a ton of traffic but there was enough traffic to make you a little nervous. It became clear early on that Argentine drivers don’t give cyclists all that much room. Certainly it was less room than I typically get around Austin except in rare instances. That a significant chunk of the traffic was gigantic double decker buses crusing along at high speed made such encounters pretty unnerving. More than a few times I pulled it off the road and into the gravel shoulder when I heard or saw one of these buses coming. The gravel shoulder isn’t ridable for a road bike so this amounted to coming to a full stop when they went by.

There were fully loaded cyclists out on the same road that day. They were riding in a pack and generally on mountain bikes with panniers so not hard to catch and pass. I stopped and snagged a picture of them along with Herb, one of the guys on our ride. They were in it for the long haul. My Spanish is non-existent and their English was not so good so I had a hard time recognizing where they said they were going.

The early part of the ride went north and winds were light. Neither lasted all that long. We circled back once we hit the Tropic of Capricorn and headed south to Purmamarca. The winds picked up and what was otherwise a slight downhill into Purmamarca turned into real work against the winds.

Chas at Tropic of Capricorn

ExperiencePlus! Northern Argentina Bicycle Tour 2012 – Day 1

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On the way to Tilcara
Church in Tilcara
Hotel Viento Norte
Hotel room view
Because I liked the shadows

Day 1 of the tour – a Monday – was mainly about shuttling up to Tilcara and meeting up with the folks we’d all spend the next week or so with. Tilcara is way up in the far northwest of Argentina and by the time you get there you’ve gotten into the mountains. At 2500 meters, our stop for the night was around 8000 feet above sea level. I didn’t notice a problem with the altitude though apparently it’s the sort of thing that can creep up on you.

We left Salta a little after 2pm and it was easily a 3+ hour van ride up to Tilcara. The terrain in Tilcara is much different than down in the valley in Salta. Mountainous, dry and populated with cactus. Tilcara is a dusty little town – like many of the small towns in this area. Dusty in the sense that most of the roads in the town are dirt and gravel and there was a bit of a breeze by the time we got into town. Seemed a little like something right out of a spaghetti western. Rooster’s crowing. Stray dogs everywhere.

We arrived at Hotel Viento Norte with just enough late day sunshine to catch some good photo opportunities of the hillsides surrounding Tilcara and a few in town. A couple of us wandered further into the town and found the main square. (A few blocks.) Across from the square was an old church. We snagged a few photos and then needed to make our way back for the first group meeting. Time to meet and greet and have some snacks, wine & cheese before dinner. Most of us of course had already had some time on the 3 hour ride up to get acquainted, so intros were pretty brief.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, everyone on the tour had done more than one tour like this before. The fewest I think was 3 tours like this. The oldest guy was 76 years old! followed closely by another that was 75 and then the rest of us are somewhere maybe near or north of 50.

Dinner the first night was right there at Viento Norte. Really enjoyed it! It started out with a vegetable soup that was delicious. Not sure how it was prepared exactly but it was less broth than vegetable soups often are and more pureed vegetables. Enjoying the soup might have been helped by the fact it cools off pretty quickly in the evening at that altitude. There was also a green salad with tomatoes, local corn (which has a very big kernel and is lighter in color and certainly a lot less sweet that we would typically see) some cheese (not sure what kind) served over a bed of quinoa. Quinoa is big up there.

That was followed by tamales and humitas. The tamales had pork in them along with their corn filling. The humitas we were told included cheese though I’m not sure what kind. Both really tasty. Wine along with dinner was a Malbec from Elementos (Bodega Esteco and one we’d at least bike by later in the tour). Also very good. For dessert, we had something I’d never had before: a green squash that was sweet but not too sweet – how it was sweetened I don’t know – topped with some nuts. I don’t know the name of this one but I thought it too was very good. I could only eat so much of it though. Very sweet.

We were up bright and early the next morning for breakfast and then bike fitting/setup. I brought pedals and seat as had most people. At least most people brought pedals. Not everyone brought a seat. I can’t imagine switching to a different seat for days worth of riding.

