Europe Trip (continued)

Part II
Paris
May 25-27, 2008

Our saddle-sore cycling adventurers now were speeding through the French countryside. Having departed Strasbourg after a final 35 mile leg of biking, they were bound for Paris on the TGV (train à grande vitesse, or "high-speed train"), munching a baguette and cheese. The bikes had been disassembled, folded and re-stowed back into their Samsonite suitcases. The train traveled at up to 200 mph to cover the 300 miles in about 2 hrs. 15 min. I think I knew some people in college who traveled the similar distance from Seattle to WSU/Pullman in close to the same time.

A bit of culture shock awaited me at the Gare du Nord, the big train station in Paris where we disembarked. I can’t remember now what I expected of Paris…probably tree-lined boulevards, charming sidewalk cafes, the Seine with the famous bridges and all that postcard stuff. It exists somewhere in that city, but my first meeting with Paris was something more like New York City. Busy, noisy, crowded, dirty and chaotic. Well, maybe not chaotic if you are used to it, but it seemed overwhelming to me with new road signs that I can’t read, traffic rules I can only guess at and certainly some etiquette details I was unaware of as car, bike and pedestrians mixed and mingled on these narrow, crowded streets.

In the plaza area in front of Gare du Nord, we reassembled the bikes and hitched the suitcase-on-wheels trailer and were ready to roll. Again I wonder: can I do a quick shirt change stripping down to my jog bra? Of course, women topless sunbathe here, but what unspoken rules will again make me stand out like the foreigner that I am? Oh well, if Mia Hamm can do it, so can I (actually, this is Brandi Chastain, another soccer player; I always thought the famous jog bra shot was Mia until I googled this photo). But I digress.

It was about a 2 mile uphill ride to the backside of the kinda seedy Montmartre arrondissement. It was around 5 p.m. on a warm sunny afternoon and the streets were hopping with all sorts of activity. Even with the narrow streets, confusing intersections and lack of consistent pattern to following signals (as far as I could tell), drivers still seemed to yield well to bikes. Much of the time there was a bike lane physically separated from cars/peds by curbs or railings. We checked in at the hotel where I’m told that the room was spacious by Paris standards since you had maybe a 2 foot margin to walk around the bed instead of having to walk over it. The shower required a turning-sideways motion to squeeze into the stall.

After a blessed hot shower, it was time to explore the neighborhood. Three steep flights of steps and a couple steep streets and we were atop Montmartre, one of the 2 hills in otherwise flat Paris. Sacre Couer was the attraction up there. Boy, did I ever just roll off the pumpkin cart! I was surprised at the hoards of tourists covering the place like ants on… well, an anthill(feel free to offer a better metaphor). But then famous phrases like “Springtime in Paris” or “Paris in May” come to mind.

Sacre Couer was the first of my many visits to famous sites. I had all of the next day to myself to explore and the routine went sort of like this: walk to site, look at it, think “uh huh, yep, that’s pretty impressive, I do believe I’ve seen pictures of that before, I can see that it is famous and kind of awesome”. Then with little more than a 10 second pause and wanting to avoid the hoards (and certainly not get in any long lines to see the innards of these places), I’d move on to more miles of walking to the next quick stop at the next famous site or other.

In this manner did I “visit” Sacre Couer, Arc d’ Triumph, Avenues des Champs Elysees, the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame and some of those bridges with famous sculptures that I didn’t bother to look up the names for. Speaking of the Louvre (which I wasn’t exactly speaking of), I walked through the Jardin des Tuileries which, according to my map, is a mere block west of the Louvre. That “block” seemed to stretch for 3 football fields. That “jardin” - I didn’t get it- it was packed dirt with rows and rows of trees in a straight line. It wasn’t very pretty or appealing. Maybe I was strolling up the service path or something?

Over and over on my walking tour I underestimated the distance between the sites. I set out that morning thinking I’d hop on one of the rental bikes from one of the “dispensers” around town and do some cruising and sightseeing on 2 wheels. I would have loved to, but the dispenser didn’t like my credit card. Merde! (It’s a pretty cool idea, check it out: Paris Embraces Plan to Become City of Bikes ). So I hoofed it for hours and miles in my pretty but not very functional “Athena sandals” as I like to call them.

