Be an American Day

It's July 4th, the greatest day of the year. For my International readers today is the anniversary that America adopted the Declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson. Independence Day. Yes, it is true that Mr. Jefferson and friends stole the ideas from a bunch of Euros. But that is what America is all about---taking all the best ideas, methods, cultures and combining them to make the greatest country in the world. America, is hardly perfect however, and often we are too slow to change or get caught up in our arrogance. For my American readers-- let's keep our minds open and continue to make our country great.

Mr. Sedore suggested I cruise around with an American flag and show Euroland what's up. I don't have the flag, but I have resolved to be as American as possible today.

This lady really didn't like it. Apparently I was in the 'pedestrian' half of the crosswalk rather than the 'bicycle' half. So I took her picture. She got really angry at that and I didn't understand what she said.
If you look over her right shoulder you can see the line between the two poles. Pedestrians on one side and bikes on the other. But hey, that's why America is better, we are flexible. Germans are obsessed with the letter of the law and sometimes seem afraid of change. I'm talking about you, Mrs. Merkel.

On the other hand, when I finished my ride just down the street I stopped at a cafe and the waitress was extremely happy to speak English. Victory.

Time to go find a place to watch the Tour. I will try to order an American beer. Boy that will be heretical. Hopefully American team 1 or American team 2 wins today. Though if one of those Pommies (Brits) wins I guess that would be even worse since this is the anniversary of telling them to bugger off.

Trans-Germany Race Report

I came. I rode. I finished.
Results and whatnot here.

Time for Trans-Germany

Well, I should have written a blog about riding out to watch the Tour de Suisse yesterday and a preview of Trans-Germany. I take the train tomorrow to the start, and racing starts on Sunday. Seven days of racin' mountain bikes from West to East Germany, averaging about 95k a day.

But I have been spending my time getting things ready to race, and resting a lot.

So instead I'll put in a plug for the best bike shop an the Bodensee. It's called Veldodrom in Kreuzlingen, Switzerland. If you are an English speaker with no Deutsch-skills this is the place to go. Ask for Clemens, he speaks awesome English (and i mean funny slang and jokes), and is extremely helpful. Thanks to him and the guys at Velodrom, I'm all ready to race.

But don't just take my word for it...
The top says "For Clemens, Master of the Bikes" signed by Mr. Ulrich himself. Both him and Bert Grabsch (World TT champion) live in the area and go to Velodrom.

Thanks to Sascha for recommending it. I'm sure he is laughing at all my ignorant posts.

Mr. Hincapie said

"Raaaah raaaaaaaah"
I swear I could heard him. Also, this pictues is why my last name is Noonan, not Watson, Bettini or Sirotti. More tomorrow.

Holla at your Fellow Cyclists!

Mr. Sutherland made a very good point at the end of his most recent Cyclingnews blog:

Note for the month. If you come across another rider coming the other way on a ride, raise a hand, smile, or say hello. No one is too big to acknowledge a fellow rider out doing what we all love to do. Don't be that guy (or girl)!

I just read this yesterday, but I have been thinking about this subject since I came to Germany. It's good to see this from one of the top racers on the US scene. He's Australian, but won the U.S. National Racing Calendar last year, which would make thim THE best overall. I'd like to think he brought the best of what Aussies have to offer. Another way of reading his message is this: 'I'm one of the best US Pros. If I'm not to cool to say 'hi' on a bike ride, your amateur-wannabe-pro-lookin'-ass isn't either.' In the US where seeing another cyclist on the road is not that common (even Tucson or Boulder are nothing compared to many places in Europe), you should acknowledge their existence.

In the US, I try to do this as much as possible. Of course there are exceptions, like when you are concentrated on pounding out an interval or navigating though traffic. But in general I think it's a great thing to do---for any and all cyclists.

But now I am wondering what to do in a place where there are a bajillion people on bikes. On top of that, Germany/Northern Switzerland seem more like the US where people tend to ignore others. Of course any small town across the world doesn't have this problem, but once they reach a certain size coldness happens in every culture. Overall though, the Germans seems colder to me. One of my general principles while travelling is to observe how other people communicate before you do it yourself. Doing this allows me to fit in better, as well as follow social unwritten rules.

