Casa Robino

Or otherwise illegally deprived of your liberty :
You will find a wash-hand basin and a toilette. You can use the water by means of the button. The water supply is equipped with a time lock. You will find a mattress. You will get a blanket, cushion, sheet and pillow-case. You will also get toiletry, so that you can take care of yourself. After having spent one night here, you are allowed, if possible, to take a shower every 24 hours. 
If where you are being held has an exercise yard, you will be given an airing for about half an hour every day, unless special circumstances dictate otherwise.

So I sang and sang..
Que sera sera,
Whatever will be, will be,
que sera,
sera...

It echoed around the room, down into the corridor. I wondered if they could hear me. It didn't matter. Tired enough to sleep upon a weather vane, an icicle, a thousand red ants..but not here. I exercised, stopped the blood rushing to my thoughts, read the graffiti (I'LL LOVE YOU FOREVER AND EVER CORNILIA BAARTHOUTS), swam volcanos inside o' me. You have no idea of time. You meditate for hours. Everything drinks you. The walls absorb you. The smell of cleaning products makes you nauseous. You wonder what the sky looks like. Remind yourself that it looks like tar. That what will be, will be. That you're incredibly foolish and laugh into the security camera, the river of the world.
And then it's the end and all you have is gone, but you had little anyway and it's a relief to lose it all. You slobber and gasp with victory. 
Now you know. 


When you stay more than four days, you can apply for a conversation with a spiritual counselor. A conversation with a spiritual counselor is confidential. This means that the spiritual counselor will not report anything [YOU BLOWING UP Y'ER HEART AND OTHER THINGS YOU COULD ONLY EVER DO TO YOURSELF] to third parties.

I want to give Google Bike Maps feedback so badly… but their feedback interface is so bad!

I’d like to bike along the Potomac to visit some friends:

Why not stay by the river a bit longer, rather than trekking across hills and narrow, twisty streets?

No, that’s not what I meant. Let’s zoom in a bit – why can’t I follow the below Orange line?

Enhance. Zoom. Zoom. Enhance. Enhance.

Ahah, they don’t know about the (shown in red) bike path from the Potomac tow-path (path along which the barges’ tow-donkeys would walk) over to where all those cars are parked.

So how can I tell Google about this? I tried clicking where it says “please report unmapped bike routes…”

but there is no real place to easily mention unmapped 20-foot-long-paths-that-bikes-can-take. Oh well. I put it under other and explained as best I could.

Add a bike-map upload function, google! It would be really nice if I could suggest a “bike path” in a graphical manner, perhaps by drawing a line from one spot to another and submitting it as a “bike path” or “shortcut” or something. Writing all this out in text is ridiculous.

All Complaining aside, my thanks to Google for making this bike directions thing! I would have never thought to ride 50 miles along the tow path (or would have had to dig through some other bike map site), but it turns out that will be the *perfect* solution. Good timing, too!

~George

What’s the single most important thing to bring with you when traveling – except your sense of humour and knowing where you’re going? Right, your passport or any other form of official identification. And that’s exactly what I forgot before going to Berlin to attend a pre-meeting for the 2010 edition of the European Hitchgathering. I [...]

Bicycle Brake Cable Ends – there are at least 3 different types (two in the picture below, along with a shifter cable, and another with tapered sides I might post a picture of at some point). Why?

No, really, why? Even my favorite resource, http://www.sheldonbrown.com doesn’t say why.

I’d like to know at the moment because my shifters take the stepped, on-axis cylinder type of cable, but all the replacement cables I have are of the perpindicular cylinder or tapered type. Which should I install? Should I really shell out money for a new cable and give away my others? Why?

[Above image reposted, without permission, from http://www.bikecommuters.com/2008/01/16/just-ask-jack-when-to-replace-cables/ , a useful guide to brake cable repair.]

Most of my convictions lighten my load, ethical choices that allow me a healthy spirit and unburdened shoulders. Finding the balance is often easy too… dogma can extinguish the brightest of fires. A little milk in it? That’s ok. A hitch instead of a hike? No problem. Compromises for sanity, for health, for happiness. But when some goals grow roots, pulling them up can take a lot of weight.

