Missing Nuts

 

Top: Skewers with and without nuts

Above: Vladimir 

I am starting small in the story of my bike trip. Smallest! A missing nut. When I arrived in Belgrade I took the bike out of the box to ride it to my hotel in the city. 

Except I couldn't. Somewhere on the trip the nut on the Skewer fell off and out of the box. The skewer holds the front wheel on. So I put the bike mostly together then got a cab. 

I walked to the nearest bike shop, but it was actually a bike tour company. No parts. But the owner, Vladimir, walked me over to a shop that sold me a new skewer. As we walked we talked about touring.  He has ridden from St. Petersburg to Barcelona!  And he is hoping to join a group riding from Cairo to Cape Town! Wow!

Thanks to Vladimir my front wheel is attached to my bike!

Riding in Fog: Every Sound Grabs My Ears

On the eve of my bicycle trip across Easter Europe, I was thinking about riding in fog. Of all the places I have ridden in the world, the thickest fog I ever rode through was on Mount Tamalpais, just across the bay from San Francisco in Marin County.

I was at a conference in San Francisco. Every morning for four days, I got up at 0530 and rode to the top of Mt. Tam and back. The 50-mile, 3-hour round trip from downtown to the peak began on city streets, then bayshore, then across the Golden Gate, through Sausalito and Marin, then the 11-mile climb up the mountain.

The third morning the legendary San Francisco fog was everywhere. It was thickest on the slopes of Mt. Tam. By five miles up I was starting to think I could grab the fog. Wisps of clouds clung to me. I was soaked. The air felt weirdly thick. I saw ghosts rush past as the white wisps took shape in the air. But the strangest sensation was sound. Since I could barely see two bike lengths in front of me, I heard everything. A chipmunk ran across the road. I would swear I heard his claws grip the pavement. Was that a pine cone dropping on the road? The climb is not steep so I was not breathing hard enough to wipe out other sounds. I felt water drip down my neck as the fog condensed on me. Did I hear it drip off me?

Then the sun blazed everywhere. One moment I could barely see. The next I was on an arid mountain in hot sun drying as I climbed the long grade.  After the next switchback I was facing south, looking where the city should be. San Francisco disappeared under a thick, white quilt of clouds. The piers of the Golden Gate raised their red arms through the fog, as did the radio tower on Mount Bruno. Nothing else was visible.

By the time I got to the top of Mt. Tam, turned around and rode down, the fog was thinner and lower. By the time I was back in the ground-level cloud I could see 100 meters ahead, important at downhill speeds.

Tanks are Symphony of Roars and Rattles

The M60A1 Patton tank that was my home and weapon in West Germany was a symphony of sound I could never quite describe in prose, so I tried poetry:

M60A1, On the Border in Fulda, October 1976

Growling, howling, eighteen hundred cubic inches

Of diesel engine roars, belches smoke and launches

Fifty-seven tons steel and rubber and flesh across a

German field.

While the engine roars, end connectors grind in the

Sprockets, center guides screech as they scrape

Aluminum road wheels lined with steel. Ammo racks

Rattle, White Phosphorus rounds in the Ready Rack shake.

Torsion bars creak, flexing over rocks and ruts. 

Ratchets, wrenches, track tools, clasps,

Hinges, and locks jangle and ring on the fenders.

Jerry cans clang in their tie downs on side of the turret

Hydraulic motor screams as the commander swings the

Turret over the driver. A cacophony of track blocks,

Bolts, rack handles, the coax ammo box,  

Cupola ammo doors, the tanker bar and Little Joe,

Assails the ears of the crew as they scan the horizon.

Across the fence, squat Soviet T-70s track the

Trundling Pattons as they parade north, roaring,

Rattling and ready to rain ruin in a moment.

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