The area around the Eiffel Tower was nice. A few blocks away was a relatively quiet and clean neighborhood that seemed sort of residential. I enjoyed checking out little stores and boulangeries. Ah ha! And this area, or arrondissement is rue Cler, I just discovered as I checked Rick Steve’s Best of Europe guide. He recommends it and he describes it like this: “Lined with open-air produce stands six days a week, rue Cler is a safe, tidy, village-like pedestrian street.” Well, on a future trip maybe I’ll stay there.

By lunchtime, I’m catching on to the great subway system. I needed to be in another part of the city to meet my friend for lunch, so it was time to negotiate my way to the Metro, as the Paris subway is called. After a brief learning curve figuring out the purchasing of tickets, reading the route maps and connections and oh yeah, finding a station (I think they’re kind of hard to spot) I got hip to zipping around town. I felt like a pro feeding my ticket in the dispenser and retrieving it as it popped out the other side, then crashing through the turnstile, hurrying down corridors and stairwells into the echoing bowels of Paris (How’s that for an attractive description? Really makes you want to go there, oui?). I got the knack of hearing the sound of an arriving train or noticing the people around start to run and I would follow, hop on with seconds to spare before the doors snapped shut. There is no margin for dallying; these subways are prompt; it stops, people quickly pour out and then board, the buzzer gives a brief warning and that’s it - the doors close and it speeds off to the next stop. It was fun, probably because I never missed a train, boarded the wrong one or was pick-pocketed, otherwise I’d be singing a different tune.

The morning of my full day of Paris, with all the walking was sunny, cool and windy. I was wishing I’d worn jeans and my running shoes instead of a skort and sandals. By afternoon it was raining pretty hard (all the better to liquefy and rinse away the doggie droppings one must watch out for on the sidewalks, especially when one is wearing their pretty Athena sandals). I did have my fine orange Arc’teryx rain shell on so I wasn’t totally ill-equipped.

My extensive grasp of the language was this: “Bonjour”, “merci” and “Parlez-vous anglais?” and just to limit communication even more, I’d always seemed to mumble it due to feeling self-conscious about my feeble attempt. Despite the Parisians usually downplaying their grasp of English (or just wanting to make me work a little harder), they usually had no problem with the basics.

A stop at a bar near the hotel before turning in for the night was in order on my first night. The bartender later said I had the deer-in-the-headlights look as I stared mutely at the drink menu. He leaned over the bar and in a fine New York accent said “Whadalyahave?” Yeah, he was a transplanted New Yorker (they can be as foreign-seeming to a Pacific Northwesterner as Europeans are).

Food. Paris is famous for it, but I was unimpressed with the small sampling I tried. Oh sure, fromage et pain is all fine and dandy, but who wants that all day? And I don’t do meat, and certainly not mollusks or amphibians. After a disappointing dinner the night before, a so-so breakfast and disappointing lunch that day, I decided to stick with what had provided the best of eating in my limited experience so far: boulangeries. I sampled freely from several bakeries the rest of the afternoon and into the evening trying pretty and tasty pastries and breads, probably taking in a good 3000 calories in doing so. And to be fair, my last dinner was pretty good. I was frustrated again at the dearth of vegetarian offerings (every salad I had was just plain boring, the crepe I ordered turned out to be a crusty, icky omelet…) and at this last place had the option of salad or mac n’cheese. I wasn’t willing to try any more salads, so went with Mac n’ cheese (since there was no offering of a healthy, fresh veggie dish like I was hoping for). But this wasn’t Kraft Mac n’ cheese, it was definitely tasty and probably provided another too-generous helping of calories to top of the afternoon bakery stops.

Early on my final morning, I went to the Metro one last time, dragging the suitcase with bike inside and other travel duffel bags as I headed for the airport. I transferred to the RER, a train that stops at Charles De Gaulle airport. I breezed through the open gate following everyone else, wondered briefly why some people were going through the turnstile with tickets. What the hell, I’ll just go through the open gate, I thought. Well, at the other end, a ticket was needed to get you through the last turnstile to exit the train station and I didn’t have one, nor did I see a ticket dispenser in sight to try and make good on having gotten by with a free ride. Despite my usual honest streak, I looked furtively around and then crawled underneath the stile dragging my bags behind me. Whew! No one saw! I made my escape back home to Seattle and was welcomed by wonderful sunny spring weather.