I try to live life spontaneously, blowing with every breeze; I strive to be free, to release myself from fear;  I want to love with everything I’ve got. But my passion, my direction, is to consume consciously – To create the closest thing I can to Utopia. Mostly, these ideas compliment each other: Spontaneity, Freedom, Love – Travel… by Bike… seek Truth, and you’ll have the perfect fit.

Except when they don’t, because sometimes they won’t. Find yourself on a petite island, where communities go as fast as they came, lovers leave at the height of your lust – and the only way Out, Now, is to compromise on that one principal who’s roots run through to your core.

People who match my dreams, who inspire me,  humour me, reach across a world and touch me, aren’t always close at hand… but when they are, I find myself giving my everything. A thought and I tell it, a fear and I voice it, a love and I fall. So when separation finally comes – and on this solitary road I walk, it always comes – it’s a lonely emptiness that fills my soul. I havn’t found the cure, and I’m not sure it exists.

Taking a plane to follow that freedom and escape these island walls probably isn’t the answer… and severing the ethical lines of that conviction would be a costly cut. But how do I remember to believe in that?

I don’t want to always be with my head in the clouds, my nose in my maps, imagining better worlds.  I want to feel the grass beneath my feet, and know that it is the greenest.

Can’t wait to be back in the States to try out Google Maps Biking Directions. I’ve seen posts on how to automagically load google maps directions onto GPSes… sounds like fun!

http://bit.ly/aAq5YP

Not related to this cycling trip, but hearing about the annual European Hitchhiking Gathering while working on content for this site gave me an idea…

I have been known to hitchhike (usually with a friend, though occasionally by myself in Germany and the Netherlands). Europe is, generally speaking, easier (getting rides faster) than in the US, but Boston to San Diego, summer of 2008 was a blast with my friend Alexa. One of the few not-so-pleasant parts is occasionally having to walk a ways to find a good spot, and that nagging feeling, once you’re in a spot and waiting, that there might be a better spot nearby (or maybe your ride might come in the next minute if you just hang out where you are).

So how about, to speed up the personal transport part, hitch-biking? My folding bike is a bit large, and a bit slow (10-15 minutes) to pack up into its case. So how about one of those suuuuper small, if not so robust folders? Like this one.

If I am able to save up the money to go to burning man this year, perhaps I’ll try that, to get there…

[edit]Given that most of the ideas I have have already been… had, I decided to google hitch-biking. HitchWiki is all over it, and amusingly, this first-result on google is the project a friend of mine, Kasper.

[ps-edit]I just googled hitchbiking again and saw the same content (without my recent edit in google’s cached version) on a different site, here: http://digihitch.com/wiki/HitchBiking. No copyright concern here, as I know Kasper is all about free (as in freedom) content, but what I’m more impressed about is that Kasper’s hitchwiki seems to be mirrored at digihitch.org/wiki. Nice.

You know how to design a logo or poster? Or even a flyer? Do you have ideas to improve the design of the website?

Go ahead and come with proposals!

A selection of material we had so far:

Good news! I got rejected by Live Off Groupon! Why is that good news? Well it’s good news for this biking trip and my other plans, so I don’t have to cancel all sorts of stuff to fly to Chicago for the chance to do something bizarre for a year and win $100,000.

Anyway, I’ve spent a fair bit of this last week mentally distracted by the idea of being a finalist in the Groupon challenge, and between that and other distractions, and some bits of my bike that have just broken (good timing, eh?), I think a realistic departure date is March 20, the end of my lease here in Milan.

And really, it’s kind of nice that I’ll be my own boss for the next year, rather than being a GrouPawn. So, while a bit disappointed, I’m firmly back in go-mode.

