jon.bike

It was a short ride down to Milan from Como. I was excited to stay at another Ostello Bello hostel since I liked the one in Como so much (I even emailed them asking if I could work for them somehow with my software skills, but I didn’t get a response).

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The next morning I went out to explore the Duomo neighborhood I was staying in. I must’ve been in 10 different Instagram stories as I walked through the Duomo plaza. Everyone was making selfies. I don’t really blame them though, the Duomo might be the most ornate and impressive buildings I’ve ever seen – you can’t not look at it. The area near Duomo is a giant shopping center and it feels like it’s been that way for a thousand years with luxury stores inside of old Italian architecture. Everyone seemed to be well dressed. Lots of black. Lots of eyewear and makeup. I had the black part of the dress code down at least.

In my hostel room there were two young guys in their 20s visiting from Ireland: Lee and Danny. I met up with them in the commons area of the hostel for a beer and we were hanging out for a bit watching a soccer game I could care less about. I was trying to find a place to go 80’s dancing in Milan. One thing I like to try out when traveling is the 80’s dancing scene – I always compare with SF Cat Club the best 80’s dance scene I know of. Danny went to the bathroom and came back with another hosteler, Kaila, another 20-something year old dancer from New York. I suggested trying to find a place to go out dancing and Kaila enthusiastically said yes, Danny and Lee quickly succumbed to the peer pressure and within a few minutes we were all on our way to the Toilet Club. Unfortunately there wasn’t any 80’s music, but I pretended to know the lyrics to the more recent songs I recognized. There was a pretty cool drag show as well.

The next day Kaila and I went to explore the city some more. Milan had great urban parks. I loved Parco Sempione in particular. It was very easy to walk in and escape the bustle of the city. There were large cafes nestled in the trees for refreshments, dog parks full of running dogs, and people of all ages meandering around in no hurry at all.

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Kaila coincidentally had also planed to go west towards Venice from Milan, so we agreed to travel together for a few days.

From Lucern I rode south towards the Alps towards Italy. I had initially planned to go through the Alps through the Dolomites, but the colder weather was scaring me out of it; there was a bunch of snow already on the passes near the Dolomites. At the Museum of Transport in Lucern, there was a huge display featuring the Gotthard Tunnel. I didn’t realize at that point I would be riding over it within a few days.

The ride down was some of the most scenic riding I’ve ever done. I totally get why people love Switzerland.

I’d been using Komoot for most of my routing up to this point. It had done a pretty decent job keeping me on routes that were bikable, but it had a bad habit of mistaking hiking trails for biking trails. I really don’t know why. I suppose someone mountain biked down this path before and put it on OpenStreetMaps, which Komoot uses as its underlying data source. Regardless, after I approached this downhill, I was pissed. I was on a loaded bike that definitely could not handle these steps. I had to walk down a long windy path with steps with a heavy bike. At the bottom I noticed I lost a water bottle and my rearview mirror along the way down 🙁 At least I didn’t have to ascend it..

That walk down burned a lot of time and it was already getting late in the day by the time I made it past Lake Lucern. There weren’t many obvious places to stop and before Gotthard pass and I still had the hardest part of the day ahead of me. So I started to book it to make sure I had enough daylight.

The climb over the pass was 38km long and ~2100m at the top. While it technically wasn’t the hardest climb I’d done thus far on this tour, the temperature made it the harder than all the others.

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After a lot of switchbacks, the sun was starting to set and the temps were dropping. I was getting nervous, but I did manage to take a few quick photos along the way.

Close to the top there were a lot of bridges from the many centuries. Gotthard Pass was named after St. Gotthard, the patron saint of mountain passes.

Although you can’t tell from the photos, there was ice all over the place at this point and it was windy as hell. I was wet from all the climbing and was shivering uncontrollably. I don’t thin I could have pulled the brakes if I needed to on the descent. So I pulled over and put on pretty much every piece of clothing I had in my seat pack (I changed into a dry jersey too). I was feeling so fortunate to have everything I packed. By that point it was very dark. I don’t have photos because I didn’t have the patience or hand stability to take any. I was honestly very scared on the way down. I didn’t really know what was on the other side and I had to go down a fairly technical descent shivering in the pitch black. Thankfully there was hardly any car traffic.

