PowerCycle

It’s sure nice to be back in sunny South Florida! The weather has been incredible since I got here. What a difference going from 40 F to 88 F. The best part of course is getting to see family and friends again. The big birthday thing was on the 21st. This marks the 3 year anniversary of the start of my trip. How time flies.

The big project besides getting new gear lined up was to close my BB&T checking and savings account. Right before lunch I walked into the local branch office, waited for the lady in front of me to close her account because of poor service, waited while the only teller took a call from another guy that wanted to close his account and then told her I wanted to close mine. This was all over their crappy customer service as I mentioned in a prior rant. The problem had to do with dormant account fees that no amount of emailing/calling/sending checks/speaking to managers could fix. The icing on the cake was watching the manager in this office get on the phone and into an automated system that let him reset the account status on both accounts to active within 30 seconds. Idiots.

One other banking issue I’ve been struggling with is ATM availability. Almost all banks are part of the VISA Plus network or the Mastercard Cirrus network, but never both (that I know of). Well, I only have a Plus ATM card which has prevented me from being able to get cash when I’ve needed it. Luck was on my side though. One of the accounts I still have open is one with ING Direct.

It turns out that they have checking accounts and, after calling to confirm, also provide Cirrus debit cards. I’ll have a new one in 3-4 days. The checking account also has ZERO monthly fees, pays 0.19% interest, there’s no minimum balance, accounts only go dormant after 2 years, and wait for it BB&T…they WARN YOU ahead of time via email AND online money transfers update the status! The best part was when I called and there wasn’t a freaking nightmare of an automated phone system to navigate through. A cheerful rep picked up within 10 seconds and I didn’t have to punch in a single number.

For the bike news… Karin informed my that my new frame is waiting for me in the Netherlands. They also sent a new headset, fork and a front fender since I broke the last one.

I haven’t really bought another new and exciting. I’m kind of debating if I should get a smaller sleeping bag but I really think synthetic is better than down even though it takes up a lot of pannier space. Most of the work I have to do is planning the Europe trip…figuring out visas, getting medical insurance because some countries require it to get a visa and working out the timing because of crappy 90 day limits.

The Schengen agreement in Europe is going to be a bit of a nightmare for me. Basically you get a total of 90 days to spend in the 26 countries that comprise the Schengen Area. 14 of the countries I want to visit are in the SA and any time I spend in them counts toward the 90 I get for all of them. The kicker is that even if I leave the SA and go into a country that isn’t part of it, I still have to wait 90 days before coming back in again–you only get 90 days every six months.

The parts that suck for me are that the Netherlands is part of Schengen so I can’t spend as much time as I’d like visiting Karin and Marten. There are also a couple big countries that are part of it that I now have to go through pretty fast, Germany being one of them. All is not lost though. It might be possible to ride the northern Schengen counties and then duck into Belarus/Russia/Ukraine for 90 days until I can enter again. I’m also looking into getting a type D (MVV) visa for the Netherlands so the time there doesn’t count toward the 90 but it is very expensive from what I’ve seen.

I don’t have a departure date yet but it’ll be in the next 2-3 weeks.

Nothing else to do so I’ll post any exciting events during my almost 28 hour trip to Miami.

01:42 in Buenos Aires. My 2 check-in bags weighed 52 lbs and 34 lbs each (39 kg total). Didn’t get charged extra for size or weight checking in at Ushuaia. Ran into a girl I met at a hostel in Ushuaia where another cyclist was staying. We were on the same flight, we share the same world views, our plane seats were 1 row apart and our birthdays are on the same day! I am twice as old as she is (which she found rather amusing as I reached for my metamucil). The flight was uneventful except for everyone singing happy birthday to a flight attendant. There was even a birthday cake with lit candles (which seemed…umm… unusual on a plane at 30,000 feet–what if the sprinklers went off?). I have a 6 hour layover here. There are no lockers for luggage or plugs for my laptop. They kicked me out of the comfy chair in the cafe.

This is going to get long I see.