Some people might think that traveling long distances by bike is a bit crazy or unpractical. Why travel by bike when you can take a car, cheap bus, relax on a train, or fly and get there in an afternoon. In a car, bus, or train it will only take 5hrs to arrive at a destination 600km away, or just a few hours by plane, but cycling there will take you a week so you better be prepared for your plans to randomly change and expect the unexpected to happen. But this is something that makes cycling so attractive, not knowing what or who you will run into a kilometer up the road. You will meet the most amazing, kind, hospitable people who will invite you for a cup of tea or something to eat in return to hear about your trip. Strangers will offer you somewhere to put your tent, a barn to sleep in, or even a couch or bed in their home and a warm shower. Taking other forms of transportation it’s not often you even say hello to the people around you or learn about their stories.

Its almost like we live in our own small bubbles these days, going from the t.v in your apartment, to your car or public transport, to your workplace or school, back to your car, etc..  never really crossing  from the boundaries of routine and comfort into freedom. Traffic jams on the motorways are really just thousands of people stuck in there little bubbles beside each other, going the same direction and not even able to say hello to each other. Our only communication is from the advertisements on billboards and radios.

As for backpackers or long term nomads, looking for escape or adventure traveling by bus or train most of the time can really burn you out. Sure they are fast but they go from one noisy city or town to another and don’t leave much opportunity to explore all the little hidden secrets in between, the places where the buses and trains don’t stop. Traveling by bike gives you that, under your own steam you can go almost anywhere you want when you want. Sometimes you can go to places that busses and trains don’t even go at all, places you can’t get to by car or even by walking but only on a bicycle.

With cycling, traveling is the adventure before your destination. You get to see everything, hear everything, smell and touch everything, like when riding through a fresh forest in the morning, feeling the breeze on top of a mountain, or the scent of the ocean along the seaside. This is much more rewarding then what is possible from the window of your vehicle, it allows you to be spontaneous. And when you have camping gear and food with you it becomes your home and way of life. Absolute freedom. It brings you back to the roots of traveling and surviving and makes you realize how alive and full of energy you are.

And on top of all that cycling is perfect for living a healthy life. It is great exercise and makes you more aware of eating well, getting plenty of liquids, and feeling good. With wars being fought over oil, rising gas prices and a rapidly decreasing world supply of fossil fuel, it only makes sense that our future needs more people traveling by bike. In cities, cars and busses create a lot of smog, noise, and pollution, and usually you can’t even find a parking space and are stuck in traffic. Bikes are a quick, clean, healthy way to get where your going, and you don’t need to pay a fortune for insurance and maintenance.

Cycling offers you the trip of a lifetime. Across a country, continent, or if you have the time even right around the world!   It’s irresistible.

I am in Rabat now & uploaded photos I took whilst in Spain. Read more for my collection of photos from Spain!

12►

Mechaniching? Anyway, I’ve been re-learning all sorts of old lessons, most of which the hard way, from my riding of the first half of the Milano-Chiasso route.

The GPS reported I was about an hour away from my destination train-station, having been stopping to photograph the route and leisurely riding while recording voice notes in my phone and noticed there was about an hour of daylight. Time to forgo the notetaking for today and get to the station, right? Wrong! Time to fix a flat tire! Luckily to speed things up, I always have a spare tube with me… but it doesn’t speed things up much when it’s a tube for someone else’s bike.

So I dig through my bag, hoping all the while the hole is findable and patchable (not in/near the valve stem or too big for a patch), for my patch kit. Luckily there was this puddle of brackish water next to me, so I inflated the tube and rotated it through the murk. Luckily there was a stream of bubbles pouring out, so I marked the spot, patched the tire, re-assembled stuff, and was on my way.

Lessons learned so far:
1. Make sure you have a spare tube with you (check), but also make sure that it’s a spare tube for *your* bike. *D’oh!*
2. Flats take time to fix! Leave extra daylight (time) for a flat, especially if you don’t have Kevlar-lined tires or goo or another flat-preventative measure.
3. (This one I didn’t have to learn the hard way, thanks to the ciclofficina) When fixing a flat or replacing an inner tube, always check the tire for foreign objects by feeling around *inside* it. If the glass/thorn/whatever is still there, you’ll replace the tire and it’ll become instantly punctured again.

