Friday, November 17, 2006
This week was time for another beer festival, this time at the Pembury, sister pub to our local and quickly rising into the top tier of London real ale pubs since the very early, very quiet days (e.g. my post from January). We've been there on a few occasions since our first visit, and every time it seems to have improved: more customers, something on the walls to improve the ambience, pub games, even a fantastic kitchen. And its rating on Beerintheevening.com has skyrocketed (up to the point at which pubs enter the "top 10" list, where tactical So how could we miss the beer festival?
As soon as we finished work, we jumped on a bus and made our way there. Just in time too, every table but one was occupied (although... the tables are quite large and fairly well suited for sharing). There were 20+ beers available (plus a few in the cellar not quite ready to be served). Ten or so from the Milton brewery, but a good assortment from elsewhere. I have to say the landlord made some excellent choices; it was very hard for us to find anything worse than a "half smile" on our simple beer rating scale (explained at the bottom of this post). And not because of drinking to excess; we chose to drink half-pints in order to taste more of them. Along the way we had a very nice dinner (the special Ploughman's sandwich featuring four different Neal's Yard cheeses for me [I've already reached the point where I find it difficult to even consider anything else], a vegetable cheese bake for Mrs. Dunce, and an order of root vegetable chips [fries] for both of us), and we finally took a chance at playing bar billiards (thanks to a local friend of ours who taught us how to play, thrashing us in the process). The pub seemed quite busy all night which is very encouraging. Without further ado, here are the beers and our ratings (note that only the "owner" of a beer was permitted to give it a rating. Where there were two ratings, we each had one.):
Dark Star: Old Ale (4.0%). Full smile rating from me, half smile from Mrs. Dunce. This was a dark beer with quite a smoky taste. Not quite as strong as the German Rauchbiers but sometimes the latter are somewhat like drinking a big glass of bacon. Mrs. Dunce thought it was a little too much smoke for the time of day (although thanks to the Pembury's no-smoking policy this was the only smoke we experienced).
Dark Star: Winter Meltdown (5.0%). Mrs. Dunce's beer of the night (full smile rating). Not as flavorful as you would expect from the beer tasting notes which ran to four lines. But very drinkable, and a good hit of ginger as an interesting touch.
Milestone: Crusader (4.4%). Full smile, A blonde Belgian-style ale, very smooth and tasty but perhaps slightly too balanced for me. I did still like it quite a bit.
Milestone: Rich Ruby (4.5%). Mrs. Dunce gave it a half-smile. Initially it was horrible: the aroma was vaguely reminiscent of urine (verified by me [not that I went and smelled some urine, but that I sniffed the beer too and agreed]) and this carried over into the first sip or two. After that it was fairly nice, but hard to get that initial impression out of your mind.
Milton: Gargantua (5.6%). I was going to avoid the Milton beers which are usually readily available at the Pembury and the Oakdale. But I'd never tasted this one before, and the description "extremely hoppy" suggested it was my kind of tipple. Yes indeed, a full smile it is, and my choice for beer of the night. Maybe a little less than subtle, but I'm a sucker for the hops.
Milton: Mammon (7.0%). I had one of these late in the evening: it's just too strong, and rich, and sweet, and everything else. The notes indicate that it was brewed in September 2005 and had over a year to mature. It was just too much and I had to give it a flat-mouth rating. A special offer was noted, a pint of Mammon and a plate of Stilton for £4. Stilton is perhaps the only food that could stand up to the aged Mammon. Just not my thing on this occasion.
Nottingham: Bullion (4.7%). I rated this one only a half-smile, rather bland and light in flavor. Lacking any sort of distinct finish, but still nice enough.
Nottingham: Dreadnought (4.5%). Mrs. Dunce was blown away by the flavor, describing it as quite biscuity, and almost too complex for its own good. Still deserving of a full smile rating.
Saffron: EPA (3.9%). Mrs. Dunce gave this one a half smile. It's a bit hoppy but all right. She prefers the malty beers; I've had this one before and thought it quite nice, although light and perhaps better suited for summer.
Saffron: Silent Night (5.2%). Described as a dark and hoppy bitter, so I jumped at the chance to try it. It didn't seem so hoppy to me, but more chocolatey and stoutish. I still found it quite lovely, giving it a full smile rating.