ExperiencePlus! Northern Argentina Bicycle Tour 2012

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Jackson Square

My bike tour through northern Argentina is coming to close – or more likely has come to a close by the time I actually finish this and post it – and it has indeed been a fun adventure. I didn’t really have a lot of expectations about Argentina or what to expect of this tour since I didn’t know anyone beforehand that had done a tour with ExperiencePlus! and in recent memory I’ve done tours that I’ve either gotten some good word of mouth about or a tour company I’ve used before. But I was impressed with the how well it was organized and the very good work of our guides on this tour. While you pay for the privilege of such a supported tour, in a foreign land with a language you don’t know I believe it is worth it.

While I saw a very small slice of the country over two weeks, I naturally formed some opinions. The contrasts in Argentina are vast. Clearly a developed country and economy it’s like visiting Europe – only it seems more generally dilapidated in many towns and cities. (More on that in a future post.) But the beauty of the countryside, the friendly people we encountered and the great food and wine made the trip a very worthwhile experience.

The Ridiculously Brief Summary

  • Lots of connections to get there: Austin – Houston – Buenos Aires – Salta … Tucman – Buenos Aires – Houston – Austin. Travel by air is more exhausting than cycling.
  • 357 miles (575 kilometers) of cycling that began as far north as Tilcara and the Tropic of Capricorn and stretched as far south as San Miguel de Tucumán. All of it is still considered northern Argentina, which is a vast country.
  • We passed through 3 provinces of Argentina: Salta, Jujuy, and Tucman.
  • 9 days of cycling over 12 days
  • Both easy cycling and challenging cycling (for a variety of reasons) but overall, not as challenging as others I’ve done.
  • 3 flat tires – one by glass, two by cactus thorns
  • lots of great food and wine
  • more diesel fumes and exhaust than I ever cared to inhale
  • hands and feet as cold as they’ve ever been
  • as many buses as there are stray dogs
  • beautiful countryside and friendly people
  • and an appreciation of a country and part of the world I had little or no insight into before the trip

Let’s Start At The Beginning

Salta was the meeting point for our small group of 7 riders and 2 guides. Salta is about a 2 hour flight from Buenos Aires. I’d arrived a couple days in advance as I often arrange just so I can get acclimated. Our group included:

  • Ole – age 76 and just coming off some other active tour in Brazil and after this one, headed off to another active tour in Patagonia.
  • Herb – age 75 and veteran of more bike tours (self organized and fully supported) than I can recall or recount.
  • Bob and Mary Ann – a couple somewhere around their 50’s and veterans of similar tours around the world.
  • Grant and Dona – a couple around their 60’s and also vets of similar tours in other parts of the world.
  • Tika and Anibal – our patient and friendly guides from Argentina.

One by one our group met up at the designated meeting hotel. We’d eventually return to the same hotel a few days later when we returned to Salta on our way further south. Ole was the first one there and drinking a glass of wine at the sidewalk tables and immediately offered to share the other half of a sandwich he didn’t want to finish. Herb joined us and stories of tours and past travels began. It was evident early that folks were going to get along just fine.

We all loaded up a big van with our group and all our luggage and 3 hours later – and introductions all around – we arrived in Tilcara, our stay for the evening and the kickoff of our cycling tour. More on that in the next post…

Argentina: Random Observations

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One thing about traveling by yourself, you end up with time on your hands. Time enough to post blog entries. We’ll see if and how that changes as I meet up with the bike group tomorrow.

Cars

Most of the cars I’ve seen are small ones. Lots of Fiats and Renaults. Not far from where I’m staying is a Chevy dealership if you can believe that. The Cruze is for sale. 9.9% financing. That is, in fact, the only car dealership I’ve seen. I’ve only walked so far though so there’s bound to be lots more but generally speaking, I haven’t seen that many new cars. In general, I don’t see many American cars. German cars? plenty of VW’s but not much else.

I would hazard a guess there are few if any emissions standards. The hardest thing about taking a walk through the city is the amount of exhaust some cars and trucks are belching. It can often be hard to breath. On top of that, lots and lots of big busses in the city.

Diesel appears to be the least expensive fuel at AR$5.6 / liter. Consequently, lots of diesel cars. That amounts to AR$21.20 per gallon so that’s about US$4.82 / gallon under present exchange rates. Premium gas goes for AR$7 / liter. Ouch.

Garbage

Here in Salta, every house in the neighborhood has a little metal pedestal out along the street and it’s for putting bags of garbage. This guy has a good picture of one, but they’re not all uniformly the same. It’s just a pedestal of some kind, usually metal and you see plastic bags of garbage set out in them. I saw the garbage men doing their rounds tonight as I was on my way home from dinner. One guy walks through the neighborhood in his characteristic striped uniform and collects the bags, and another person drives the truck. I think they pick up daily. The bags are small. I’ve not seen any garbage cans.