Bike Trip to Germany & France

PART I

Biking the Rhein River Valley

May 21-25, 2008

Guten Tag! Bonjour! I am recently returned from a quick vacation to Germany and France. I was convinced of the impossibility of making such a trip at this time, citing expenses, lack of preparation for such a big adventure, my upcoming race in early June that I’ve been neglecting to train for and some restrictions on my time with a 12 year old daughter to tend to. But I finally realized what a good opportunity this was: my daughter was to be out of town with her dad for a good portion of that time anyway; I found a good deal on airfare; my friend who has experience doing lots of bike touring in Europe and elsewhere was going anyway, offering to play tour guide and loan me his spare foldable bike (yeah, it really does fit in a suitcase); biking through Germany and France would be a difficult thing to plan by myself and it sounded like a great way to visit the area. So I jumped on the chance to do it.

Day 1

I arrived in Frankfort, Germany early Thursday a.m. with this 49.5 lb Samsonite suitcase containing the Bike Friday (and another 40 lbs. of duffle bags and gear). I met my friend Saul who flew in from San Diego several hours later and soon we were on the train head for Mainz, a suburb 20 minutes outside of Frankfort.

This was my first time assembling the bike and it was easier than I thought it would be. Bonus the flat tire I got to fix before even riding (yes, I did check the tires and inflated them prior to leaving Seattle). At this point I’ve been awake for about 24 hours and am a bit disoriented being in a new place and needing to figure out the simplest of things like going to the bathroom (first you pay the attendant in the “WC” and I had to ask him to break a $20.00 for me to be able to have the small change in Euros I needed) or wondering whether it is socially acceptable to publically strip down to jog bra to change cycling shirts. Oh well, I resign myself to sticking out like a sore thumb and being a clumsy American about things.

Traffic seemed kind of busy and I was further disoriented by the road signs (Are we going up a one-way street? Who yields here?) and getting used to the feel of this odd bike towing the suitcase now converted into a trailer and weighing easily 70 lbs. Within a few blocks we found quieter streets and the town square to meander through. This would become one of my favorite things about riding: the quiet, small streets and village centers to cruise through where bikes and pedestrians clearly rule.

The late afternoon was balmy and warmish as we got out of town and onto paths that took us along the “River Rhein”, through rural areas and vineyards, along dikes, or through small patches of wooded area. Every several miles, er, kilometers, there would be a small village to go through for a few blocks and then it turned into fields again. It was quite pleasant! Though I was jet lagged and hungry (I hadn’t eaten for 12 hours or slept for 28) I didn’t really feel that way. The fresh air, nice scenery and exercise helped stave off the tiredness – for awhile. A couple hours into this meandering, map-checking and asking directions, we took a “short cut” to get back on route (I hoped) that took us up a steep, rutted, rocky path through a vineyard. The good news was it dropped us on the backside of a hill and the backside of a town which I think was Oppenheim. I did look at the maps from time to time, but since I wasn’t the route-finder on this trip, I didn’t pay much attention to detail. We covered about 25 miles (longer than it should have been if we had stayed on course, which we didn’t) and finally found a hotel. Shower, food, sleep. Ah!

This area of the Rhein is famous for it's medieval castles and I guess they are quite common up and down the river, with a lot of tours set up to see them. Well, the only castle-like thing I really saw was this tower in Oppenheim.