Springhead: Cromwell's Hat (6.0%). Mrs. Dunce gave this one another full smile: malty with a cinnamon hit (although she didn't notice the juniper mentioned in the tasting notes).
Finally we had two beers as a sort of quiz challenge: Tring: Buzby (4.0%) and Tring: "It's for you!" (4.0%). The quiz came from the tasting notes ("Amber coloured and spicy. Suggestions gratefully received as to what the spice actually is"). Sadly, we had no idea what the spice might be (and didn't even notice the spice in the "It's for you!"). I took the Buzby, giving it a half smile as "decent but not special"; Mrs. Dunce appreciated the maltier character of the "It's for you!" (I'm not sure I approve of drinking beer whose name contains multiple punctuation marks) but didn't rate it higher than a half smile.
And that's about it. We were a little disappointed that a couple of the listed beers were not being served yet (Nottingham's Rock Mild, and Milton's Marcus Aurelius in particular), but the selection was already plenty good.
Monday, November 13, 2006
Lest you think my sneering at the quality of local news is limited to my old hometown newspaper, let me share with you a story from my current local weekly.
Sex shop hoax by builders
CROUCH End was bracing itself for its first sex shop shop - but it all turned out to be a hoax.
A shopfitter working on the conversion of a shop in Topsfield Parade scrawled an announcement that a sex shop was opening there as a joke.
Eyebrows were raised by shoppers and local business owners when the note appeared last Monday morning in the window of the former HAM Estates office on Topsfield Parade, Crouch End, brazenly declaring: "This is new Crouch Hill sex shop".
It wasn't long before nearby workers and passers-by started asking questions, but things started sounding fishy when a Journal reporter made some inquiries.
Sniggering builders admitted that the sex shop sign had been a joke.
The note was removed by Wednesday lunchtime. When the truth - that the shop was going to be a rather less racy estate agents - was revealed, some local shopkeepers seemed a little disappointed.
One said: "It would have been more exciting than another estate agents." Another said: "My reaction was 'brilliant!' and At least it's not another clothes shop."
But not everyone was fooled. "I knew it was a fake," said Pizza Hut manager Jason Ireton. "The note was on the outside. Obviously you are not going to get a sex shop in this area.
This story has it all: sex, comedy, quotes from local notables, even a very-badly written sentence that jumps out and smacks you in the face with its badness (I refer of course to the phrase "as a joke" which really wants to modify the nearby verb phrase "was opening" rather than the intended verb "scrawled").
(link to story, but who knows how long the link will remain active).
Friday, November 10, 2006
I just went to the webpage of my old hometown newspaper. At the top of the page:
Breaking News: Which Sunday Comics are your favorite?
It's good to see things haven't changed much around there.
Over the past couple of months Mrs. Dunce
and I have been on a house-hunting mission. London property is
massively overpriced, yet incredibly fast-moving, so it's been quite a
frustrating enterprise. We divided up the responsibilities in a very
unfair and uneven manner (partly because of differing workloads at the
moment, but mainly because of Mrs. Dunce's greater dedication and my
own laziness): she was the primary "property finder", regularly
searching various online sources, contacting estate agents and setting
up viewings; my main job (aside from the occasional secondary property
search, providing a second opinion on the "possible" properties, and of
course viewings) was that of Primary Negotiator in the event we
actually found a place.
Early days were really rough: from the very start we spotted any number
of flats and small houses within our budget, and potentially of
interest, but every time we rang an estate agent to see about looking
at one of them, we heard the same old news: "sorry, it's already under
offer". We later learned that properties are selling so quickly that
estate agents are hesitant to mail out property information sheets; by
the time a sheet arrives in the post, the property will very likely
have sold. It was also quite hard for us to arrange viewings: not very
many agents were willing to show a property after work, and Saturday
appointments were quite hard to come by. But we eventually started to
fit a few of them in. Here are some descriptions of the places we got
to see (I may be missing a few due to repressed memory of traumatic
events)
A ground floor flat in a Victorian (or maybe a little post-Vic)
conversion, with the tiniest kitchen I've ever seen. Big enough for one
person to stand in, but not enough space to do any sort of actual
cooking.
A decent, more recently built (post WW2) ground floor flat, tucked back
into the corner of a sort-of-busy street. Nothing was really wrong with
this one (Mrs. Dunce sort of liked it), but the front of the building
and its street had quite a shabby feel. This one did remain a "maybe we
should have" property for quite some time after we decided "no".