Dogs & Cats

As I’ve traipsed throughout Salta and Buenos Aires, I’ve run across dogs that don’t appear to have any owner and that are completely sacked out and snoozing right there on the sidewalk on a busy street. If you didn’t see them breathing you might think they were maybe dead, but no, they’re just snoozing there. Sometimes 2 or 3 of them. No owner anywhere to be seen.

I saw similar in the botanical park in Buenos Aires only it was cats. The park is apparently known for its feral cats. See http://gatosdelbotanico.blogspot.com.ar.

TV & Music

Like pretty much everywhere I’ve ever traveled, American – or at least English – pop music seems to be universally popular. I heard Adele blaring from a car as I walked through the city today. The restaurant I went to tonight and the hotel I’m staying at have both been playing English speaking singers and songs that sound familiar.

It was funny to listen to the rock station the taxi driver was listening to as I taxied to the airport in Buenos Aires. The announcer was speaking in Spanish of course and it was clear it was some kind of advertisement. I couldn’t understand a word of it except for “Nirvana” and “Smells Like Teen Spirit”.

Banking

My Chase Bank card worked at the airport but not at 4 other banks I pulled into today. All the main banks in Salta appeared to be up and down one street in the central part of the city. Rarely have I ever seen so many people lined up to use ATM machines. Some banks – and oddly only some – had lines coming out of the building and down the street a little ways. I thought: is there a run on the banks around here today? Apparently not, but it seemed unusual to me.

Argentina: Day 3 – Exploring Salta a Little

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Today did not have much on the agenda. I didn’t plan anything. I had a nice little breakfast at the hotel and otherwise wandered to parts of the city to see what there was to see. I took a few pics though and thought I’d post them.

This is the hotel from the street. You can see why it’s not surprising we drove by it once without seeing it. The sign kind of blends in.

Here’s the entrance to the hotel. The room I stayed in is just there on the first floor to the right of the entrance.

The hotel has some nice places to hang out both indoors and out.

I did not find an opportunity to use the pool. It was a little drizzly this morning and it never really warmed up to a point I wanted to take a dip – even just dipping my feet in. But it did look nice.

Breakfast was a collection of choices that reminded me of typical European style breakfasts: cereals, yogurt, orange juice, coffee, a variety of sliced cheeses, sliced meats, small croissants, pastries and breads. They also offered eggs and waffles. Tasty.

They set out a nice table.

The view out my window at breakfast.

Wandering through the city, I checked out the main square cathedral. I didn’t take any pictures inside. There was a service going on.

I noticed a cable car going up the nearby hillside so I had to check it out. Here’s a photo while riding up the Teleférico to Cerro San Bernardo. The hill rises 880 feet above the city and there are good viewing spots once you get to the top. There’s not much else to do once you get up there but it’s a nice birds eye view of the city of Salta.

From atop Cerro San Bernardo

Argentina Day 2 – On to Salta

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From Buenos Aires I’ve made my way to Salta, which is in the northwest part of Argentina. Compared to Buenos Aires, Salta seems small. It sprawls a fair bit though and if you believe Wikipedia, the metro area has over a half million people. Wandering the central part of the city yesterday, I would not have guessed that. The central part of the city is not that many blocks to walk and there were plenty of people around and in the streets but nothing like Buenos Aires.

Technically I’m in the foothills of the Andes here. The altitude of the city is about 3800 feet. My reading had suggested that the rainy season would be over in April and I could expect pleasant weather. Well, we’ll see about that. It’s been mostly overcast since arriving yesterday and the same is true today. It’s not raining at the moment, though it sprinkled a bit yesterday and I’d say good chance for some rain today.

I’m staying at the Kkala Hotel. Click here if you want the English version. Beware, it plays music. Like the place I stayed in Buenos Aires, I found this place via TripAdvisor and what a gem it is. It doesn’t seem like a hotel. It’s in a residential neighborhood and the sign for it is barely noticeable. It looks like the homes in neighborhood – only nicer than most. I’d say it was maybe originally built as a home but then the rooms are very much like nice hotel rooms. Big bathroom/shower area. They refer to it as a ’boutique’ hotel and they’re a member in what is called the BBH or Best Boutique Hotel group. I noticed a plaque on the wall and found their website. Plush livin’.

