Posts Tagged ‘Cycling’

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A Race Finishes In KL: Langkawi Wowie

February 16th, 2011

I think I stayed in Kuala Lumpur longer than any traveler in the history of travel. As I mentioned in an earlier post, it was a good place to recharge my batteries and catch up on things.

Part of the reason for the extended stay, though, was catching the final stage of the Tour de Langkawi on February 1st.

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While a far cry from the competition, grandeur and history of the Tour de France (link: my thoughts on why the Travel Channel should be showing the Tour de France), this race has been around for 15 years already and is the biggest cycling event in Asia.

While the course changes each year, it generally covers most of Malaysia’s prime destinations – Langkawi, Penang, Genting Highlands, Malacca and KL. I saw only the final stage in KL this year, although following it for the duration would certainly be a good (albeit quick) overview of Malaysia. Past challenges of getting the equipment across water has kept it restricted to the peninsular section of the nation, so you wouldn’t catch Sabah if you were to chase the riders.

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The podium, being readied for the arrival of the day's winners.

Past winners include well-known US riders Tom Danielson and Chris Horner. Because it’s very early in the year, it’s a good testing ground for young riders as they gear up for the bigger races like the Giro d’Italia and Le Tour. This year, the race was won by Venezuela’s Jonathan Monsalve, while Italy’s Andrea Guardini won that day’s stage.

The ride was well organized, though lightly attended. Most of the hostels and hotel staff barely knew it was happening, though the riders sailed past their front door six times on the final loops toward the finish line. I drew course maps and let everyone know about the road closures they’d be facing, but couldn’t find a single person in the hostel who was interested in checking it out. *sigh* – professional cycling doesn’t have a lot of fans once you get off the European continent.

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The music, dancing, sponsor booths and broadcast helicopters brought a lively energy to an area of KL that is typically quiet on a Tuesday afternoon. I didn’t make it to the other areas of the course, but it shut down several main roads for a couple of hours which certainly made traffic an interesting challenge that day.

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How I Picture Los Angeles

January 28th, 2011

Taking a slightly different direction today. I found myself watching a movie that reminded me of Los Angeles, which brought back memories of the city I called home for 21 years.

Before leaving on my trip, a friend of mine joined me for one final tour of the city. We did all the cheesy tourist stuff, even things I never did the whole time I lived there.

However, when I think of Los Angeles I don’t picture Hollywood Boulevard, Rodeo Drive or even Venice Beach. I picture the mountains.

Southern California is home to incredible natural beauty that I’d rank pretty high in a “world’s best” list. Sadly, it’s beauty that most tourists, and even most locals, never take the opportunity to see.

When I wanted to get out in the middle nature, it didn’t mean driving to some far off location. I grabbed my bicycle and left from my front door. Within 12 miles, I was in the mountains. Millions of cars were just down the hill, but once you pass the residential areas, they are a rarity on the roads.

The scenery is at its best in a “green” year when we actually had some rainfall, but even when the desert climate creates more brush than lush, the serenity out there was astonishing. It’s all the more amazing when you consider that a bowling ball unleashed on these mountains would roll its way to the middle of the second largest city in the US (if you had bumpers around the corners).

The Santa Monica Mountains, the San Gabriels, Angeles Forest, Palm Desert, Lake Casitas are just a few of the wonderful locations for cycling in Southern California. To be fair, some of these are from rides a bit further away, including the northern coast. I considered it all my backyard, though. A playland for me, my friends and my bicycle.

(as always, click on any picture for a closer look)

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Lake Casitas on the way to Santa BarbaraIMGP1735

On the way to Ojai.IMGP1320

Angeles Forest, with just a bit of snow in the distance. CIMG0175-1

Angeles Forest with the fog a couple thousand feet below. wheelmentrainer022

Santa Monica Mountains on a cool, overcast morning.

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The California Coast at dawn.IMGP1267

Heading up to Mount BaldyCIMG1702

A bit further north on the PCH, while riding from San Francisco to LA.IMGP05151

Finally, a picture of Big Tujunga Road in the Angeles Forest a few months before I left, just starting to recover from massive forest fires.