By the time I got to the bottom the temperature was much more pleasant (probably in the 50s). I found this weird resort that had a bunch of high schoolers staying in it for some weird event. I rolled up on them out of nowhere at around 9pm. They were laughing at me. I started laughing too. Anyway I got a warm shower and descent breakfast the next day. I was so glad to be out of the Alps, but I know I’ll have to come back again during the warmer months to tackle all the hard climbs. I want to do them all some day.

I rolled out the next morning on to Como, which was an easy downhill ride. I got off to a late start though, so I was still chasing the sun by the end of the day. Man I hate doing that.

Once In Como, I checked in to the Ostello Bello hostel. Before I even checked in they offered me a “welcome beer” and told me to cook myself an Italian pasta meal using their free food and kitchen. I was blown away by the hospitality. This was the best hostel I’d every visited. I loved it. I put my bags in my room and made some pasta and took my welcome beer then.

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I really loved staying at the hostel, so I decided to stay for 3 nights and explore Como. During that I found a bicycle apparel store that was operated by a former pro cyclist. He was very proud of Como and wanted me to know that it was a top cycling destination. I honestly never knew that before I met him. All I knew about Como was that it was a “romantic getaway destination” and that there’s a James Bond movie with some scenes taken `there (the ones with the wooden boats). Anyway, the he gave me a bike route that I had to do before I left.

So I bought a cycling cap from him as a token of my appreciation and took the notes he wrote down on the back of a post card.

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The cap had the names of the passes on the route I was given, and I felt obligated to ride them if was going to “Ride like a Laghee”.

The next day I did just that, and it was one of the the best routes I’ve done, despite the very unfriendly drivers I encountered along the way.

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On the route was a cycling museum! Cycling Museum Ghisallo. I was super excited about it, but the sun was setting and I didn’t have enough time to explore it, so all I got were a few superficial pics.

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By the time I got back from the ride I felt so lucky. Cycling is the best.

Before I left from San Francisco on this trip I met up with some former YouTube colleagues Lim and Jesse for lunch right next to YouTube headquarters. I told them about my big bike plans. Lim coincidentally was about to move Zurich for a new role at Google. We casually planned to try to meet up as I was riding through Switzerland.

That time came in early October. At this point I was feeling especially grateful all the people I met over the years while working at YouTube, some of them have been mentioned in this blog: David, Tim+Steve, Mika, and now Lim. YouTube has basically been the college fraternity I never had, and I’m really appreciating it as time goes on

Lim had only been living in Zurich for a few months at this point and she was definitely more of a local expert than I was, so I was excited to have her as my guide. We hadn’t really hung out much outside of a work setting. I was initially concerned because she seemed very expressive about her lack of interest in athletics (which I love) and at the same time I expressed my dislike for board games and video games (which she loves). What are we going to do together?

Fortunately Lucern had plenty of answers to that question. We checked into a spacious and well-decorated AirBnB with a shared room with two beds. Lim came prepared with a list of things she wanted to go do. We were in the middle of Switzerland, the most beautiful country in Europe.

I was feeling pretty tired of making decisions by this point – riding requires a fair bit of logistics and I was just feeling tired of it. After a few hours of exploring Lucern it became pretty clear that Lim was doing all the driving. I brought it up with her.

Me: “Do you normally like being in charge of itineraries?”
Lim: “Yes! Especially when I don’t trust the other person to make good decisions.”
Me: “Uhm, wait so don’t trust me?”

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Then we took a funicular up to Mount Rigi, which has a panoramic view of the region. When we bought our tickets from the Lucern tourism office, the guide took a look at the webcam from Mount Rigi and said, “it’s foggy, but I think it’ll clear up by the time you get up there.” After ferry ride, funicular ride and a short hike, we got up to to the top only to find it pretty foggy. We had about 30 seconds of good views from the radio tower atop of the mount.

So we decided to do another cheesy tourist idea instead: cheese fondu of course.

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The next day we had a list of museums to hit. We went to The Glacier Garden of Lucern and The Swiss Museum of Transport.

We finished the day with the best damn pizza I’ve ever had at La Bestia from the chef that recently won the Pizzaiolo World Cup in Rome. He lived up to his title for sure.