Another ground-floor flat in a Victorian conversion. This one had
decent bedrooms, kitchen, living room, but the bathroom was a real
problem. It was built in a tiny extension, and the ceiling was low
enough that I could not stand upright in the shower.
Next, we went to Mrs. Dunce's old student neighborhood (our ideal
location, we had sort of decided) to look at a 3-bedroom place. The
living area was giant (maybe even too big) and the bedrooms were
upstairs (always good--it means less noise from neighbors). But oddly
laid out: you had to go through one of the bedrooms to get to another
one, the (separate) toilet and bathroom were jammed into a corner next
to the kitchen, and the kitchen itself was built in a flat-roofed
extension that may have had some dampness issues. We liked it well
enough to make an offer, though. And finally it was time for my
negotiating skills to shine. We made our offer by phone, and had it
rejected on the spot. Mulled it over, called back with another offer,
and waited for several days. Turns out someone else bought it for the
asking price, which would have been quite a stretch for us given the
likely need to do additional work.
A bit more time passed, and we decided to have a look at something very
different: a "modern" ex-local authority flat, built in perhaps the
early 1960s. It's also sitting right at the edge of a very large, very
notorious council estate (but which is in the early stages of a very
substantial makeover). We walked inside and loved it. An older lady had
been living there for ages, the rooms were all very well proportioned,
upstairs bedrooms, etc. The area definitely falls into "not-so-great",
in fact, it is listed as "ACORN type 56", the lowest possible ranking
on the ACORN scale
("the leading geodemographic tool used to identify and understand the
UK population and the demand for products and services". The ACORN
scale deserves an entry all its own): As described by upmystreet.com "Many
of the people who live in this sort of postcode will live in crowded
flats in multi-ethnic areas... 70% of the housing is purpose built
blocks of flats. The flats tend to have one or two bedrooms and are
rented from the council or housing associations. The large numbers of
children living in these small flats make these homes the most
overcrowded in the UK.". Or as the ACORN site puts it, "Hard
Pressed: Inner City Adversity". But even more concerning than possible
poverty and adversity were the signs in the neighbors' windows, giving
a comforting message something like "Please don't tear down our homes."
We asked the estate agent about this, and he reassured us, telling us
that he had spoken to someone from the council, and they were not going
to be demolished after all. We weren't convinced and did a little
research (we were still interested in possibly making an offer if this
statement was true). Mrs. Dunce rang the council and, surprise,
surprise, demolition is still on track, planned within the next couple
of years. I see that at this very moment the property is still being
listed HERE,
by Courtneys Estate Agents. Needless to say we did not bother putting
in an offer on it. Maybe you would like to. I hear from the agent that
demolition has been cancelled.
This last property gave us a different sort of idea: maybe we like the
idea of living in an ex-local authority property, where the rooms tend
to be of sizes a little more suitable for modern living of the type we
prefer to do. So we checked out a couple more of them (in different
areas, and definitely offered by different estate agents than the last
one). Both had decent-sized rooms, and private gardens, but both of
them were set in fairly depressing-looking areas of a vaguely run-down
nature. And both were rather shabby, sort of halfway through
renovation; I think the owners had started, then run out of
time/energy/money.
We were really starting to get depressed, but then it got even worse.
First, we saw a recently-developed Victorian conversion, which had been
done up to a very nice standard, but which also had very limited space
(a second bedroom that would maybe fit a futon, and a nice but very
small kitchen, the whole place was small enough that it would take some
clever doing to fit a table anywhere but outside). But little did we
know that the worst of the lot was yet to come. This was a
three-bedroom flat, again of an ex-local authority nature. Mrs. Dunce's
extensive research had revealed that this very flat had sold earlier in
the year, at a price £30,000 less than the current asking price. We
figured someone had bought it, put a little money into it, and was
hoping to get a quick profit out of it. Boy, were we wrong. Now, it's
somewhat hard to get a sense of space when a place is being occupied by
a family of nine (who were present while we were looking at it). And
it's somewhat hard to see past crayon-scribbled walls and various bits
of who-knows-what flung around the place. But it's definitely easy to
see a completely collapsed ceiling in one of the bedrooms, drooping
window frames and obvious structural problems, and an ancient, decrepit
hot-water boiler that looked like it was ready to blow at any moment
(we peeked at the boiler, then gingerly crept backwards as slowly and
carefully as we could). When we left we were completely shell-shocked
(perhaps latent effects of the first WW2 bomb to land in Tottenham,
which destroyed this immediate area). The following days were not happy
ones (after all, the asking price was right in the neighborhood of what
we thought we could manage).