Then the GPS batteries died (I’m not buying rechargeables from a Chinese bargain store again, regardless of the packaging), and I had forgotten my trusty Duracells at home. Time for the backups! Which died 20 minutes later. The backup backups? Luckily those brought me all the way in to the station (in the dark, with only my wimpy headlamp), but if they hadn’t, I’d have had some directions on a camera (whose batteries were also low).

Lessons here? Not so mechanical, but…
A. Bring extra batteries (not crappy ones)
B. Bring a paper map, or at least a paper list of the towns you’ll be going through, so you can ask someone where the next town is.

At the station, bikes weren’t allowed on the Regional train back to Milano, so I folded it up, stuck it in its suitcase, and sat, mud-spattered and content with my 55-km ride.

The next day, I was re-assembling the bicycle, putting the handlebars back on the horizontal piece that sticks out from the handlebar mast (that horizontal piece, I have learned from this stylishly attractive bicycle diagram, is called a stem). I over-tightened the bottom screw, such that the top screw went “pop!” What was that? It ripped out 5 or 6 entire threads worth of metal from the Aluminum handlebar-holder! For now it’s holding just with the top screw screwed all the way (likely holding on by 3 or 4 threads… :-/ ) and the bottom screw backed out a bit, but I worry about putting my aero bars back on (as I imagine they torque the handle bars around a bit), and also about the stem breaking completely on the road in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps I’ll replace the stem at the ciclofficina when I find them next, and if they have the part. Or maybe the sporting goods store will have one? We’ll see.

The biggest lesson!
Z: Don’t over-tighten stuff! Come on, George, you learned this 15 years ago, and again, it seems, ever 6-12 months thereafter. Tighten it *just* until it serves its purpose (in this case the handlebars not moving when you put weight on them) and maybe a tiny bit more.

There’s a Ciclofficina in San Diego! They call it a bike kitchen. That means free work space and free/cheap parts to fix and build bicycles, and to learn! Now I have to decide whether, when I get there, I should contribute and help out, or, because I live 40 minutes north of San Diego, start one in North County.

http://blog.discoversd.com/san-diego-neighborhoods-blog/san-diego-free-bike-kitchen-hosts-bike-rights-workshop.html

http://www.myspace.com/freebikekitchen

http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-bike-kitchen-san-diego

It sure will be nice being able to communicate fluently with other cyclists, rather than having to compromise with what Italian I know!

 through endless religions,
there's so many things we try to do truthfully,

(i) on the way back, I pass a box. A wine keg. Two of them, in fact. I kick one. It hurts. I kick the other one. It hurts too. I pull open the tap and press it into my hand. Grapes upon my lips! I carry them both, ten litres, across the city on my bike. My finger, split open by a broken beer bottle earlier, begins to bleed and me, cycling so slow, leaves a trail of blood thru central amsterdam. The boxes both split, and I take the bags. I imagine them as my own guts and can't let them fall. The cold gnaws at my blood and that which drips and I leave behind me sings, or kind of, and the bags wave back and forth, sometimes pushing me to veer almost into the canals.

(ii) I learnt how to make rice milk today.
I couldn't stop grinning and grinning. Grinning and grinning and grinning.

(iii) the other night, I decided to live at the bottom of a canal, here.
I haven't got diving equipment yet, so that will have to wait. anyway, it's difficult to make rice milk down there.

Shaun is riding a night blue Santos Travelmaster, with a custom built cromoly steel frame. It’s a derailleur bike (can’t afford a rohloff speedhub) with 26inch wheels – hand built rim with 32 spokes, shimano XT hub, schwalbe marathon extreme tires, shimano LX shifters, shimano XT drivetrain and XT derailleur, brooks B17 saddle, tubus rear rack, and bad ass mud gards. She is a lovely lady

Maarten is riding a black Santos Travelmaster 2.6 alu, custom built aluminium frame. Unfortunately i ain’t won the lottery yet so its also a derailleur for me and dreaming about the rohloff speedhub.  Features are all the same as Shaun’s lady.  Grace Jones is a bike one can count on..  She already showed her dedication by getting me to Barcelona last summer.

