The Year for Gear - New Bike

New Bike

First off I should go into the selection process of picking this “new bike”.

Plans to go back to Europe in the Spring had a large monkey wrench tossed in with the announcement by Lufthansa Airlines that they were leaving the Portland, Oregon airport. Personal experience along with the advice of other seasoned travelers had impressed on me to when ever possible travel with one airline with a few stops as possible. With only one airline to deal with when and if things go wrong they have very few options for deflecting blame. Having only one transfer with good luck you and your gear will make it on the same plane and arrive at the same place at….( listen closely as you can hear me knocking on wood) the same time.. (Hopefully Madrid was the exception.)

So now I was stuck with going to Plan ‘B’ finding one Airline to fly with one stop between here and Athens. This wasn't as quick or as easy as I had first thought. Most of the Portland options were long and involved flying to the east coast then jumping the Atlantic.

So then I looked at Seattle, one airline with one stop several choices. I checked each airline baggage rules; low and behold three airlines allow your bicycle as second bag. British Airlines charges you $60 for the second bag; both KLM and AIRFRANCE allow a second bag for no additional fee. Change that as of November that both charge a small fee for a second bag. But this fee is nowhere near the $200.00 each way that most American based and some European airlines want to charge Wahoo I can take a full sized touring bike on my upcoming trip to Greece and still have money left to hit the bakeries.

Now comes the difficult part.. My Raleigh road bike that has served me faithfully on many tours has a slight phobia to ridding on dirt roads. I have talked to it using all the knowledge from my college psychology 101 without getting it to change its mind. Something about narrow tires on gravel during an extended tour of Oregon that causes this impasse.

Oh gee, I will have to get a new bike. And so the research began.

Criteria for this bike:

Fat tires 700x32 minimum

that was my starting point. A wider tire to handle the rough gavel roads in Greece that from first hand experience knew I would encounter.
I also knew that the Island that I was traveling to had very little in higher quality bikes and or spare parts.

Recently I had read of this couple that was doing a world tour on Wally World type bikes. Part of their philosophy was that these tanks were cheap, easy to replace, parts were everywhere, and that if stolen they were out a 100 or so dollars. With the knowledge that the next town would provide them with a new ride or repair if needed... They showed a photograph of their bikes tossed high on a pile of cargo at a river crossing. If that was my Raleigh Road bike stacked up there I would have been in the major stress mode.

I realized that I was not looking for a ten ton Wally World bike but had subscribed partially to their way of thinking. Would or could a good urban cruiser fit my needs and handle a tour? There were several bikes out there that looked possible. 24 speed triples, nice up right flat handle bar options, most even came with fenders.. I looked at the Trek Globe, Raleigh detour and went with the Giant Transend DX from Discover Bicycles in Hood River, my local bike shop. I tossed the comfort saddle in favor of my normal touring seat. Changed the pedals for a set of Shimano duel platform pedals SPD on one side, shoe platform on the other, I was ready to ride.
I am currently using this as my work commuter and to say that I am happy with it is an understatement. Solidly build aluminum frame, 700 x 35 tires, rapid fire shifters, Ergon gp1grips (these are great, as in where have you been all my life?) With the new pedals I was into this bike for just under $600.
Waiting to fit it out with new panniers and a red town & country handlebar bag from Detour.us to go with the sweet red Detour's Switchback trunk bag that now rides my rear rack. This Detours trunk bag is made from 100% recycled plastic bottles.

You would swear it was normal fabric, really cool knowing that these bottles are not heading for a landfill but have a new life as a functional item. What sold me on it was that it has built in hip belts that turn it from a trunk bag to a lumbar waist pack.
So more photos of my new ride will be posted soon..

"Biking In Lesvos Greece -April 09: Almost the Last Day – sorta

With Turkey off the map I had another day to spend in Levsos. There was a hot spring resort just out of town so I made the long climb back up from the harbor area in search of the hot spring. I spied a village on the shore of the bay way off in the distance as I came over the crest. Why not was my mantra and I happily peddled to it. What a great choice.

A small chapel under a large tree was next to a large factory building. As I walked around the chapel I keep trying to place the smell that was coming from the factory building. It was an ag. smell that reminded me of hot farm silage. The ground around the outside of the building was covered in the brown gravel looking substance. A worker came out and I asked what it was. He motioned me away from the building but with a smile (no English). Just then another worker comes running from the darkened interior chased by a huge cloud of steam and smoke. I snapped photos of this event. After the first worker motioned me to follow and lead me through the guts of the building. Hot pipes and huge turning gears had me ducking as we weaved our way from one end of the building to the other. Two gentlemen sitting in chairs were as the workman put it 'the Bosses'. One spoke English this is his answer to what was it that they did here. After all the regular olive oil is extracted from the olives the remains are brought here to be heated to rid them of moisture. They then are hauled to another factory where they are squeezed one last time for industrial grade oil. I thanked him for the impromptu tour and made my way outside to my bike.

I made my way to a rocky beach to have my lunch, and then headed back looking for the hot springs before Mytilini. Somewhere I had passed the hot springs. I asked at the store, where? They said it was close by on the water side of the road. I went back and forth three times never seeing a sign or any building that looked right. I asked again at the store as I had covered the entire road from the store to where the road turns away from the water. But now I had land marks to use in my questions. Before or after the gas station, before or after the abandoned tennis courts, I had it narrowed down to about a hundred yards but I was still blind. I was lucky as I stopped still not sure where it was, a guy walking by pointed me to a small drive next to a run down set of buildings that looked like the driveway to those buildings, this was the unmarked entrance to the hot springs.
The hot spring resort was tucked down into the cliff close to the waters edge. Not visible from the road. It really wasn't very appealing by it lack of maintenance or it having separate pools for men or women. I paid the fare for the day but left after 20 minutes as the water was just a tad warmer then a swimming pool.

I had seen the Castle in Mytilini as I had left town on my first day

so decided that I would head back for a little castle exploration. I got there just as they closed and locked the gates.
As the castle employees disappeared for the day I saw a carved rock that said if my reading of ancient Greek is right 'Step here to breach the walls'. Up & over the first wall on a faint path I climbed, I wasn't the first person to use this route and now I was walking between the outer and inner wall. It took me almost 20 minutes to walk around ½ of this castle. I again followed a path that took me past a closed gate and into the main body of the castle. This interior area was huge. A good guess would be close to twenty acres enclosed inside of these castles walls.

The same way in was the same way out with me taking tons of photos along the way.

I repeated last night's dinner in the same café. It was as good the second time. It was now shopping time for tourist trinkets to take home I even had to buy a small clock as the ferry loaded the next morning at 5am