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This post is all about the penguins! Fellow cycling tourist Vincent and I went on a bus/boat ride to see a colony of penguins not far from Ushuaia at a place called Estancia Harberton, the oldest estancia (farm) in the Argentine sector of Tierra del Fuego.

The penguins were so cool. The tour lasted about an hour and we were pretty free to do our own thing provided that we stay somewhat close to the group and at least 2 meters away from the penguins (of course there are stupid people that don’t listen). There are 2 different kinds of penguins living there in addition to the one King penguin that is apparently lost.

Back at my home for the last week I’ve been busy arranging to have some Tubus, Big Agnes and Ortlieb gear replaced. Garmin passed on giving me a free GPS but I had to try. I’ll keep my prone to shutting off on rough roads, 5 year old 60csx that I think is still the best one they make for bicycle touring (and many other things). I was digging the worldwide basemap with shaded relief that comes with the 62st but it’s too expensive for just an “its cool so why not” purchase.

Ortieb, also the US distributor for Tubus, is providing the same outstanding customer service that they always do. My front panniers are very worn out so they worked out a good deal for me to replace them. The Tubus rear carrier (rack) I’m using has some threads stripped on one of the support bars. After getting this response from Tubus I forwarded my request to Ortlieb who’ll likely ship the part with the panniers:

Tubus: “Why do you destroy our good products ”

Tubus is so awesome. They were such a huge help when I broke my first rack in Guatemala (my fault). Can’t recommend their stuff enough.

Big Agnes, the makers of my Copper Spur UL2 tent, are sending some more tent pegs since I seem to have lost a few along the way. The tent, by the way, has proven to be a perfect bicycle touring tent. I love the space for storing gear in the huge vestibules and living in it for a week, even in the rain, has been great since there’s more than enough room for me (at 6′ 3″) and a whole bunch of junk next to me.

Today I’m going to the bike shop to have my frame cut in half. It sucks and yes, I think the frame design could be improved (and is) to fix the eyelets where the racks mount, but I would still recommend Koga for anyone considering an extended, fully supported tour through developing countries (bad roads). I don’t think I’d be comfortable bouncing down a mountain road with 35kg of gear on anything else and their service is outstanding.

Other cyclists are camping here so I’ve had lot’s of company, others have come and gone. I’ve made lot’s of new friends that I hope to see again when I’m in their country. It’s not just cyclists staying here which begs the question of why people insist on putting their tent in the spot next to mine. There are so many other open places. One old guy snored from 10pm until 5am for the 2 nights he was here and I didn’t even have pine cones to throw at his tent. I had rocks but they are 10lbs each.

A bunch of us met up for dinner a couple nights ago and there ended up being 19 of us having drinks and doing all the normal travel talk. Of course the subject of who has the best beer came up and an Italian guy who works for the UN said English which of course turned into WWIII as the Belgians and Germans told him he was crazy and laughed at him. It was all in good fun though. I have learned so much about Europe, especially in the last few months as more and more cyclists come together on the few roads that go back up north. I will certainly never say to another a guy from Barcelona, “Oh, you are from Spain.”

The weather has been fantastic. It’s generally nice during the day with lot’s of clouds but a surprise rain shower can jump up over the mountains and be gone again in a few minutes. It drops down close to freezing at night.

My flight is still on for Saturday and 21 hours later I’ll be in Miami. Looking forward to the 13 hours of layover. That’s what I get for being a cheap ass though (the ticket was still $1200 so I was doing everything possible to find a cheaper price). There’s also nothing like telling relatives you are staying with them for “just a couple weeks” when you have a one-way ticket and no schedule.

No more South America. Time for some adventures up in the northern hemisphere where I’ll be cruising around Europe checking out the beer situation. South America was an amazing place to tour and I’ll never forget the time I spent hanging out in Ecuador, roaming around the mountains of Peru or sleeping out on the Salar where the night sky is just incredible.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been going through old posts and putting together some highlights like I did for the last couple legs. Here’s the latest addition:

Florida to Alaska (6,900 miles)

Alaska to Panama (8,614 miles)

NEW! Panama to Argentina (10,154 miles)

Coming soon! Western Europe…