Waving at everyone riding bikes on their commute in the city is just not going to happen. It would be the equivalent waving at every car you see on the road when you drive to work. But once I'm more out in the country on roads or bikeways, what do I do?

One observation is that cyclists here tend to be less likely to acknowledge each other. I would often try to make eye contact with other riders and if returned I nod/smile/wave/say hi. And riding with Sascha and friends there was little contact. Part of the problem is that there are so many friggin people on the bikeways it's a bit of overload.

One time we passed a dude up a hill in Switzerland, and they said 'Hoi.' Apparently that is what you say in Switzerland, but not in Germany. The first thing I thought was, 'Switzerland is a landlocked country, I did not know they had pirates.'

I am definitely gonna start acknowledging other riders more now once I'm out of the city now, even if it's awkward. I will probably make a fool out of myself saying 'Hallo!' Good times.

The other thing I wonder about is what to do when passing people. Since I am supposed to ride on the bikeways while in the city, as well as out on all the German roads (if not, cars get angry!), I pass a loooooot of people. I asked the Sherpa about this and he told me to say 'Vorsicht.' Sascha said 'Achtung.' The former means 'caution' and the second, 'attention.' Both of these seem pretty negative to me. I'd like to keep and express a positive attitude around other people riding bikes. Even if they are in the way. I have often said 'Entschuldigung' which means 'excuse me.'

I just looked up 'on your left', my favorite thing to say in the US, and got 'linkerseits'. Though that might just mean something like 'the bathroom is on the left.' I know Sascha and Boyce read this....thoughts?

The Most Well-spent Euro?
Things are generally super expensive in Europe. Often stuff seems really expensive just looking at numbers (and not calculating exchange rates). Such as 10 Euro bells for your handlebar. But I bought this at the Euro store today (like the Dollar Store). Now people will know when I wanna pass because the elephant speaks every language. Since I screw-up pronounciation of the above words, this will be a fun solution!

We'll see how it goes on my ride tomorrow. The horn pretty low quality, but if it lasts the rest of the my time in Deutschland it will probably be the best Euro I spent. I will likely be on a lot of german bike path tomorrow. There's a 75% chance of Noo-Noo storms in Bad Zurzach, Switzerland. See Cyclingnews to find out why.

Oh and if you see me on a bike ride, 'Holla at ya boy!'

Doughboy vs. Blimp

I lost. I guess that is what recovery rides are for.
I was hoping to see a statue of a french midget, no luck. This was in Switzerland, not germany, though interesting to see in the German-speaking part of Die Schweiz. There must be some history I should look into. On my Saturday ride Alex and Sascha told me that one of those extinct volcanoes (picture below) was mounted by the biggest castle in Europe. Then Napoleon whomped it. (I bet it was Mr. T style, for the Valley alumni)

Correction: See Sascha's comment(click on comments) for the actual location of this castle.

"Tschüss" to a good weekend

Tschüss definition from Wiktionary. It is an informal way ze germans say 'goodbye,' similar to 'ciao' in Italian. The one thing I don't get is how happy and positive it always sounds. Think of that girl you knew in high school who was friends with everyone. The one who was always super happy. Then say 'yippee' in her voice, and imagine that same tone to say 'bye bye.' That is how ze germans say 'Tschüss.'
'Yippee...bye bye!'
Maybe they are thinking 'thank god you are getting the hell out of here.' And maybe that's the case with my dumb American self, but they say it that way to everyone. I asked the Sherpa about it, he thinks it is just an accent thing...such as the Swiss german, or High/Upper German (group of dialects in South Germany).

Then I thought about 'ciao', and while I've only spent less than 10 hours in Italy, it also sounds very positive when I hear it. I guess all of this just seems odd to me because I would expect the greeting (hello/how are you/etc) to sound more positive than the goodbye.

Given that, I will happily say tschüss to this weekend, i got some good riding in after recovering from that haematoma. On Saturday I met up with Sascha, his friends Roman (sp?) and Alex who works for the famous Lightweight wheels (but not so famous in the US). His plan was 5-hours of 'fett' burning with a course-recon for a circuit race that is in a couple weeks. Not this fett burning, but the german word for fat. I can always use that kinda ride, plus I'm trying to get my legs back in a hurry for Trans-Germany.