The hotel sports a pool that would look more inviting if the weather were nicer and some great decks to hang out on. There’s one off the entry/living/lounge area and then one on the 2nd floor just outside the glassed-in breakfast area. I’ll try to get some pics and post them here. I was hanging out writing this with a nice cup of coffee on the 2nd floor deck just a bit ago but it started to sprinkle and the computer’s not too fond of that.

Walking through the city yesterday it’s not unlike Buenos Aires in the sense that much of the city seems to be enduring some amount of neglect. Whether it’s the economy over the years, I don’t know. It just seems like the cities have seen better times. With significant income inequality, I wonder if this is what America will look like in time.

There was a market going on along the main street yesterday. It stretched maybe 4 blocks. Lots and what appeared to be handmade goods like jewelery, wood bowls, clothes, artwork, and those sorts of things. Limited crowd of people on the streets. Not crowded by any means. The innkeeper today tells me this is only on Sundays. It’ll be business as usual down there today.

Logistics and Getting Here

Flying domestic within Argentina took me back to a pre-TSA era of security screening. No xray body scanning, no 3-1-1, no ‘take out your computer’, no ‘take off your shoes’. You put your bag through an xray and you walk through a metal detector. That’s it. The line was 20 minutes long but it was otherwise moving quickly. They just had too many people for only 3 metal detectors/bag scanners.

I flew LAN. Standard issue wide body 737. 3 rows each side. Cleaner than most US planes. They bussed us out to the plane in waves and we loaded on the tarmac – from both the front and rear doors. I think they have more flights than they have gates. No extra charge for luggage. No extra charge for the in flight snack – which was a nice little box that included a bag of water crackers, a bag of 3 chocolate wafer biscuit’y things, and something else chocolatey that I just tossed in my bag for later. The entire flight they seemed to have one TV channel playing on the overhead video. It was some kind of ‘candid camera’ type show. It seemed odd that was the one choice they would have picked.

The Salta airport is pretty small. The baggage area had 2 small conveyors that moved at a glacial pace and squealed like it could use some oil. At the 3rd unloading, my bag appeared. Yea!

The taxi ride in was an adventure. The driver had never heard of my hotel and did not know the street name. I showed him google maps on my iphone but he was having trouble with that. He spoke only Spanish. I speak only English… so he aimed it into the city. We went to the central part of the city and he pulled up to a small store and went in to ask directions. In all we stopped 4 times to consult with locals. The iphone and google maps is the only reason I got here. I was navigating from the back seat and we took several wrong turns. We even drove by the place once and completely missed it. Finally as we were shrugging our shoulders and creeping along at 1mph I noticed the Kkala sign on the wall of the building. It blends right in. Success!

Argentina: Day 1 – Buenos Aires

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Miravida Soho
Dona Ascension
Don Julio Grill
Don Julio Parilla

On Day 1 of my trip to Argentina, I didn’t have a lot of expectations based on past experience. So in that respect, it’s been a good first day – and a half. Good in the sense that it provided just the sort of distractions I like to find when I get away to a distant place – people, place, language, food, wine. In other words, so far so good.

Buenos Aires

It’s hard for me to generalize much about Buenos Aires considering how little time I’ve spent here and plan to spend. It was a waypoint but I’m glad I stopped in for a day. I wouldn’t mind exploring more. I didn’t do too much touristy. The boutique hotel I’d found online is just the sort of place I like to find. Central and within walking distance to interesting sights it has only 6 rooms. Quiet, clean, comfortable and place with some interesting character. Bonus: wine bar downstairs with some nice choices and a sommelier, Kevin, that calls New York home and spoke English so he could explain the choices on hand. It seems as if he’s lived in a lot of places – including Austin for a bit. Now he lives here.

I spent most of the day just wandering through the streets of the city with the hotel in the Palermo Soho region of the city as home base. This website I ran across: has a good write-up on Palermo Soho. You do find all the shopping and restaurants and night spots pointed out there but I’d say that’s pretty much a chamber of commerce write-up. The neighborhood and in fact all the areas I walked, including a close to 3 hour trek out and back to Recoleta, reflected a well-worn city. Graffiti graces the walls of most blocks, some trash piled at corners, litter. You’ll find that sort of thing in any major urban city of course but most travel write-ups only talk about the restaurants and the shopping but there’s plenty of the other to go around. New Orleans came to mind. Very cool place to visit, but a little frayed around the edges.