But the next week, things changed completely. On the Friday just after
work we saw an excellent place, on a very nice street (turns out to be
ACORN type 15: [not 13 as I originally wrote, but still...]). It has
its flaws (chiefly: very narrow bedrooms), but we really liked it (we
were also lucky in that we saw it on the very first day it was on the
market). We went back the next day, tape measure in hand, to see
whether it could work. And it could! We were pretty certain we would
make an offer, but we did have another place to see.
And it was back to the very first area we had noticed (and from which
all the available properties had sold just the moment we started
looking seriously). Definitely a less affluent area, but full of small
two-bedroomed houses (originally built as workers' cottages). It was
quite nice (though cozy), but we were so dazzled by the
previously-mentioned place it stood no chance.
We've now made an offer on the aforementioned place, and it's been
accepted, so now we're going through the various painful steps toward
finalizing the deal (the less said about any of that, the better. And
I've intentionally left out a bunch of details because I don't want to
jinx anything). The current owner is hoping to finalize her own new
place by the end of January, so we're hoping everything goes smoothly
from here on out. I have carefully avoided mentioning specific prices;
I'll just say **GULP**.
Oh yeah, during the final decision stage, I did sneak away from work
one afternoon to look at one other place that had just come onto the
market: a small semi-detached house backing onto a cemetery (Mrs.
Dunce's dream, believe it or not). It was in a really village-like
cul-de-sac, with loads of mature trees around, and plenty of outdoor
space (not even counting the cemetery which I am sure would have been a
real treat for the cat). Unfortunately it required a lot of work (holes
in the floor, possible structural problems, just about everything
inside would need replacing), and since my DIY skills are limited to
changing light bulbs and vacuuming, I thought it was definitely not for
us.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
A while back I stumbled across the Acronym Finder. It's always interesting (to me) to put in people's initials and see what else comes up. Before I continue, a brief digression into acronyms and related terms (from the Acronym Finder's "about" page): "An acronym is a pronounceable word formed from each of the first letters of a descriptive phrase or by combining the initial letters or parts of words from the phrase.... An acronym is actually a type of abbreviation. Our database contains abbreviations, acronyms, and initialisms and we make no distinction between them in our database or on our site. We are more interested in defining "acronyms" for you than we are in trying to properly distinguish between abbreviations, acronyms, and initialisms."
So now to my own initials: Only seven are listed; the top-rated entries are Desert Patrol Vehicle and Diver Propulsion Vehicle, and if I had to pick one of them, it would be Dynamically Positioned Vessel. The related Acronym Attic gives quite a few more (48, in contrast to the 7 "carefully reviewed and edited" DPVs in Acronym Finder; acronyms found in the Acronym Attic have not been reviewed by humans), including a few I'd be proud to represent. Description of Plant Viruses, Delivering Profitable Value, but perhaps the best of all is Disease Pest and Vermin. If you wonder what DPV stands for, you can't do much worse than Disease Pest and Vermin.
For Mrs. Dunce there are some choices. Her full married name has no entries in the Acronym Finder, and only four in the Attic (Annual Register of Book Values? Architects Registration Board of Victoria?). Before she joined the land of the Vs, she had 44 to choose from in the Acronym Finder. Top-rated options incude Arbitrageur, Airbag, Anti-Roll Bar, and the Armee Revolutionnaire Bretonne; other good choices are Armored Rifle Battalion, American Royal Barbecue, or the Ann Arbor, MI airport code. And I don't even want to go into the Attic where more than 100 ARBs await me. Well, ok then, but don't say I didn't warn you (Approves Rice Burning? Automatic Rubber Banding? Australian Roo Bar? And Rear on Board? Abuse the Right Back?). Clearly it's a good thing she joined up with the Vs. Where she can take her pick of a reasonable 14, including Antiretroviral, Approximate Retail Value, or any number of vehicles that are armed, armored or airborne (Armed Robotic Vehicle, anyone?). The Attic has 62, all of a classy nature (e.g. Anti Rabies Vaccination, Adding Real Value, Animal Rights and Vegetarianism).