I’ll remember this weekend for a long time. It was fun to get to know Lim more and it was hard to leave Lucern without strongly considering moving there or anywhere in Switzerland really.

After Lyon, I sped over to Geneva, Switzerland where I found another hostel to stay in, right next to the train station. This one felt more like a half-way house for people flowing through the city from around the world. It didn’t have much for a commons space and the people there didn’t seem to be traveling for leisure. My hostel-mate was a young man from Albania who didn’t have a phone with a cellular connection. He only knew how to speak Albanian and I only knew English. I tried to help him the best I could to fix his phone, but after a while it was clear he needed to go to a cellular store and have them fix it, but it was quite hard to tell this to him. I felt bad because he seemed like he was in a somewhat desperate situation, and without data, man, that’s a lot worse.

Within an hour of crossing the Swiss border, I noticed the drivers were more considerate towards me. It might be because there were more bike lanes. Or it might be because Switzerland has laws about honking at night (it’s not OK), so people just tend to honk less? Or maybe there’s more cyclists?

I visited the U.N. campus while i was there. Apparently the the League of Nations, the precursor to the U.N., was based there as well. Anyway, Geneva was full of posh shopping stores and banks, which matched up to my expectations.

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From Geneva I rode onto Lausanne and along the way were some of the best bike paths I’d ever been on. Both sides of the street had dedicated bike lanes with a curb separating car traffic and red paint on every intersection to indicate to you that there would be cross traffic. Pedestrians also had a dedicated path with clearly marked boundaries so there was no drifting between different forms of traffic. I loved how every class of traveler was treated well.

The road to Lausanne was along Lake L´´´eman. It was lined with embassy mansions from all around the world. I felt like I was trespassing rolling through. I can’t imagine what it’d be like to grow up in an embassy. In some ways I felt like I had found the world’s richest neighborhood. Apparently Lausanne is also where the IOC (International Olympic Committee) is based.

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After Lausanne I headed north on a cold and wet day to Bern. This was the first time I needed to put on my rain gear, which I was glad to have. Unfortunately, I sweat so much that I wound up getting quite wet inside of the rain gear and became incredibly cold. I was so unhappy by the time I got to Bern. I found another hostel to stay in and get warm in. I was really starting to enjoy the hostel lifestyle by then. It was such a nice way to meet people, often times fellow cyclists. I especially liked the hostel bed price while in Switzerland, which was around $60/night with breakfast; that’s a deal for Switzerland.

From Bern I rode to Interlaken. I had heard a lot of good things about Interlaken, which is a small ski town right between Lake Thun and Lake Brienz. It was offseason so it was relatively empty. I could easily see it being full of European youth in the summer having an awesome time. I found a cheap hostel there (Happy Hostel). It was in a rundown, but ornate hotel that had The Shining vibes. I loved it there. I decided to spend a few days there since I had a bit of time to kill (I was trying to align my travel plans with a friend in Lucern for that weekend).

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I kept seeing people parachuting down into the park which was in the middle of town. It took me a while to figure out what they were doing but it was paragliding. So I decided to get in on that. I had done skydiving before in 200, so I wasn’t feeling scared of parachutes. It cost about $200 to paraglide, which was a lot, but I knew I’d regret not doing it it, which would have cost more in the long run.

A van picked me up from my hostel, we collected a few professional paragliders and a few more first-timers like myself. We then drove up the local mountain from where we’d launch from. I got nauseous just from winding around on the way up, so I was not off to a good start.

I got strapped into my experienced-partner’s harness, we ran about 30 feet, and just like that, we were flying. It was insanely fun! And pleasant. I felt very safe; safer than being on my bike with cars on the road.

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After a few minutes of zooming around very close to the mountainside (I feel like I could have touched some of the trees if I tried), my partner asked if I wanted to do a rollercoaster-style landing. I was like.. uhh sure.. knowing that I’d struggle, but hoping for the best. He did about 3 twirls and I thought I’d throw up all over the both of us. I told him “I think I’m gonna puke, let’s stop.” He was like, “Oh, wow already OK!” He brought us down smoothly, but I was shaking and sweating by the time my feet touched down. I immediately paid the paragliding guide and walked to the closest bench to sit down and gain my wits. I sat there for about an hour hoping I wouldn’t barf. It sucked. But I think it was worth it. At that point I realized I could never had been a pilot or sailor. That would have been a disaster.