He told me the meeting place, near this bridge. I had fun riding in circles while I waited.
This was recorded by my Garmin. While riding I reminisced about the pinwheel of death. While the pinwhel was better, this bridge was way cooler than the one in Iowa city. Too bad we aren't college kids any more.
This dude with a cart took up the whole bike lane across another bridge.
We met up with Alex. Yes his wheels are ONE piece of carbon. Please read that again, one piece...the rims, spokes and hubshell. They have some secret process to glue the rest of the hub inside. (take note of that first picture in the link)

Unfortunately, Roman's rear derailleur exploded. We had some more bad luck later in the ride when Alex hooked my bars (I think) and went down. Luckily he is ok. As well as his bling wheels.
We rode by some cornfields.
...with some old volcanos in the background.
This bridge was one of our multiple German/Swiss border crossings.
There was some sort of Smart Car tour or rally going on. Literally 20 or 30 of these cars in a row. The black one with the light was the last one.
Now that is something I definitely don't understand. The point of the smart car is to reduce emissions, driving and our effect on the environment. I guess if this was a tour to convince people to buy smart cars AND the company can prove this actually works to get people to stop driving their planet destroyers and start driving planet slow-wasters that is OK. But if this is just a rally of a bunch of people that think they are cool for driving smart cars they are a bunch of hypocrites. Bikes don't have emissions, unless your name is Cam.

Aaaaah, the bike trail. It was packed!
Now for some other pictures from the last week

America, the Beautiful
One day, I aspire to do the same thing. Though I wonder, if he is living in Switzerland is he avoiding taxes? Paying taxes is patriotic.

This is some brand that tries to advertise the awesomeness of American food.
Note the combination of McDonald's and Kennedy, two of America's most famous, for 'Mcennedy.' These cookies were damn good for packaged cookies, but I would stay away from the other stuff by this brand. On that note, Sascha, Alex and I went to the biergarten last night. This dude ordered two huge plates of fried something (looked like chicken nuggets) and a giant plate of french fies for him and his girlfiend. He topped it with a glass of beer that would overflow my hydration pack. We had been making jokes about Germans learning from the best of American eating habits, so we had to make fun of this guy. Later we realized he was speaking English with an American accent. It's not as funny written in blog form, but I almost died from the hilarity. And as we left the guy realized I was an American too, he was looking at me funny.

Boyceland
I think I mentioned before that I am staying in Konstanz, Deutschland as recommended by Mr. Sherpa. This is where he studied off-campus during college. I'm sure he's pretty famous around here. So I wore my sherpa-disguise one time to see what would happen.
I think he liked it because it reminds him of home
And it's windy, notice all the sails.
Farmland with hills.
Other entertaining pictures
I rode on a bike trail that was as wide as a road to get to what would be an island if it weren't for this strip of land.
Here's a picture from the other side, if you look in the center on the other side of water you can see the line of trees where I was riding.
Sometimes they have these targets in the middle of intersections. I'm assuming it's just to yield, since there are no stop signs or other traffic direction.
I almost want to aim for the target though.
Ooops, I missed.

I did not know they had yaks in Switzerland.
Maybe they are just emo-cows (as in those emo kids that grow hair in front of their face).

This guy looks like he's going racing on his unicycle. That's pretty sweet.
And this guy honked at me very angrily and then buzzed me when he passed. Admittedly, I did sprint when I saw yellow and sort-of ran a red light (depending how you define it). But there was very little traffic and I put no one in danger. But of course that is still a perfectly good for reason for him to put me in danger. I caught him at he next light, asked him "are you having a good day?" (in english), and took his picture.

He yelled something at me in German. He was probably also angry I was not riding on the bike trail. Maybe I will write more about the drivers here later, it is very interesting. In the meantime I'm going to have some fun adventures until the Polizei comes after me.

Good Luck

to Jake Boyce and Amanda Miller who are starting the Nature Valley Grand Prix today in Minisnowda.

and Nick Frey. I heard he had a good TT today.