Fun day with German cycle tourists

 All Categories, Bicycling
Apr 272010
 

My won­der­ful duplex neigh­bor Jill just host­ed a cou­ple from Ger­many, Frank and Mar­git. They found her place on a cool web site she had found and reg­is­tered with called Warm Show­ers and spent Mon­day and Tues­day nights with her on their San Fran­cis­co to Los Ange­les adventure.

Here they are yes­ter­day morn­ing with their unloaded bikes as the three of us are about to start off on a very nice day of explo­ration as far as Coal Oil Point. Its always spe­cial for me to meet cycle tourists and have a chance for a good chat.

Things for bik­ers to notice:

  • Frank wrapped both frames, forks, etc. with insu­la­tion padding thus allow­ing an unboxed air trip from Ger­many (and back) .
  • Sprung/wide Brooks saddles.
  • Very upright rid­ing posture.
  • Inter­nal­ly geared rear hub with one chain­ring and and a very nice, very com­plete chain guard. This allows shift­ing when the bike is stopped!! Very cool, when I stopped us quick­ly on a hill — I was the only one in the “wrong gear” for restarting 🙂
  • Front hub/dynamo = lights when­ev­er need­ed with­out batteries.
  • No span­dex!
  • Frank is a very expe­ri­enced cycle tourist hav­ing solo toured to Moroc­co twice, Nor­way, and to Patag­o­nia with a friend.

 Posted by at 6:30 pm

  4 Responses to “Fun day with German cycle tourists”

  1. Antonio Olinto says:
    May 11, 2010 at 7:18 am

    Nice to see you and Mar­git trav­el­ing together.
    Now that she learn how to trav­el by bike, we will be wait­ing for you some­day in Brazil.
    All the very best my friend

    Anto­nio and Rafaela

  2. Ashe says:
    May 2, 2010 at 1:53 pm

    Frank and Mar­git took the train from Guadalupe to San­ta Bar­bara and only had to hand their cycles to the bag­gage car atten­dant in Guadalupe and retrieve them at the San­ta Bar­bara sta­tion. It was anoth­er advan­tage to hav­ing the padding already on the cycles. I do think on the longer haul Coast Starlight a boxed bike is required. My expe­ri­ence with Amtrak is that their bike box­es are the largest one could hope to find and are avail­able at the sta­tions I’ve encoun­tered for a min­i­mal fee. I ride a 25″ frame and even it can wheel right into an Amtrak box with only the removal of the ped­als and a 90 degree turn­ing of the han­dle­bars, which makes for a quick set­ting up at the oth­er end.

  3. Christine says:
    May 2, 2010 at 12:11 pm

    I am curi­ous? Do Amer­i­can air­lines allow this? I called Amtrak… they say the bike has to be in a box?

  4. bikeyid says:
    April 30, 2010 at 9:58 pm

    That is amaz­ing that these folks just wrap the bikes in insu­la­tion padding and throw it on the plane. They must be used to Lufthansa air­lines, where they use few­er goril­las to han­dle lug­gage! Very inter­est­ing obser­va­tions! Thanks for the post.

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