Plenty of the usual American retail influences here. McDonalds, Starbucks and I even saw a little girl on the street with her mom (maybe 3 years old?) wearing a shirt with a Walmart logo on it.

Food & Wine

Food alone would be reason enough to hang around in the city for more days. There are so many choices. Aside from a lunchtime empanada snack (that wasn’t anything to write home about) I only got to enjoy the wine bar at the hotel and one meal. Both were great though.

I tried two wines from the region where I’m headed: Salta. One was a Torrontes from the Colome’ bodega. Crisp, light, floral and dry. Then I tried another Salta wine that was a blend of Malbec and Cabernet. Ascension from Bodega Tacuil. Definitely out of the ordinary. A little on the vegatal side but not necessarily in a bad way.

The woman at the front desk recommended a popular parillia for dinner because it’s so typically Argentine. A good write-up here of Parilla. I went to Don Julio’s about 4 blocks from the hotel. Casual, comfortable and friendly attentive staff. The open grill in the kitchen area looked and smelled great. I got a good view because my table was right up next to it. Lots of meat choices here. I ended up selecting some beef ribs. Not quite like Texas BBQ in flavor but really, really good. I started with a ‘grilled cheese with tomatoes, basil and olive oil.’ Not grilled cheese like a sandwich. Grilled cheese like you put the whole wad of cheese on the grill and cook it. Definitely awesome. No idea how they keep it from getting to be one big gooey mess. Clearly the right choice of cheese for this would have to be important but I don’t know what it is.

Logistics

The flight from Austin to Buenos Aires is like any other long international flight. Between ‘coach’ class tickets and the TSA, it’s an experience to be endured. But to be specific, the flight from Houston takes about 9 and a half hours. They’re ahead of Houston by 2 hours so you leave at 9pm and arrive around 9:30 am local time the next morning. The flight was booked solid and thank God I managed to book an aisle seat. Otherwise, flights were mercifully on time and event free.

Having just recently traveled to Montreal, it was interesting to compare the two experiences. The customs and declarations forms experience is illustrative. In Canada and the US you get a form that appears to be printed on a stock that at least seems like an official state document. The two forms you get for Argentina appear to have been run off on a mimeograph machine. I was wondering if the airline had photocopied them.

If you’re from the US, Canada or Australia you get in a special line when you go through customs. You must pay the ‘reciprocity fee’ first. The fee is essentially because apparently turnabout is fair play. We have similar fees for Visas apparently so consequently, as an American you pay US$140 to enter the country. The pass you get is pasted into your passport and it lasts for 10 years so if you go back in that time, you don’t pay again.

Aside from that, getting through customs was no problem and the lines on a Saturday morning at least were short. Luggage was there as expected and I was through the whole thing in a jiffy.

I typically get the local currency out of an ATM once I’m through the other side and this was no exception. Except, the ATM in this case was within a separate glassed-in booth of sorts that could only be accessed by swiping your card in advance. I hadn’t seen that before. A security feature I’m sure. Later I saw the same technique used in the city.

I bellied up to the “Official Taxi” bar just outside of customs and ordered up a ride into the city. AR$198 (Pesos) fixed fee to anywhere in the city from the airport. That’s about US$45. There are no doubt cheaper ways into the city but comfort was a factor. I wanted to check in asap. We drove what I can only guess was about 45 minutes through and into the city to get to my hotel in Palermo Soho. As we got closer to the city from the airport, traffic got heavy. We went throught several toll booths and the rest was winding through crowded city streets. The painted lanes are apparently only a suggestion. Rolling stop the rule unless there’s actually a red light.

Squeegee Men and jugglers appear to be popular ways for people to squeeze money out of passing drivers. They come out when the light turns red and either perform or clean your window. The one juggler I saw on a unicycle was actually pretty good.

Off to Salta…

2012 LBJ 100 Ride Report

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Bluebonnets
Chas and post ride beer

This is the 2nd year I’ve done the LBJ 100 bicycle ride. I’m guessing the ‘100’ in the name would be for the 100K route because I don’t think there is a 100 mile route on this ride. There are routes of 30, 42, 62 and 85 miles.