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The RTW Adventure Progress Report: Part 2 (of 3)

September 14th, 2010

Two months into a journey around the world and I figured it was time to do a status update (some habits are hard to break).

Part 1 detailed my favorite destinations so far, along with a couple I didn’t enjoy quite as much.

For Part 2, here are some updates on the logistics and financials of the trip.

With all of the nuts and bolts of the trip, the critical thing is to find a balance that makes you comfortable. Here’s how things are playing out for me, so far.

Accommodations

After a stay with friends in England, I experienced my first hostel stay in Lille, France. P1010531It was not a pleasant way to start off a long journey – the hostel I booked had no real community rooms, dark & dingy bathrooms and no lockers to store belongings.

Fortunately, the hostels I’ve stayed at since then have all been significant improvements over that first one – with kitchens, bars, lounges and even low cost laundry facilities.

Along the way, I’ve been in many small towns that don’t have hostels, but the cost of the B&Bs have been even lower than some of the hostels I’ve stayed at. Throughout Bretagne, there are wonderful cozy, country hideaways for less than the cost of a nice dinner. Some of them ARE in the middle of nowhere, so having a bike helped tremendously.

I’ve balanced the hostel stays with hotels once in a while. If you search well, you can often find hotel rooms for the same cost as a hostel and even if it’s a couple of dollars more, having a private room to stretch out is worth it once in a while.

My favorite is the homestay. Through AirBnB.com, I found a wonderful flat in Paris and was able to live like a local for a couple of weeks. Far less than a hotel, and a bit more than a hostel but having a full apartment including laundry, internet and kitchen saved me a lot of money on the living expenses so it evened out.

Money

Overall, my expenses are tracking close to what I had planned. It’s a bit higher than it will be over the bulk of the trip, but I had prepared for that. Europe isn’t cheap – especially London and Paris. A few months in Asia and staying with friends for a while will more than balance it out.

My accommodations have been a bit below my budget, fortunately, because I’m running very high on food and beverage.

One of the adjustments I’ve had to make is to make more of my own meals along the way, because every time you step into a restaurant in Europe, it’s nearly $20 to get out. Even fast food runs about $10 a pop. The only exception to this rule is breakfast. A coffee and pastry in the morning costs less than a cup of Starbucks in the U.S. (unless, of course, your coffee and pastry are AT Starbucks). The early morning café stops have been one of the great pleasures so far.

Health

Illness & Injury:

Overall, things have been great. I had a cold for a couple of days in Paris, but got over it quickly. I think the moldy cheese killed it.

I have had some trouble with numb toes after days of walking. To some extent, I needed to break in my shoes a bit more than I did but I also over-do it with walking. These towns have rail systems for a reason, but I was regularly walking up to 10 miles a day. I hate to miss the “in-betweens” along the way.

Fitness:

Between cycling and walking, I’ve lost a great deal of weight and my legs are dead sexy (especially once I learned to stop gashing them open with the sharp hybrid pedals on my bike). Unfortunately, I do need to start some sort of upper body work before my chest rivals the Grand Canyon in concavity.

Vitiligo:

Most of you probably don’t know about this, but I’m melanin-challenged. It’s not a big deal most of the time but some parts of my skin tan, some stay lily-white (or burn in about 3 minutes). Being in the sun hours and hours a day – either riding or walking – enhanced my blotchiness by tanning my “good” parts, even with 60 SPF on. It’s more cosmetic than a health issue, but still annoys the fuck out of me. I’ve had to vainly start applying self-tanner to even things out a bit and eliminate the “Guernsey effect.”

I promise I’m not orange.

Telecommunications

After months of waiting, I was finally able to jailbreak my iPhone and pop in a local SIM card to use  without paying AT&T roaming charges. It was a beautiful thing while it lasted. Sadly, it went missing while I was in Madrid – and I’m still not sure if I left it somewhere or if it was nicked while I wasn’t paying attention.