Day 2

We biked for 10 hours (including breaks), I got tired, found lodging, shower, food, sleep. That was pretty much the drill from here on out. Oh? A bit more detail? Day 2 and 3 were about 65 milers each. The rural and river-side paths continued, weaving through villages, the occasional dirt, cobblestone or brick path, some woods, some fields. A stop in some bigger towns for fruit, cheese, ice cream, afternoon iced coffee or bike tire tubes. There was frequently the scent of something very sweet in bloom as well as the strong scent of wild onions growing in the woods. Some of the towns along the way were (this all becomes a blur): Worms, Ludwigshafen, Speyer, Hartshausen, Germersheim, Offendorf, Strasbourg…

It is worth mentioning our 2nd night’s stay in Hartshausen, a small village about 8 km outside of the larger city of Speyer. If there had been any small hills or round front doors about, I would have sworn I was in Hobbiton, it was such a little rural Eden. We had a host, Bilbo Baggins, I mean, Hans Juergen, who opens his home to touring cyclists via a web site called “Warm Showers” (http://www.warmshowers.org/). What a treat to stay in this nice, peaceful home! He and his partner Giselle went above and beyond the expected provision of a bed and, well, a warm shower. We had a nice homemade dinner, wine and good company in the backyard garden on a fine May evening. A very comfortable, clean bed for the night and breakfast the next a.m. with preserves made from their own fruit trees and cake that HJ's mom had made. Hans Jurgen had to go off to work (donned in cycling shorts and jersey) to his job in Speyer as a bicycle rickshaw driver. Giselle accompanied us through the woods a few miles to get us pointed in the right direction. Hans Juergen has a website with photos of the region and is worth checking out (the photos are his own and the link to "Aktuelles" shows his home where we stayed). Have fun trying to read the German text if you know that language: http://www.rikscha-tours.com/index.html

The bike paths are very extensive there - every couple miles there is an intersection, often just 2 unmarked paths meeting in the middle of the woods, which makes it likely to take a wrong turn and get off course. Near towns, you'll see several cyclists per mile, outside of town you might go for miles without passing anyone. The cyclists there are likely to be families or older couples or just anyone, really, in street clothes going about thier business or out for a leisurely evening ride. There were few road warriors on fast bikes - the type in cycling jerseys with turned-down handlebars and all that. I was trying to compare the trails to something I know around Seattle and the closest I could think of was the Sammamish Slough trail with hardly any other riders on it and less development around it. And for town riding, think of Pioneer Square or maybe Pike Place Market, with narrower streets, fewer and smaller cars that actually watch out for and yield to cyclists or physically separate bike lanes alongside roads.

Day 3

Another 65 mile day with more long stretches of paths, many villages, a few stretches along the Rhein (where it occasionally got slightly industrial looking for a short stretch). In the afternoon we crossed an insignificant looking canal and had entered France. We were due for stop, so at the next village we found ice cream and pastries (the goodies were so pretty that I took a picture!). I heard something about “a few more miles” to go. OK! A few more miles, then some exploring of France! Well, it started to rain, we returned to the Rhein path and it was the longest, most monotonous, most endless-seeming of trails. Woods on right, dike on left, or river on left (it was an impressive, fast flowing river, but really, not the most scenic I’ve seen. It’s a working river – always a barge to be seen). Well I was tired and saddle-sore (I had been the day before as we got closer to our 65 mile day, but the weather was better and the scenery prettier and more varied). I was in that physical and mental space of being done already, but had to plow on unless I wanted to invite myself to camp along this unattractive section of the river with the campers fishing along the riverside. Ugh! It was grey and rainy and there were slugs and snails about. Fixed a flat and trudged onward.

Riding through the first French village was a treat. Charming with the pastel painted houses! It must have been around 7 p.m. and it was Saturday in a smallish village, so chances were slim of finding places open. But we finally found a little hotel and I thoroughly enjoyed my hot shower (it was humid the whole trip, I’d been riding for 10 hours and the “performance fabrics” of the bike shorts and jersey might as well have been stinking Petri plates…). Dinner was delicious and was the best I had in France (despite Paris' claim to famous, fantastic cuisine, I was disappointed by the 3 meals and several of the snacks I had there).
Day 4

A 30 mile ride through French rural countryside and villages, with some stretches along the river or through woods. Final stop was Strasbourg, an old city (well, all those cities are old there, aren’t they?) with some impressive church spires, bridges and stuff. We found the train station, got tickets for the 1.5 hour ride to Paris on the TGV, the high-speed train. It was interesting to get the perspective on the countryside as we sped along. I really love how the villages dot the countryside, stay small, contained and surrounded by fields without sprawling about and spawning a commercialized style.