As I rode into Lyon, there were literally so many cyclists that I was stuck in bicycle traffic, which I loved! I’m sure it’s annoying day-to-day, but that was a first for me.

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I found an awesome hostel there, Flaneur, that reminded me of the coop I lived in when I was in college. There was a lot of art on the walls, a TV room, a communal kitchen, and the commons smelled like old beer. It made me feel nostalgic and happy to be living the coop lifestyle again. I like it better than camping because to be honest, I don’t really like camping and at this point it was getting cold and wet. I like it better than hotels because it’s cheaper, but also the people are very friendly and interesting. It’s very easy to meet people and when you’re alone, that feels good. The main downside is that there’s always a dude who snores and wakes you up so you get pretty crappy sleep normally. Tradeoffs.

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I stayed in Lyon for a few days to explore. I did a loop around the city and went up to an ancient Roman theater. Lyon reminded me a bit of Barcelona: great sidewalks, avenues, plazas and parks.

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On the last day, I found an excellent bike shop, Lyon Cycle Chic, that helped me get some big tires installed. They were super-friendly and gave me same-day service; something that’s hard to find these days as all bike shops are in a bike-boom-crunch. There was also the most friendly dog at the store that made me miss my old dog.

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I went from a 35c width tire to a a 47c width tire, and I went from tubeless to tubed as well. They are much more comfortable and actually more reliable than the ones I was using before. I learned that tubed with a thick/reliable tire is actually a better way to go than tubeless with a lightweight tire.

I’d love to come back to Lyon sometime, I could live there!

Once my bike was rolling again, all I could think about was getting to the next country on my itinerary, Switzerland, but I also wanted to balance that with soaking up as much of the French countryside as possible. So I mostly shifted into a less intense pace as I had been doing in Spain.

I stopped in Marmande, Bergerac, Brive La Galliard, Ussel, Clermont-Ferrand and Lyon.

In Bergerac there was a very well kept old town full of restaurants and bars. Apparently this is a popular spot for foie gras, though I didn’t get any. I did find a nice camp spot that was only 11 euros for the night. There was a tent nearby that sounded like a porn studio due to a couple getting it on.

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In Brive La Galliard I found a cheap hotel centrally located. Unfortunately the weather turned wet and it rained most of the time I was there so I didn’t get to explore the city much, but by that point these cities were starting to feel a bit repetitive to me. I also was pretty annoyed with the hotel. The manager refused to store my bicycle inside, despite there being room for it in an unused area AND it was raining – he didn’t care. I woke up the next morning with bed bug bites. Sometimes you (don’t?) get what you pay for, I guess.

Then I made my way to Ussel, where I found a couple who had a nice AirBnB that’s frequently used by bike tourists. It was a really great tiny-home sized place. The hosts were avid cyclists, but they didn’t know English and I didn’t know French, so we couldn’t share about our love of cycling. That made me sad to not know French.

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Then I rode into Clermont-Ferrand, which had a younger population due to there being a few universities there. That was refreshing because a lot of the French countryside up to that point seemed to be full of people 50+ with almost no younger people. I stayed in a pretty cheap hotel there and didn’t stay long enough to explore much.

The next day I was ready to get to a bigger city, like Lyon. So I made it a longer day and booked it into Lyon.

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I was so happy to be in Lyon because it immediately become more bike friendly. The French countryside was surprisingly unfriendly to me as a cyclist. Cars were constantly zooming by within inches of me, constantly making very risky moves. I felt lucky not to get hit. I was also honked at least a few times per day. Drivers don’t understand that honking at a cyclist is quite dangerous; all it does it cause them to swerve unpredictably.

After I met up with my friend Mika, who lives near Biarritz in a small town called Arbonne, my bike was in shambles and unridable. My initial plan was to come see Mika for a few days and then head east, but that’s not how it played out.