Yes, I am jealous that Mrs. Dunce's initials (not counting her full married name) could be considered an acronym (as they are pronounceable as a word) while mine are only an initialism.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Here's a headline I saw today (maybe not technically a headline as it was actually printed on a placard to advertise a story in one of today's newspapers, but it's still a lot like a headline), which oddly seems to be made up entirely of nouns:
CITY LAWYER MURDER TRIAL DRAMA
OK, perhaps there's some ambiguity with the word "murder" (is "murder trial" a noun-noun compound or a verb-noun compound), but its nouniness was enough to catch my eye ("something is wrong with that headline", said my eye). There's no shortage of recommendations to avoid "noun strings", but at least the ambiguity in this one is fairly limited. But I have one real complaint: it's missing the word "fury" which no good tabloid newspaper noun string headline (how's that for a noun string?) should be without.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
At the moment, we Dunces are currently involved in the difficult, stressful process of searching for a house to buy. Instead of writing about mortgages, leaseholds, freeholds, (I'm glazing over just writing the words), I thought I'd revisit the language topic of eggcorns, described in the online Eggcorn Database as a type of linguistic error reflecting "spontaneous reshapings of known expressions", such as the use of "eggcorn" instead of "acorn". I've recently run into a few interesting examples:
owness instead of "onus": as in "Folks who are going to be watching this film [Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ] need to educate themselves about how to watch the film. The owness is on churches as well as synagogues." (CNN Live Sunday transcript). Google lists over 200 hits for "owness is on", vs. 774,000 (searching for "owness" on its own gives an assortment of things, not all of which are eggcorns for "onus", such as "Sickness and Owness" which I guess means "the state of 'OW'!!", or "U2 Albums in Order of must-owness"). This is a characteristic example of an eggcorn: onus (etymological origin, Latin onus, "burden, load" [OED]) is a very uncommon word, and its replacement "owness" (or "oweness", with its 52 google hits "oweness is on") can quite nicely be interpreted as "a state of owing someone something" ("owe" coming from a totally different etymological origin than "onus"). Once you start looking for variants of an eggcorn it's often not hard to find interesting variants, such as one instance of "ownuss", "...if you do not get a gas cert then the ownuss is on you to keep records to show that you at least checked things out...". I'd imagine this is some sort of link between owning and responsibility.
dribble instead of "drivel". I first noticed this one in the spoken form (by someone I know who will remain anonymous). Because I know this person fairly well (and perhaps because my social graces are somewhat lacking) I had no hesitation at all in prodding them for more details. "It makes sense," said my informant, "because it's like they don't think about what they're saying and it just sort of dribbles out of their mouth like spit." This is an especially good example, as it brings the meaning of "drivel" back to some of its former uses: OED's first definition of the noun "drivel", with examples from the 14th century "Spittle flowing from the mouth; slaver, dribblings. Now rare.". The subsequent evolution of "drivel", "Idiotic utterance; silly nonsense; twaddle." is first attested in 1852. It's a little harder to find Google examples (unless you cheat by looking for drivel and dribble together, to see whether anyone else has written about this comparison. Which they have, but I figured I may as well avoid their examples and find some for myself), since "dribble" is a perfectly acceptable word in the right contexts. But it's not too hard; you just need to come up with a decent phrase in which "drivel" should appear, and replace it with "dribble". Here's one: "talking a lot of dribble" (a forum posting, someone appears to be making an idle thread of legal action against another forum poster who is "talking a lot of dribble" on some topic related to The Legend of Zelda). Just one example does not demonstrate a highly-used eggcorn, but it's encouraging. Then I struck the motherlode (or "motherload" as often eggcorned), "load of dribble". Would you believe nearly 800 Google hits? From my totally unscientific investigation of the first few instances of "load of dribble" I would suggest that this phrase is almost always used in a ranting context, and seems to correlate quite well with the use of run-on sentences and other language uses which might be considered anomalous, variant and/or wrong.
untilmatum instead of "ultimatum". Google only shows a handful of them (depending how many fingers you have, if you prefer to interpret "handful" in the literal sense [which is not actually a literal sense of "handful" because the way hands work, a handful is not actually likely to contain fingers {unless they have been removed from someone else's hand(s), for example, in which case there is no requirement that there be exactly five of them, but I digress}]), but this is such a beautiful example of an eggcorn I couldn't pass it by. You obviously wait until you have no other choice before delivering an untilmatum.