I now have an unlocked cell phone that I use for local calls (replacing the SIM in countries I’m staying around for a while) and I picked up an iPod Touch for all the other iPhone functions I would rather not live without. Skype, Accio Language dictionaries, Evernote, OffMaps, HootSuite and Kindle top the list of my most used apps.

Cycling

As I mentioned in part 1, riding has been one of the best parts of the trip. The bike comes with a couple downsides, though. P1010634

With a load on it, the bike limits you to around 80 miles a day, preferably not more than 60, fewer if there are hills along the way. That means it takes a while to get to a destination that’s 300 miles away. Physically, that kind of riding doesn’t phase me, but it does cause some other issues.

You’re constantly on the move. If you want to get from Paris to Bordeaux, you’re going to be on the road every day or it’s going to take you weeks to make the trek.

With daily packing & unpacking and 6 or 7 hours of ride time, it’s challenging to get to know people and places along the way. There are a lot of days when you do little more than eat breakfast, ride, shower, have dinner and sleep. For me, that’s actually a wonderful day – but at the same time, I felt like I wasn’t really getting to know the towns I sped past.

Spain, in particular, has not been a bike-friendly country when you get past the cities of Barcelona and Valencia. Bikes aren’t allowed on the high-speed rail (which is the case in several countries) and drivers in much of Spain aren’t using to seeing bikes on their roads.

So, what’s next on that front?

I’ve temporarily left the bike behind in Madrid, so I can hit up some destinations that would have been a serious logistical hassle. While I’m in England for the next few weeks, I’ll be looking at picking up a folding bike so that I can more easily transport it and still have wheels with me for rides around the area. I won’t be using it for point to point transportation, but since I’m planning extended stays in the cities I visit going forward, that becomes less of a focus anyway.

Cycling is an important facet for me, but I’m not one of those travelers who wants to be on the bike and riding to a new location every day.

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Whew. Long post. There’s more, but those are the big things. Next week – Part 3: Next destinations and goal updates.

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The RTW Adventure Progress Report: Part 1 (of 3)

September 7th, 2010

I’m now two months into a journey that has no set end date. You have no idea how much that nags at me – not the fact that there IS no end date, just my inability to attach a % completion to where I am so far. Some habits are hard to break.

A lot has happened over the past couple of months, so I’m splitting this up into 3 parts, to give each aspect its due. And milk this for a few more posts.

1) The destination highlights

2) Logistics & financials

3) The goals and what’s next

I’ve been to 5 countries in the past two months – England, France, Belgium, The Netherlands and Spain. Exploring each of them has been wonderful, but here are the parts that stand above the rest.

My favorite destinations

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Seriously, if you're going to spend an afternoon reading in the park, isn't this a good one?

Paris. It’s still the peak of my travel love. This time I was able to spend time enjoying the culture and environment like a local, albeit for a couple of weeks. In addition to leisurely visiting parks and relaxing in many of the beautiful plazas of the city, I indulged in summer activities like watching films under the stars at the Parc du Villettes. Staying in a lovely flat away from the city center enriched the experience tremendously, and is something I hope to repeat at other destinations.

Belgium. I didn’t spend nearly enough time in Bruges and Antwerp – both of them were beautiful cities I knew little about before I rode in. Missing out on Brussels along the way gives me ample reason to return to the land of Tin Tin.

Bretagne and the Celtic Festival. There are a lot of established cycling routes in France, but a solo ride down the coast of Bretagne introduced me to an entirely new region of the country – coastal towns, ancient family farms and a huge Celtic festival in Lorient were the pinnacle of my attempt to see parts of the nation that were off the beaten path for most (foreign) travelers. I loved every minute of it.

Valencia, Spain. Aside from Paris, this was my favorite city along the way. A fascinating history, outstanding architecture (old and new) and a surprisingly strong flow of other travelers, even before La Tomatina kicked off.