I like this ride. It’s pretty well planned and the logistics at the start and finish out of the LBJ ranch work out pretty well. The last couple years they have also gotten a couple interesting booths to show up and the post ride meal and beer are very welcome after the ride. They also get points for arranging enough portable toilets and having really good rest stops.

We joked last year that there was an awlful lot of speechifying at the beginning of the ride. I recall Luci Johnson talked for what seemed like a long time. This year there seemed to be less of that but in its place was a staged photo/video op of a classic Lincoln Continental driving through the line up of cyclists followed by a set of ‘Wounded Warriors’. All that’s well and good but the reality is 98% of the folks in attendance came there to have hours of hill country cycling ahead of them and they just want to get on with it.

It’s a charity ride so you don’t feel completely put out by the $50 price tag for joining the ride (if you register on the day of) but it’s still pretty steep. Most people expect to do several of these charity rides in the spring and fall. At $50 a pop, I guarantee you that in some cases there are plenty of people that just ride, skip the payment and enjoy the open road. Like so many of these rides, there’s a shirt that comes along and often they throw in a water bottle too. This year’s ride had a shirt I might actually like. It was a technical material that I like better than your typical cotton t-shirt. Unfortantately as someone that registered on the day of – at full price – the only shirt I could choose from (at the conclusion of the ride, not before) was a XXL. You could fit 3 of me into a XXL. It’s a nightgown. With iffy Spring weather, I rarely register early. It’s irritating to shell out $50 on top of the $4/gallon hour+ drive. With this ride on the same day as the Rosedale ride, it’s impressive that they get upwards of 1400 riders on this ride. My advice: skip the shirts and water bottles and charge less.

Rest stops were good. All had ‘Gu’ (sponsor product) and things like water, gatorade, pickle juice, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and slices of bananas. There’s no place to stop out on these routes so your really rely on the support. If you packed a lot of water and food you could do it without the support but why worry about it.

Weather this year worked out fine. The morning started out gorgeous. Chilly but with a little ground fog (see picture) that made for some beautiful scenery at the ranch. Shortly after sunrise though the sky became completely cloudy, and a little misty. Not a full on drizzle or rain but just a little mist and cloud cover. Actually, not a bad situation to ride in at all. The temp was quite nice and the pace and hills at the start of the ride warm you up quickly so you appreciate a little mist.

There were plenty of wildflowers along the roads this year. The Bluebonnets were in abundance. I stopped and snapped a picture to make it official.

Post ride, there was lunch that included sausage, potato salad and a salad. It hit the spot. So did the beer provided by Pecan Street Brewing out of Johnson City. I tried the wheat beer. Mighty tasty after a ride.

Sunrise over the LBJ Ranch

Rambling Through Austin

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Central Austin Bike Route

Great weather in Austin today and Tony and I did a ride from just south of Rollingwood all the way up to the Arboretum and back. You can actually get a pretty decent ride through the central city and steer clear of most busy roads – not without a few hills though. I hate riding Highway 360 through town despite how popular it is with cyclists. Way too much traffic going at high speeds. Instead, aside from a few busy intersections, our route took us on mostly residential streets.

Going north, we went up to the west of Mopac and through some of the hillier parts of west Austin. Scenia Drive goes up along the river and as the name implies is definitely scenic. Then you catch Balcones Dr and head up toward Mt Bonnell. We didn’t go by way of Mt Bonnell though. The route behind Camp Mabry on Edgemont Drive is much nicer in my opinion and less heavily traveled.

Surprisingly enough, we found Texas Mountain Laurel already starting to bloom in a few places. It seems a little early for that. And in one strategically placed flowerbed along Rollingwood, a good sized bed of Bluebonnets was already in bloom too. Spring is definitely in the air.

Eventually we wound our way up to Mesa and from there, a fun downhill to cross Hwy 360 and over to the Arboretum. From there, we could have extended the ride up Rain Creek Pkwy but time was short today so we made that the apex of the ride and headed back. We crossed over east of Mopac on Steck and made our way south on Shoal Creek. As usual, LOTS of riders on Shoal Creek.

The ride wasn’t complete without a good coffee stop, so we pulled in at Cafe Medici on West Lynn on the way back.

All in all, a pretty nice ride of 33 miles. Click through the map for all the details.