The day after I showed up with my busted bike, Mika patiently drove me to 5 different bike shops in the area looking for someone who could fix a DT Swiss 240s rear freehub. This hub is supposedly the most popular hub on the market and easily serviceable, but that didn’t seem to be the case in the Biarritz, France area (the star ratchet inside the hub needed to be replaced). So after a lot of bike shop investigation, I finally decided to order the part online from Bike24, which was an excellent company to me (although my initial attempt to purchase had a failed credit card authorization and somehow I didn’t get notified of that). I didn’t discover that until I called in to check on my late “next day” order. Once the transaction was authorized my order came next day to Mika’s. All told it took 9 days to a path to getting my bike to work again.

This made me feel a few things: 1) Fortunate that this happened when I was visiting Mika. I would have had a much harder time solving this problem without having a good friend pulling for me. He drove me places, hosted me for free in his apartment, gave me a bike to borrow, and made a bunch of phone calls for me to French speaking bike shops. If I were on my own without a bike that worked, gosh that would really suck. I was really lucky to have a good friend to help me through this. 2) Anxious. I was really uncomfortable staying so much longer at Mika’s than I initially proposed and no matter what he said to reassure me it was OK to stay there, I felt badly about it. I was also feeling like I was on the clock, wasting my precious 90 day travel visa and concerned about getting out of Schengen before it ran out. It was quite unnatural for me to just sit and wait for things I can’t control. 3) Spoiled. Amazon in France is much different than in America and I was so accustomed to Amazon next day delivery of basically anything for the past few years, it was quite hard for me to revert back to a pre-Amazon world where things just take longer. I am a spoiled American consumer over here, and frankly, I missed that.

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Slowing down

The silver lining of the bike dilemma was that I got to hang out with Mika and his partner Elsa (who is 6 months pregnant with their baby girl), and his mountain boarding friends.

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Mika recently bought a 200 year old farm house in Monein, France that needed A LOT of work before he moved in. He organized a “remodel weekend” with his mountain boarding friends: Guillaume, Vincent and Laurent.

We were quite productive and had a lot of fun. This was the most manual labor I’ve done since I worked on a Habitat for Humanity house in high school and I was reminded of how gratifying hard work can feel at the end of the day when you can so visibly see the fruits of your labor.

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A few days after Mika and I came back to Arbonne my much anticipated bike parts arrived.

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After a few hours of repairing my bike, I was in a good place to get rolling again, and I was really excited for that. The next day I packed up my bags and said goodbye to Mika and Elsa. I hope to come back to their farmhouse and meet their daughter sometime soon!

Headed to Switzerland now!

Riding through the Pyrenees was one of the best bike experiences I’ve had. Beforehand, I was very nervous about how remote the route would get and needed a lot of reassurance from other riders who have done it before embarking. As they say “the first step is the hardest part.”

Andorra

It took a few days to get to Andorra from Girona. I wound up cutting my route a bit short the first day because bit rain storm rushed in with hailing rain. Thankfully I found shelter in Ripoll, about a minute before the hail started. Ripoll was a cute little mountain town full of summer tourists. I started to notice a common theme here where all the towns have a little river running through them. The sound of flowing water all the time is quite relaxing.

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I decided to spend a day in Andorra after I found a pretty cheap hostel. It’s surrounded by steep mountains and feels a lot like a ski village, but with a lot of shopping malls as well.

The next day I rode toward France, not knowing that it would be the longest and highest climb of my Transpyrenees experience (16mi long/3600′ up). The view at the top was breathtaking and intimidating. I was now officially doing the Pyrenees!

France

So I rode into downtown Tarascon-sur-Ariège and as I rolled in saw a woman walking across a bridge were both crossing. We made brief eye contact and I continued to the restaurant about 100 feet further along.

As I was trying to communicate with the waiter there, that same woman came up to me and asked if I spoke English. I was a bit startled wondering how she “knew” I was English speaking, but in reality she just didn’t know French and was hoping I’d know English. Anyway, she asked if I was bike touring, which I obviously was due to my dress and loaded up bike. She said “I think I’m doing the same route as you so maybe we’ll see each other later, yeah? I’m going to the grocery store now, but I’ll see you here in a bit.”

I ate dinner and patiently waited for her to return, but the sun was setting and I still needed to pitch my tent at the campsite. So I eventually wrote her a note on a napkin with my email address and left it with the hotel she was staying in (which was next door to the restaurant).