The Parts I Haven’t Been Quite As Enamored With

Madrid, Spain. As cities go, it just wasn’t my cup of tea. It had kind of a harsh, gloomy quality to it. There were certainly aspects I enjoyed, but the city center was filled with Cash for Gold hawkers (dozens of them), grabby hookers (I’m not kidding, several of them tried to grab my arm and pull me along with them – god knows where) and gambling halls. Madrid’s Museo del Prado boasts one of the largest collections of artwork in the world, but much of it was room after room of portraits that meant little to me. Seeing Hieronymous Bosch’s “Garden of Earthly Delights” was the only real highlight. That guy did some seriously messed up work, hundreds of years before Salvador Dali.

Amsterdam. I found the city and the people lovely throughout the Netherlands, but the tone of the place at night was just a bit much for me. I honestly love the openness about sex and weed, and it’s wonderful that there’s an understanding that people can responsibly partake in whatever activities they’d like. Those particular pursuits just weren’t my cup of tea, though, so after the first couple of nights of exploring and people watching, I generally ended up calling it a night early.

What I’m enjoying

Staying put for a while. That’s a bit of a travel oxymoron, but I’m really enjoying getting to know a town by spending a minimum of a week in the same place. The first couple of days are spent walking around, visiting the “required” sites and getting a feel for the place. Then I settle in, head to local cafes, sit in parks, read, write and just relax.

It’s a delicate balance because I also want to see a lot of towns and destinations that are off the beaten path. For example, I could have spent two weeks in Paris, followed by a train to Bordeaux and spent two weeks there, but I would have missed out on visits to Brest, Lorient, Quimper, Vannes and Nantes. The trip wouldn’t have been the same without them.

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Not a view you get on a train.

Cycling through small towns. It gets my adrenaline going as well as sparking up the exploration nodes of my brain. Even on rainy mornings, the quiet pedaling through the empty hills and valleys of France, Belgium and the Netherlands have been an irreplaceable facet of the journey.

A wealth of cultural events I didn’t even know about. I certainly knew about the Tour de France and planned some of my trip around it, but watching the World Cup Finals with thousands of people in the town plaza of Lille, France had an indescribable energy to it (especially since Lille is pretty much equidistant between The Netherlands and Spain, the two competitors). Seeing the finale of the Tall Boat Races in Antwerp was an unexpected pleasure but little flea markets, regional celebrations and sporting events pop up everywhere if you look around a bit.

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Next up: How are the logistics and finances shaping up?

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Unusual Sights in Amsterdam

July 28th, 2010

Rather than post photos of things other people have shared a million times, here are a few things I found interesting in Amsterdam:

Sorry, I didn’t get any good photos of the guy who apparently died during his visit to the red light district (yes, DURING). But it was definitely interesting to watch the hullaballoo.

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Bikes were parked everywhere. The most in any one place was near the train station. This is about 1/3rd of a multi-level parking structure and bike parking area. Regardless of all the bikes, I was actually not comfortable riding around town. The way cars, bikes and trains cross paths, it’s like those old silent movies where the getaway car crosses the tracks milliseconds before the train rams it.

Bike parking by the train station.

Yes, yes. You’re comfortable with your sexuality. We get it. You don’t have to keep beating it to death. So to speak.

Nationaal Monument at Dam

I would estimate that 30% of bikes in Amsterdam are discarded and forgotten.

Bike or unique planter?

I thought it was cool that houseboats were apparently permanently moored by the canals.

Houseboats

Is there even room for a Dalmation in this car? I hope the hook n ladder truck is a bit larger.

Fire department vehicle

In case you were curious how furniture gets to the 5th floor with those tiny little staircases.

A "ladder-vator"

And finally… I’m more terrified by what this sign might mean than anything else I’ve seen in Europe.

DNA spray - WTF??