Day 5 & 6 were in Paris and I'll enter a post about that ASAP.

Vancouver & Name-dropping

Here are excerpts from a description submitted by a fellow Age-Grouper for the upcoming Vancouver race (with my comments in blue):

VANCOUVER WORLDS BIKE COURSE

So you haven’t taken the time to go to Vancouver BC and test the bike course in Stanley Park? ... thought you might be interested in a description of the course.

It’s a six mile long loop, so we’ll be doing four identical laps. Expect this race to be very cold from start to finish. You’re essentially swimming in the northern Pacific Ocean, with an anticipated water temp of 62F. (Let's hope it is 62! That will be a bit warmer than my recent swim in Seattle). The first wave starts at 6:45 a.m. Since the average overnight low is 50F and daily average high is 65F, you have to figure that it will be a pretty cold air temp. (OK, I think I did that at last June's Cascade's Edge triathlon which is an earlier blog post for your reading pleasure). You might want to have a top and gloves next to the bike just in case you’re shivering uncontrollably when you get out of the water. If it rains consider staying in bed. (Stay in bed if it RAINS???? OK, home court advantage for us from the NW. Now I am seeing a purpose for the extra 7 lbs. I haven't yet shed: insulation.).

...The first thing to remember about a race like Worlds is that you are up against not just the best in the world, but also the most competitive Type A personalities you’ve ever seen. (Moi? I'm one of the most relaxed type A's you'll ever meet.) They’re not always as careful on the bike as you might hope. For that matter neither are you. (Who me?). On a course like this, one careless rider can cause a big pileup. So whatever else you do, pay careful attention to the bikers around you, but especially in front of you.

The first couple of miles of the loop are essentially flat but twisting. About ½ mile into the course you have a 90 degree blind left turn, where you go under a bridge, followed almost immediately by a hard right turn. This area has the potential for a crash... A little while later you hit two speed bumps that are fairly smooth but you likely won’t know they’re there until you’re riding on them. Two and ½ miles into the loop, you make a steep climb of about 500 to 600 yards (the fourth time around it’ll feel like a mile). There’s a sharp left at the top. The next mile is a moderate descent and you can build up some real speed. But the pavement has a few ruts and patches and the road twists left and right. This is the most dangerous part of the course, because this is where people will be trying to make the most speed, maybe around 40 mph.... (it goes on like this...).

This would be a great ride if you had the road all to yourself, but guess what, a couple of thousand other hotshots have decided to join you. I don’t know what the spacing of the waves will be, but if you do the math, at 100 racers per wave, every five minutes, over the course of an hour, you get 1,200 riders on the bike course at the same time. That would be 200 riders on each and every mile. If they do three minute waves, you get… a course so crowded that Sister Madonna might be heard muttering a few naughty words (You haven't heard of Sister Madonna??? Ironman, nun, 77 year old, triathlon rock star and role model from Spokane, WA??? I just googled her to provide a little filler for my blog and found her on Wikipedia of all things. You've got to check it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna_Buder ).

So Eeyore, isn’t there any good news? Oh heck yes. Not only is Vancouver a great city for tourists, but this is one of the most scenic courses you’ll ever race. Stanley Park is about 2/3 surrounded by water. It is a jewel of a park for being in a major city. The views are spectacular (not that you’re going to spend any time taking them in during the actual race). The bike ride isn’t flat but the run sure is. And you don’t worry about getting a heatstroke.

Rites of Spring

Part I

The smell of neoprene! It must be Spring! Which means going to the lake for the first open water (OW) swim of the year. Only this year, I did it about 5 or 6 weeks earlier than I have before. May 1. Uno de Mayo. That was the date selected by a group of loosely organized swimmers I know to do their inaugural OW swim of the season. It's been a chilly spring here in Seattle, with high temps maybe getting into the 50's. There was snow and hail just a few weeks ago... The emails went back and forth about "are we really going to do this?", "do we want to move the date back a couple weeks?". But thanks to a few organizers not backing down, others decided to join. Really? Swim in Green Lake when it's still so cold?