I setup camp, took a shower and then she emailed me wanting to meet up. This is also when I learned her name was Petra from Germany (yay more Germans!). We met up and discussed our routes and it seemed like a good idea to ride together. Petra suggested we roll out the next morning at 7am, which was a few hours earlier than I was used to rolling since I was still on “Spanish time” (read: they do everything later in Spain).

The next morning, we ate breakfast on the river and got rolling.

Petra was immediately pushing the pace and I struggled to keep up with her. She was a very strong rider and I was worried I wouldn’t be able to hang, but eventually we toned it down a bit. She was on a mission to cross the Pyrenees as fast as she could and meet up with her boyfriend in San Sebastian, Spain. So she was on a more aggressive schedule than I was. I was really impressed with her determination and I knew I would have a fun riding with her. The first few days of her tour was rough: apparently some creepy men were acting weird to her, aggressive dogs were chasing her and her first climb was like 50k long. I think she saw me as good company to help her feel less vulnerable on her journey, especially since the first few days were rough.

We climbed up Col d’ Lers, Col d’ Agnes and Col d’ La Core for a total of 62 miles and 8,200 feet of climbing.

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That night we rolled into Castillon en Couserans, not knowing what was there and where we’d sleep. After a few minutes of looking in with Google Maps we found a place called La Maison de Natasha and as we walked up to it Natasha leaned out the window and said, “Would you like to stay in my house?” Thankfully she was Canadian and didn’t make us speak English. She had a room with 2 beds for 71 euro, which seemed like a good deal to split for 2 people, so we took it. Soon we realized this was a BnB more suited toward couples, and Natasha didn’t quite understand that we were not a couple, even though we told her otherwise. She quickly made a reservation for us at an excellent restaurant nearby where I had one of the most romantic diners I’ve ever had, even though it wasn’t “like that.” Having the contrast of experiencing a romantic setting without actually having a romantic connection with the person across from you was a very unique feeling to me, and those are what I’m trying to collect on this trip (and in normal life!).

Breakfast the next morning was incredible. Natasha’s dining room felt like something out of a castle that we felt like royalty sitting in. I was smiling ear to ear. The food was quite good too. Natasha really knows what she is doing.

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Petra and I both agreed that would be the best place we’d stay at for a very long time. Petra was really interested in having a “crazy day” where she really pushed herself to ride the entire day. I was excited to do that as well, but not so keen on riding in the rain, which was very likely for the upcoming few days.

This day we rode over another 3 passes: Col de Portet d’ Aspet, Col de Mente and Luchon Superbagnères, with 63 miles 8,652 feet of climbing.

That night we stayed in Bagnères-de-Luchon in a pretty cheap hotel room with two beds that was convenient to split the price on. Petra said she was happy with the day but not “proud” of it. She really wanted to get something more intense done, but it didn’t make sense to get another climb in because it was getting dark and rain was expected.

The next day was exciting because we knew we were going to climb Col d’ Tourmalet, the most famous climb of the Pyrenees because it’s often feature in the Tour de France. We climbed Col d’ Peyresourd, Col d’ Aspin and Col d’ Tourmalet for 55 miles and 9971 feet of elevation.

With Tourmalet in mind, we were feeling energetic and ready for anything. Even though there was rain in the forecast, we knew that if we keep stops to a minimum we’d be able to “beat the hard rain” if we got up and over by 6pm. So we went hard and made great time in the morning and quickly got through Col d’ Peyresourd and Col d’ Aspin. It felt so authentic to see Tour de France fans in some of the towns we passed through.

We were on the fence (OK mostly I was) about doing Tourmalet with the clouds brewing rain above it. After a bit of hesitation, Petra was like “Ok Jon, we are going to do it, ready?” I loved being pushed like that because I’m normally the one pushing climbs onto people and this was a role change. I was running low on water though, so we asked some random guy at his house to fill up my water bladder and we had a quick lunch before the big climb.

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We made it up, cold, wet and proud. Then we bombed down the other side into Bangeres and by the time I got to the bottom I was shivering cold and in need of refuge. Petra got me to a cafe to warm up. We almost decided to go further but the rain made us stay put, so we got a couple of hostel beds nearby. Petra said she was happy with the challenge of the day, but I think she still wanted to go further.

