Casa Robino

Thanks to Anca’s recommendations and help reading through policies to find a good one for me (thanks!) and Jerzy’s copy of “Europe through the Back Door” by Rick Steves, I got some Travel Health Insurance!
Bumping the deductible from $0 up to $100 saved about 19% of the cost (10-12 bucks). 1:10 odds that I [...]

See original: Travel Health Insurance

I’m not ready yet, but I’m leaving anyway! In about 8 hours I take off from Milano. Whew!
I have put off departure too long already, so I’m not going to mind the fact that I’m not done GPS mapping my route, haven’t told my friends and family what’s new, haven’t put any recent [...]

See original: Not ready yet, but leaving anyway!

Roaming in Europe
I wish recharging on-line worked, but it hasn’t for me or Anca in the last few months. Anyway, roaming phone service in Europe would be pretty nice if I were actually living here, at least with Vodafone. Specifically, once per month, you can activate “Free Roaming.” For 5 euros, they [...]

See original: Roaming in Europe

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 [...]

See original: Google Bike Maps feedback…

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 [...]

See original: Bicycle Brake Cable Ends

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

See original: Google Maps Biking Directions! (sorry, US only so far)

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 [...]

See original: Hitch-Biking?

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 [...]

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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 [...]

See original: Mechanicking

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 [...]

See original: Free Bike Building/Repair in San Diego!