Friday, October 27, 2006
Here's one of the best scam email messages I've received in a long time. It arrived in ALL CAPS, without line breaks or anything, but it was so hard to read I've converted it into a readable format. It's not quite enough to tempt me into a career change, but I hear Canada, USA is a great place to work.
Canadian hotels Canada,
Welcome to Hotel Omini this is Canada Hotels in Canada, this my phone number you can call us any time from morning to night, I1-806-359-6279, or international dial 561-753-3993.
Canada.
Sign.
By Hotel Canadian .
Hello dear the manegements and the staff of Hotel Canadian wish to inform you for an a job vacancy at Hotel Canadian from 27-1-006 read cerefully so that you will understand.
Now, the hotels need a group of 5-10 men and woman who can work and live in hotels in canada, u.s.a
this is how the work can be and about ur payment of salary? , this is the type of work
a, waching cars in hotel. --- every month salary - 1200 us doollars
b, clean in the hotels room.-- every month salary -1800 us dollars
c, sale in the bar hotel.----------- every month salary -1700 us dollars
d, or men who want to sex with grils. --every month salary - 2000 us
these are the things hotel need from u 'and you have to apply with you internationl passport number
thanks mrs c g rose grand christana
I have not corresponded with this particular individual but I imagine they will request a small processing fee to handle my application, perhaps followed by a slightly larger but entirely reasonable fee for document verification, perhaps followed by a somewhat larger fee for necessary lawyer's fees (what can we do?! everyone knows lawyers are expensive!), perhaps followed by an additional fee for security clearance checking, perhaps followed by any number of fees, and during this process no doubt the nonexistent Hotel Omini will have already filled its nonexistent jobs with nonexistent people who will no doubt excel at their jobs of waching cars, clean in hotels room, sale in the bar hotel, and wanting to sex with grils.
Oh yeah, if you google the telephone numbers in the email messages, you can see that a few different variants of this scam are floating around out there.
Monday, October 23, 2006
The front of our house features a rather sizable hedge which serves to separate our front "garden" (a mostly paved, mostly weedy area behind a waist-high brick wall) from that of the neighbors (I suppose they are "neighbours" and not "neighbors"). It's a pain to trim it as we only have an old, rusty pair of hedge clippers. And also because the top is fairly high, requiring somebody to stand on a rickety stepladder and reach over the top of it. That somebody has to be me, as I am significantly taller than Mrs. Dunce, and have impressively long monkey-like arms that, in theory, should allow me to successfully reach every wildly-growing bit of the hedge. Given my lazy tendencies, it's not really a surprise that I've trimmed the hedge only about three times (err, exactly three times) in the year and a half we've lived in the house.
A few weeks ago, there was an added impetus to trim it, as the aforementioned neighbours went through a flurry of yard work, including a neat trim of their side of the hedge. Since then it's been very noticeably asymmetric, and on multiple occasions Mrs. Dunce has observed that it sure would be nice if our side of the hedge were similarly trimmed. (Such observations may have also been made by Mrs. Dunce's mother, who happened to be visiting during my trip to Poland. If so, they have only been passed to me indirectly, through the impressive channeling abilities of Mrs. Dunce herself). Some of her observations have been more like requests, I should note, but none have (quite) reached the status of direct orders. So I have gradually become resigned to the possibility that indeed, on some brisk, dry, but not too windy weekend afternoon (conditions ideal for hedge trimming, and also rare enough that I've been able to avoid the job until now) I will have no choice but to drag out the stepladder, oil the trimmer, move the cat safely away from the blades, and commence a hedge trim the likes of which hasn't been seen since Elvis joined the army. Or so I thought.