Hitchhike!

Where do you think we should meet? Read the discussion and choose your three favourite destinations.

You give three votes (the top one is your favourite), the one with most endpoints wins. This technique promotes consensus rather than majority rule.

Choices Vama Veche, Romania --1st2nd3rd4th5th6th7th8th9th10th11th Münster, Germany --1st2nd3rd4th5th6th7th8th9th10th11th Kaunas, Lithuania --1st2nd3rd4th5th6th7th8th9th10th11th Gent, Belgium --1st2nd3rd4th5th6th7th8th9th10th11th Chişinău, Moldova --1st2nd3rd4th5th6th7th8th9th10th11th Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina --1st2nd3rd4th5th6th7th8th9th10th11th Somewhere in Portugal --1st2nd3rd4th5th6th7th8th9th10th11th OZORA festival,Hungary --1st2nd3rd4th5th6th7th8th9th10th11th Iceland --1st2nd3rd4th5th6th7th8th9th10th11th Lakes of Finland --1st2nd3rd4th5th6th7th8th9th10th11th Monte Carlo, Monaco --1st2nd3rd4th5th6th7th8th9th10th11th Your Vote

Login to vote in this poll.

I’ve been distracted by tons of stuff recently, but finally getting back on the ball and ready to go. The delay is not all bad, though, as there is a lake-crossing in Switzerland, the ferry for which only starts running on March 20. So maybe leaving around the March 10 or 12?

Most importantly, I’ve finished gps-mapping the route from Milano to Chiasso (see the previous post for links, which I just updated), and hope to ride it tomorrow (always tomorrow)…

I just bought some soprapantaloni (do we say “over-pants” in English?) for the rain, and promptly ripped a small hole in them with my bike sprocket. It’s only a small hole and Anca mentioned using a patch of some kind… I’m thinking a tent patch, or air mattress patch, might work perfectly, as all of them are nylon/rayon type plastics. We’ll see…

I also got a new red light for the back of my bike, in case I bike at night or in the fog. It’s really nice and easily mountable.

Oh! And my aero bars! I love them. They make long straightaways so much more pleasant. Added bonus – mounting my GPS out on the tip of the bars gives me more peripheral view of the road while glancing at the GPS!

I’ll include photos of these things, but want to do it in Linux, and want to set up a couple things first (install picasa in linux, create a separate partition for my /home directory, so after putting all these pictures on my drive I can reinstall the operating system or switch to Ubuntu without having to back up anything…)

Disappointingly, I can’t get my computer in Linux talking with my GPS. Oh well. The hidden benefit here is that I have an excuse to keep the website updated with the most recent GPS routes (and then switch to Windows, download them and try them out!)

What’s left to do?
Make a rough schedule
Find a few CouchSurfing or warmshowers hosts along the way
Make a gps route (version 1) of the entire EV5 and post it to the internet.
Ship home, pack up, give away, or throw away all my stuff. The hardest part will be deciding what to do with the few books I’ve acquired.

I don’t know if this is true to you but for me sometimes it gets so bad
that anything else
say like
looking at a bird on an overhead power line
seems as great as a Beethoven symphony.
then you forget it and you’re back again.
- Charles Bukowksi

three :

(i) Pinto's eyes were made out of dead fish. his hands were giant weights for the rest of his body to carry, he appeared to be ready to walk on all fours. he often slobbered with his saliva. he worked 9am to 3am everyday, seven days a week. his bald head shimmered under the garage lights. the rest of his body was eaten up by these characteristics.
FUCK OFF he yells as a bird flies by. FUCK OFF. Then, he laughs. He laughs a belly laugh.
This is his english. Nein dutch, he yelled, nein!
For three hours, he walks around the garage with a spanner sometimes tightening bolts that are already tight. This is the way of the world, they might come loose in time, he says, in hungarian.
Sabu is Hungarian too. He smiles a lot and speaks a little english. Often, under his breath, he mumbles, you are stupid bastard, Pinto, real stupid. He walks as if each step is a joy, even when walking through the shit.