The next day we got up and rolling early and rode without much of a plan in mind, however I think Petra was starting to feel ready to ride alone for the remainder of her journey. I rode 76 miles with 8,300 feet of climbing this day over Col de Borderes, Col du Soulour, Col de Aubisque and Col de Marie Blanque.

After we got up over Col de Borderes, Petra said she was ready to ride alone from there on out. I was a bit surprised because we were riding well together, but she did initially plan to do the ride alone, and it was important for her to do the challenge for a few more days by herself and get that in. So within about 15 seconds of her saying that, she was off and I was alone for the rest of the trip. We did overlap with each other a bit for the rest of the day. In fact on the last climb I did of the day Col de Marie Blanque, we were riding neck and neck for a while, but in the end she dropped me. I was toast. Petra is one of the strongest riders I had ridden with; definitely the strongest willed!

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Col d’ Marie Blanque was very wet and I again got very cold on the descent. I stopped in Escot to check the map to find the nearest cafe or hotel where I could warm up. Petra soon found me there. She was ready for more climbing, I was done and ready to start heading to Biarritz from there, my final destination. We said goodbye once more and I headed north. Eventually I got to Orolon Saint-Marie where I had planned to stay for the night. As I was rolling in, I got doored (someone opened their car door right as I was passing by) and the impact broke my right gear shifter. While it could have been a much worse accident, it left me in a shitty situation where I couldn’t really downshift and the replacement part is hard to get. After a brief unpleasant interaction with the person who doored me I rolled on to my hotel where I warmed up in a nice room with a big pizza.

At this point I was feeling a little said to have parted ways from Petra. It was hard not to think I did something wrong to offend her, or if I was just holding her back, or if it was truly just about her personal journey. That’s something I always struggle with though – taking on too much blame for things that aren’t about me. At the very least, I felt lonely for the first time in years, which is another feeling I was seeking on this bike tour, so that’s good!

The next day was going be much flatter and I was only 100k away from seeing my friend Mika, so I was excited for a much easier ride. However, I didn’t quite make it all the way there. About 50k into the ride my rear hub started making funny noises and soon after it began to slip when I pushed forward on the cranks. All that wet descending really did a number on the rear hub. I was in trouble now, in the middle of farmlands in southwestern France without much help. I looked on YouTube for how to service my rear hub and found a helpful video, but after attempting to do the fix on the side of the road a few times, it still didn’t work.

I got in contact with Mika and he suggested I get to the nearest train station, in Orthez which was about 16k away from me. So I rode my barely functional bike on the downs and flats, and walked up the hills to Orthez and caught a train to Biarritz.

It was such a relief to finally see Mika waiting for me at the train station. We had some pizza and a beer immediately after to celebrate.

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But my bike was completely broken. I needed a lot of work before I could ride further. Thankfully, I was with a friend to help me through that mess, but I’ll write about it more later.

I wound up staying a few days longer in Girona because I was enjoying the strong bike culture so much.

So I went on a casual bike ride around town in the minimal casual clothing I carry with me (ie. no helmet, no spandex). Since mobile cell data seems to be scarce and expensive for me so far in Europe, I stopped into a nearby cafe called La Comuna to mooch some WiFi for a bit.

While I was there my friend Ben chatted me asking where I was, and I told him Girona. He said, “Hey, I think Jan Frodeno lives there now,” and I was like “oh how cool!” and immediately googled [jan frondeno girona]. One of the top results was an article about how Jan Frodeno had opened a cafe called LA COMUNA! I was totally shocked by the serendipity of me being at the cafe owned by the famous triathlete my friend just happened to mention to me over chat from San Francisco.

While I was still in astonishment, a few cyclists started gathering in front of the cafe, and I soon realized that there was a group bike ride forming. I hesitated a bit about joining in because I wasn’t really prepared to go for a ride (wrong clothes, no helmet, no water or food) and my bike was really suited for bike touring, not road cycling, like all the other riders in the crowd had. I thought: screw it, what do I have to lose if I go, I’m in Girona, I may as well join in with the local bike scene if I can!