But then, suddenly, we received an announcement through the mail slot. "Dunce", it said, "Your laziness has been rewarded." Well, maybe not in those exact words. But it seems that, through a neighbourhood improvement initiative, area hedges will be trimmed at no charge in early November. A telephone number is provided, in case you do not want your hedge trimmed. So a truly ideal situation for a lazy Dunce with an overgrown hedge. If you want your hedge trimmed, do nothing. I may extend this approach to all other aspects of gardening.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Sorry it’s been quite a while since I updated, thanks to the usual routine of just too busy to do anything. I’ve finally found a corner of sort-of-free time to write the last in my current cycle tourism series. We got up for the last morning of riding, fortified ourselves with a hefty hotel breakfast (giant omelette filled with strange assorted canned vegetables), then consulted the maps to decide on the best route back to Krakow. There was a small problem, though: only one of us had a map with sufficient detail to show all the roads on our desired route: taking roads as small as possible to avoid the main highways wherever we could (Not to say we were traveling without maps. Everyone had a map that showed highways both major and minor). The owner of the detailed map was, of course, your narrator (the Dunce is not above over-planning his activities, perhaps to a fault). Anyway, our plan was to stick together fairly closely, so that we’d all manage to make the correct turns at the correct moments. Not a problem; the previous day’s ride gave us a pretty good idea that we’d overestimated the amount of climbing we’d have to do (therefore making it easier to stick together: climbing sections are where groups separate quite quickly).
After the previous evening’s ride into Nowy Sacz (along a very busy highway) it was incredibly gratifying that getting out of town was much easier: immediately after crossing a bridge at the edge of the old town, we suddenly found ourselves on a quiet suburban two-lane road which quickly became quite rural (I guess Nowy Sacz style urban sprawl only happens in certain directions). And then the first climb commenced. Contrary to our expectations there were a number of climbs, the first of which led almost immediately to a separation of the group into three or four subgroups (each containing one or two riders). I, holder of the map, was unfortunately not in the lead group, and a combination of this with some badly lacking (i.e. absent) road signage led us to miss our first turn and continue for some distance on a more major road than any of us would have preferred. It was still only a minor highway but had quite a bit of traffic. This caused a bit of upheaval among the more athletically-inclined members (member) of our group who preferred to be in charge of both leading and route planning rather than leaving it to someone somewhere behind him on the road. A transfer of the map was effected about this time. We continued onward, the group splitting once again, and foolishly some of the rearguard decided to take a brief(?) stop to check out another wooden church. Unfortunately this did not bode well for the newly-appointed map-holder who had suddenly become very concerned about the possibility of reaching Krakow before dark, and issued a command that none of us should stop at churches, and further that we should follow the most direct route to Krakow. This may have been an entirely reasonable fear given the unexpected amount of climbing, and the inaccurate measure of distance on our first day riding. However, it may also have been related to the newly-appointed map-holder’s failure to realize the extent of the change in map scale (going from 1:500,000 to 1:200,000) and thus overestimating the distance remaining by 100% or more. Or something; in any event any sensible reader should find it quite obvious that I'm exaggerating the degree of conflict for narrative effect (perhaps highly ineffectively).
I might mention here that despite some degree of mental anguish (on the part of the newly appointed map holder, that we might not make it to Krakow before dark, and that some of us were lollygagging to an unacceptable degree. On the part of others, that the newly appointed map holder had gone power-mad for no apparent reason, and that we should lollygag more just out of spite), the scenery was still quite nice. Well-off farming communities for the most part along pretty river valleys, and on up into the hills.
I might be giving a sort of grumbling tone, but it was actually quite fine as we were making good time (especially for those whose scale of the map was somewhat distorted). However, the quality of the road surface was gradually deteriorating, and suddenly we found ourselves at the junction of a major highway leading to Krakow (and the only road that appeared on my map that went anywhere near where we wanted to go). Not only a major highway but a narrow, two lane highway with no shoulder and loads of fast-moving traffic. Mere moments (not even minutes!) after joining this road, three out of four of us were run off the road by a passing bus which not only failed to give us any room whatsoever, but would have run us over had we not taken to the (highly undesirable) ditch. As we had no other choice (and only 4km or so before we reached the next town), we tightened the straps on our helmets and took off at the highest pace we could manage, keeping an eye on the shoulder and intentionally ducking off instead of being hit or crushed. As soon as we hit the outskirts of town we took to the sidewalks, then flopped down in a small park by the intersection of the two busiest, most dangerous small highways any of us had ever seen. None of us wanted to ride on such a road ever again, yet the only slightly direct route to Krakow was on that nasty road we'd just left (which no doubt only got worse as Krakow approached). Fortunately we figured out that we were quite close to Krakow: maybe 20km. So a much less direct route would still get us there in plenty of time (as it was still the very early hours of afternoon. Just seemed like evening. We planned to take the two long sides of a right triangle instead of its hypotenuse, and given that the two sides were approximately equal in length we could have had a pretty good estimate of distance, had any of us been capable of rational thought at that point. The riding was a little less interesting: terrain had flattened out and just about everything reminded me of northern Indiana (guess that's why a lot of Poles ended up there).