ExperiencePlus! photo contest

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ExperiencePlus! is doing a photo contest. Seemed like fun so figured I’d dig through some of my old cycling related photos and reminisce in the process. Update: turns out they have a People’s Choice contest going too. You can vote for one of my pics by clicking one of the Vote! links below and following their directions.

There are three categories and you can submit three photos in each category.

  • Food & Local Culture: Photos of locals, outdoor markets, indoor markets, fabulous meals, grapes on vines, beautiful monuments.
  • Panoramas & Vistas: What did you marvel at on your trip?
  • Cyclists: You, your travel buddies, or locals who share your love for bicycling!

Below are my submissions in each of the categories.

For Food & Local Culture:

My first pick is of a very memorable lunch in the town of Peratallada in Catalonia, Spain. After a morning of cycling from the beaches of the Costa Brava we pulled into this small town for a very welcome lunch. We started with this very fresh salad of olives, tomatoes, greens, onions, tuna and egg topped with tapanade. This was at the restaurant at the Hotel Pati in Peratallada.

My second entry in this category comes from Tuscany near Castagneto Carducci. We were cycling through the small towns in the western part of Tuscany and pulled into this little market. They specialized in Cinghiale – or wild boar. They even had a stuffed one, to let you know exactly what you’re eating. Here, Leon gives the boar a little chin chuck.

My third food entry comes from the peak of Mont Ventoux in Provence in France. The climb up Mont Ventoux is a legendary stage of Tour de France. After the grueling 21.8 km climb you’ll find some enterprising folks have put market tables up there and you can snack on pastries and even sausages! At this point you’ve definitely worked up an appetite so dig in.

Vistas

One of my favorite pictures and memories came while I was cycling down the west coast of the south island of New Zealand. As you head south down the Haast Highway, one of the towns you pass through is Fox Glacier. We over-nighted in Fox Glacier and at the crack of dawn headed out to do a hike around Lake Matheson near there. If it’s just still enough and clear enough, you can get a great reflective view of Aoraki/Mount Cook and Mount Tasman. A little mist in the morning air made it all the more interesting a scene in my opinion.

The ride from Girona, Spain over to Tossa de Mar has you passing through rural countryside and then over some steep hills before you hit the coast. You come down out of the hills on a winding, steep road and suddenly the Mediterranean is there before you. As we cycled our way into Tossa, I stopped by the side of the road to take this picture of Tossa de Mar from a distance. What a fun day and ride that was.

Perhaps one of my all time favorite cycling routes was a day cycling in Provence. From Sault heading south toward Gordes you can go by way of the road that winds its way through the Gorges de Nesque. Out of Sault, you climb, climb, climb and then – a glorious descent, for miles and miles down twisting roads and fantastic scenery. In this photo, I’m just about to head down the descent, with the cycling Mecca Mt Ventoux in the distance. That’s not snow on the Mt, it’s the barren rocky top of Mt Ventoux.

Cyclists

This photo comes from a cycling trip to Moose Mountain Lodge in New Hampshire. It’s not far from Vermont and what trip to Vermont doesn’t include a photo op next to a covered bridge? In this case, the Union Village covered bridge. In the picture, me and Kem.

On the road to Peratallada in Catalonia, Spain the riding that morning was pretty effortless and everyone was all smiles. It definitely got hilly later but we were having a lot of fun on this flat section. Somehow from the seat of my bike I was able to circle around to catch Larry, Joe, Chris and Cindy just right.

Cycling the hills of the Sonoma coast isn’t all that easy. There are plenty of challenging hills. But Kem (foreground) makes it look easy here.

January Cycling

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Our weather the last couple of weekends has been pretty good for cycling. Last weekend Jim, Tony and I got out north of Liberty Hill and rode out to Joppa and back. It’s somewhere around a 35 mile loop. Good roads, not much traffic. For the most part, it’s only a route that makes sense in the winter months. It’s a loop route that from start to finish has no place to stop for water or anything else – that is, unless you wanted to go beg for something at someone’s house/ranch. I’m not sure I’d recommend that in TX. Or, you could carry a lot more water than usual.

This weekend was equally nice. Maybe even a bit warmer. Just did the usual loop ride from the house a couple times though rather than head out to the boonies. So, no new photos. I thought this one from last weekend was a particularly good one of Jim and me though.