Pinto sees me out back and lifts up the garage door. The sun was showing the last of itself as grey amsterdam buildings dragged it down. I was sweating away oceans despite the cold. Three hours without an engine and a seat. I was so tired I could barely speak. So I said nothing.
He shakes his head.
'Kaput, kaput, kaput', he says.
I bid them goodbye. Sabu answers back and Pinto turns his back, defiant, triumphant.

I get there at ten, ready for everything.
Pinto runs out. A vein crosses his forehead, beating up and down.
'Kaput, kaput, kaput..no no no..tomorrow, tomorrow'. He grins. He grins harder than he'd ever done in all his days.

(ii) unpaced, trackless travels with brains and heart; peculiar nervous activities, the whispering of the blood, the prayer of the bone shaft; the entire unconscious being.
-knut hamsun.

(iii)
'I'm from country that nobody ever speaks of'.
Her bones were chiselled raw by tobacco and the canals. They take everybody here, eventually. She rolls her r's. She walks as if in a theatre play, as if every step mattered, was calculated precisely. She has no front teeth at all and drinks red wine.
I like her instantly.
'How long have you been here?'
'Too long'.
I cease to ask questions. Asking the very questions that bury me, but this time, I, fascinated in the answers. The only truthful answer is a lie anyway, non?
She studies me. I study my beer.
'You have strange, fantastic eyes', she says. 'There's something about you...you have great knowledge of people...you must be an artist, or writer, no? You have read a lot, but you have kept it inside you'.
I gaze at her.
'Yes...you look at people in such unusual way. People don't know what to think so most react badly to you. Don't worry about them, they are no better than wild dogs. You keep on. Not that you have a choice. You'll keep on anyway, you have great stamina, you just don't know it yet. Most people like to give in. Maybe you too but you don't need to.'
'I need my space, get out of my space, people, why can't you understand?' A man behind us mutters. His dreadlocks almost touch the floor. They are thick, like horns. 'Dis, my place, get out of my place'. He strums his guitar.
She writes down some instructions that aren't visible. 'Come here...it's squat, too, live music, good people, people who like to tell stories'.
We get up to order another beer before leaving.
'I want to tell you one more thing'.
...
'Intoxication...on anything, can only be good thing...we think without our guts all the time...let us get out, break free! Follow Baudelaire, young hopeful man!

So I was looking back over my old Email, at some I've received from a certain close ultra-conservative...

Do people really think that political party/association matters for crap in the US?

I mean, honestly, both 'sides of the aisle' have been screwing the American People for so long they don't seem to know anything but arguing.  When was the last time we a unified government attempting to do 'good' things for the people?  Instead of just fighting the other side, how about some constructive criticism and maybe a suggestion or two?  "Obama is a socialism" and "Bush is destroying our country" are great slogans and all, but they really REALLY aren't getting anything done.

The next time I see a comparison between ANYONE and Hitler, be it Bush, Obama, or Lincoln, I'm going to rip them to pieces (verbally).

I believe in small government.  So do the Republicans.  So why do they keep increasing everything?  Same for the democrats- What good do free handouts do to people whom already aren't working?  It encourages people to learn about...how to game the system.  And trust me, it's REALLY REALLY easy.



And the people...You want someone to blame, forget the government.  If you want change, take it in your hands.  Sitting behind your computer screens, blogging away about this and that really isn't going to get things done.  Know how they did it in the 60s?  A little bit of suffering, some discomfort.  Take to the streets, show exactly what you want to change.  When some of this happens, you get the right to complain.

That being said, I'm not doing much better.  I take as much blame as I give.

Okay, that's all.  Time to go outside and enjoy the fruits of my labors.  Yes, that's right, I was fortunate enough to have parents whom were my financial assistance for university.  I do what I do now on money I made working my butt off as a highly trained engineer.  That's fairness.  You want something?  You've got to work for it.