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Changes: Travel Communication and Transportation

July 14th, 2010
A Eurostar.
Image via Wikipedia

A few more alterations and updates to my plan based on how things have gone so far:

Communication:

Lesson #1: AT&T Sucks
» Read more: Changes: Travel Communication and Transportation

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Why the Travel Channel should be Showing the Tour de France

July 10th, 2010
Tourmalet - steep stretch east side
Image by will_cyclist via Flickr

Open letter to Laureen Ong, President of Travel Channel

Dear Laureen,

Can I call you Laureen? Perhaps that’s a bit too familiar, but I have to tell you that I’m a fan of your work. Well, I’m a fan of Samantha Brown. So, I’d like to help you out a bit. » Read more: Why the Travel Channel should be Showing the Tour de France

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Smart-Ass Answers to Good Questions

June 16th, 2010

As I’ve been planning and discussing my trip, many people have had questions about the details that go into a journey like this. Since I don’t want to fool anyone into thinking I have even an inkling about what I’m doing, I am instead providing these answers, which are of no help to anyone.

  1. What made you decide to do this?
    • Eleanor Roosevelt said you should do one thing each day that scares you. I saved up to cash them all at once.
  2. Is this a mid-life crisis?
    • The mid-life crisis was when ten years ago when I bought the Mercedes convertible and had the 23 year old girlfriend with ginormous fake breasts. This is better described as a “last ditch effort.”
  3. What’s your budget? About $100,000 for a year?
    • $95,000 actually. Incredibly, there are some cities that still don’t have a Four Seasons.
  4. Are you in good enough shape?
    • Hell no. But after riding 300 miles a week through the Alps for a month, I will be.
  5. How are you getting over the ocean?
    • I wanted to use pontoons to pedal across, but I’m a shitty fisherman so food became an issue. You can only eat so many Clif Bars.
  6. How do you get to Southeast Asia?
    • Practice.
  7. What are you doing when you get back?
    • You assume I’ll survive the trip? Score one for me!
  8. Where are you storing all your stuff?
    • In a van down by the river.
  9. Are you doing it with a group?
    • Only if I’m very lucky or we get really drunk.
  10. Do you wear a backpack with all your stuff in it?
    • Yes, and I packed a chiropractor in there to work out the kinks at the end of the day.
  11. Do you have the route all planned out?
    • I did, but unfortunately I was holding the map upside down, so now I have to make it up as I go along.
  12. Aren’t you afraid of being impotent from the bike riding? Or sterile?
    • If I believed impotence was a real risk of cycling, I’d have smashed my bike with a ball-peen hammer years ago. But sterility is A-OK in my book – more people should try it.
  13. Are you only taking the one bike? Don’t you need a lighter bike to go up mountains?
    • The SAG vehicle will have my back-up ride in it. Unfortunately, towing a Saab wagon behind me will mean a shitload of pedaling.
  14. What are you doing about medical insurance?
    • Isn’t universal health care available in the rest of the civilized world? And uncivilized? And pretty much everywhere?

My apologies to anyone who actually wanted to know answers to any of those questions, but I’m too excited to be serious right now!

12 days and counting!!

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Winding Down, Ramping Up and Moving On

June 6th, 2010
Top 3 Shows at the Universal Studios Singapore

"My" castle... Image by jo.in.pink via Flickr

Tonight, the part of Joel Ward is going to be played by someone who’s not nearly as focused. With just over 3 weeks left, my brain is totally twisted into knots so I’m afraid this post is going to be a bit of a dumping ground and a quick offload of what’s been on my mind.

Winding Down:

As I head into my last full week of work, it brought to mind some of the wonderful experiences I had at DreamWorks. It really was a wonderful company to work for and while I may be leaving, it’s not out of frustration or dissatisfaction. I’m leaving for very positive reasons – to pursue a dream of my own. » Read more: Winding Down, Ramping Up and Moving On

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My World in Numbers

May 11th, 2010
stealing on flickr continues...
Image by lovelypetal via Flickr


With just seven weeks to go until I leave on my round the world trip, it’s about time I follow through on one of the commitments I made several months ago. I promised Jeremy at www.livingthedreamrtw.com that I would steal his sidebar tally idea for my own site. At long last, I’m keeping my word.

As I travel, here are some of the metrics I’ll be tracking. Regular updates will be available at “My World In Numbers” on my Route page and I’ll post a monthly update as a blog post. » Read more: My World in Numbers

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