So I approached the organizer (Luisa who was a recent sports management graduate student working for the cafe/apparel store, hoping to use her skillset in Jan Frondeno’s wake somehow) if I could join in. She looked at me kinda weird due to my casual clothing and said, “Well yeah if you wanna go suit up you’re welcome to join us!” I told her I didn’t have time for that. Instead, I filled my water bottle at the cafe, grabbed a to-go pumpkin bread and hopped on my bike for the ride.

Thankfully the ride was truly social. We rode a nice 50k route that had excellent roads and views. While I felt self-conscious about not having “the bike look”, I think others in the group were impressed I was there with them. I talked with Luisa a bit, met a singer/cyclist from Australia who warned me about bad weather coming in the next few days, a few guys on the same cycling team from Dubai who were visiting Girona to train and a pro triathlete, Christian Trunk. The cycling community was diverse and strong.

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The next day there was a lot of rain in the forecast so I decided to stay in Girona yet again. By mid-morning I felt like I had made a mistake in staying because the rain didn’t seam that bad, in fact it was just cloudy where I was. Latso, my hostel-mate (who was in the process of moving to Girona just for cycling), gave me a Komoot route to ride. I decided to take advantage of my time in Girona and geared up.

As I was headed out, I rolled through Plaça de la Independència and one of the fellows from the ride the day before, Salem from the Dubai cycling team, caught up to me and invited me to join his group of friends going on their own ride. I loved this moment and said “YES!”

We went over to the apartment they were renting and waited for them to finish suiting up for their ride. Salem was very friendly and gave me coffee, snacks and even made me put on some perfume haha. We finally got rolling and that rain finally set in. I was pouring pretty bad and after inspecting the forecast a while we decided to all wait a few hours to try to ride again.

Salem and I went back to to his hotel a while, which had an excellent bike room with a “wash area” where we got to give our bikes a bath. Soon after the other guys decided to to not ride that day due to weather. Salem wasn’t gonna let the rain stop him though, so we decided to get going, despite the remaining light rain.

We decided to ride the initial route that Latso had given me and after a few miles the rain got pretty strong. I stopped to give Salem a chance to bail on a rainy ride, but he was not having that. He was determined to to ride! I didn’t want to chicken out at this point so I withheld my reluctance and we rode. We had a wet and beautiful ride together. He told me about his girlfriend and how the courting culture was in U.A.E, which was pretty different than what I was used to in the U.S. He tried to get me to come to visit Dubai, which he was very proud of.

Overall, I was just so pleased with the cycling community in Girona. The number of pro and wannabe-pro cyclists, the access to great routes, great weather, number of great bike shops. It’s definitely the best I’ve seen so far. I’ll be back there again some day.

I’m in Girona this morning writing from a cafe that looks out over the Onyar river, which runs right through the city.

Girona is a popular destination for cyclists due to its proximity to great training routes on the nearby Pyrenees foothills as well as a local airport. This place is crawling with trim men on 10k road bicycles. I spent a while walking into several expensive boutique bike stores admiring all the high end bike equipment (proud that I didn’t buy anything!).

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A few days ago I was in Barcelona, my favorite city in Spain. I spent 2 days there (I also spent a week there a few years ago). I love how dense and easy it is to get around. There are people everywhere and the weather is very comfortable.

I just love how much investment has been made on public spaces in Barcelona. Instead of everyone having yards that are hardly used, beautiful outdoor space is shared and used heavily.

A few years ago my friend Jeff suggested comparing city budgets between cities. The annual budget for Barcelona is $3.07B with 1.6M people = $2,558/capita. The annual budget for San Francisco is $13.7B with 874K people = $15,675/capita.

This goes against a notion that I absorbed growing up: Europe has high taxes and lower quality of life. In Barcelona at least, based on what I value, I don’t think that’s true.

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Tomorrow I’ll begin to ride west to Biarritz, France to see my friend Mika. I’m a bit nervous about it because I’ll be riding through the Pyrenees mountains with a loaded bicycle. My cycling buddy David helped by reaching out to his cycling network (he traveled here for a few weeks) here in Girona. I received great tips from 4 local riders which has given me the confidence I need. Now I feel ready for a change of scenery and up for the challenge.