Around 16 of us showed up with our wetsuits, most also had neoprene caps, one tried wearing socks (yeah, that was me). It was a cool but sunny evening as we got ready for the plunge. Many of us were pretty sure we'd do more of a ceremonial dip; a few minutes of swimming then get out to re-warm.

I brought a thermometer and the water temp was 55 degrees (in shallow water, it probably was a bit cooler in the deeper water - at least my face registered the difference). Some kid in his baggy shorts bathing suit just jumped in like it was a hot August day and kind of ruined the spectacle of us striding into the cold water as hardy souls (or a bunch of fools).

So into the water we went and it wasn't all that bad. Good ole' wetsuit kept me comfortable enough, the maiden voyage with my new neoprene cap really kept the noggin warm. Hands, cold. Feet, cold, but not as much (I wore some thin polypro hiking socks, based on a tip I read elsewhere and I think it did help). My face, however was cold and painfully so. Thanks to this being an OW swim, raising my head to sight frequently kind of helped and after about 3 minutes, my face was just intensely cold, but the pain was gone.

Rather than this being ceremonial, I believe the entire group crossed Green Lake from the Bathhouse Theater to the beach at the community center and then returned, for a 1 mile swim. It really was a beautiful sunny evening and swimming on calm water is a joy. I'm so glad I did this.

Part II

WHY did I do this? The big reason: a triathlon coming up on June 6 in Vancouver B.C. The Olympic Distance Age Group Worlds Championship.

I nearly pulled out of the race due to lack of excitement, lack of decent training, high entry fee (with an increase in the fee late in the game) and other expenses related to lodging. A normal, local sprint or Olympic triathlon entry fee is usually around $60.00 to $75.00. This one is $300.00. Then it was $400.00. And we are required to wear a team uniform, which we purchase ourselves. I opted to stay at the host hotel, a classy downtown Marriott, I think, and 3 nights (with room mates and some meals) will be around $700.00. Throw in other travel incidentals and downtown parking for 4 days and this will be a spendy trip. That all seemed like a lot when this race is really out of my league and I haven't re-lit my fire for racing yet this year. And the cold water in English Bay had got many world championship race-qualifying triathletes twittering and worrying.

But though I may still twitter about it myself, my pre-race anxiety will likely give way to other things to fret about now that I've done a (slow) mile in 55-degree Green Lake. I've been in, I didn't gasp, get breathless or cramp from the cold and I actually enjoyed it.

I decided to stay in the race for a few reasons.

• Having paid my deposits months ago, the bulk of the expenses are behind me.
• When talking about pulling out my 12 year old girl chirped up with "I'll give you $10.00 to help, you should do it, you'll be sorry if you don't." And my ex chimed in that he'd contribute a couple hundred to the cause. Pretty nice, huh?
• Dave C's enthusiasm and encouragement to "just have fun" sunk in (he's the fellow I met with his wife Francie at last summer's Nationals).
• This will be a great early season Hard Workout (if I think of it as a good training opportunity, it should help take off the pressure of approaching it like a race with expectations to finish with a certain time or place).
• I compared my USAT ranking with most of the other US women in my age group and I haven't a prayer of really competing against the vast majority of them. Result = pressure is off.
• The gal who beat me by just 3 seconds at last year's Nationals will be there. Result = pressure is on, but with a possibly achievable goal.
• I'll feel more prepared for my local races the remainder of the summer and enjoy them knowing "The Hard One" is over with.
• Vancouver is a great city to visit, eh?
• I'll have a cool race uniform with "Team USA" on it.
• This is a new and unique experience for me. It's kind of the gala event for age group competition.
• It could provide some good blogging material.

With just 5 weeks to go until the race, I need to get a few bricks in and some speed workouts. Since I've been going to Wednesday night track, always a hard, fast workout for me, I've got that covered. Biking...need to do some short fast rides for sure. Swimming...I need to get to the pool more often than once every 9 days (yikes!). With a tri camp to help with in mid- May and then a 6 day bike trip in Germany, I'll have plenty of distractions. But that's ok, this race is supposed to be for fun and for the experience, right?