At least there weren't any buses or big trucks trying to wipe us out, but this last part of the ride was becoming a bit tedious. Flat and fairly dull, and without promise of much more (from the hills we had seen that everything flattened out most of the way to Krakow). So instead we headed straight north, planning to intersect a railway line with a general plan to take a train west to Krakow central station (thus avoiding the very undesirable concept of riding west into the major built-up and industrial areas of Krakow, right about rush hour and with the sun right in our eyes (and in the eyes of the assassins behind the wheels of buses and trucks). Before long, there it was, a train station (or at least two platforms with people idly waiting for the next train). Some 45 minutes later (30 minutes late) the train for Krakow arrived, signaling the end of our bike ride. The journey was not complete, however, as we, our bicycles and our filth crowded into two entry/exit compartments for the ride. Scheming looking young men soon joined us in the compartments, looking very suspiciously at us and our bikes. I thought surely we were about to be robbed or something, and I wasn't pleased at all when one of them forced one of the doors open while the train was still moving (his companion watching down the train for authorities). I held onto the bike (as if using it for balance) and made mental plans about what I would do if (a) I were thrown off the train, (b) my bike was thrown off the train, (c) I and my bike were thrown off the train, (d) various other criminal activities upon my person and/or belongings. Turns out they were just sneaking into the entry/exit compartment to smoke. Reality 1, paranoia 0. (Or so "They" would like you to think. Anyway, we made it to the station, and to the hotel without further incident.
Distance ridden for the day: a not-so pleasant 52.9 miles
Time on the bikes for the day: 5:00 (moving time)
Moving average: 10.6mph
Maximum speed: 35.0mph.
Today's altitude profile was unexpectedly peaky though nowhere near as nasty as that first day:
Total distance for the trip came out at 266 miles, total riding time 23 hours and 36 minutes.
The last night in Krakow was uneventful; we were too tired to do much of anything. Dismantling and packing the bicycles, then showers and an ordinary meal at a fast-foodish Georgian restaurant, then straight to bed with no shenanigans of any kind. And the trip back home was entirely ordinary (and home was a very very good place to be).
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
With four snoring gentlemen in one small room, it's no real surprise that we were up quite early. Our quality accommodation offered no breakfast (although it did have a somewhat rundown kitchen, which might have been useful if we'd have bothered to buy any foodstuffs besides Snickers bars and beer). No problem, we'd just find a restaurant in the town centre. Well, after walking into several different establishments, we were sorely disappointed: we were looking for something a little more substantial than coffee or beer (half of the customers were having coffee for breakfast, the other half pints of beer). Eventually we found ourselves at a sandwich shop, very much a Slovakian equivalent of Subway (I might note here that in our entire time in Slovakia we didn't see any of the ubiquitous American chains: no Subway, KFC, McDonalds, Starbucks, nor any of your familiar large retailers). I had a big-ol sandwich with an odd mix of the non-meaty things on offer: boiled egg, mushrooms, cheese, pickled peppers, cabbage/slaw, onions, tomato, mustard. We sat there, gobbling our sandwiches and wondering what happened to the concept of breakfast in Bardejov.
Our original misconception was that today's ride might be the most difficult of them all, but our more informed reinspection of the maps gave a much more pleasant impression: hilly but not mountainous. We set off north from Bardejov toward the Polish border. Or we would have, except that P. discovered one of the bolts on his rack had worked itself loose and disappeared. Fortunately there was a bike shop on the main square, and they gave him a suitable replacement bolt (for free!). And then we actually did set off. Once again the weather was perfect for riding; slightly chilly, sunny, with a light breeze. Hazy/misty off in the distance but which had dissipated by the time we reached it. Roads were quite empty, apart from the occasional Mercedes (unusual compared to the rest of the traffic we'd seen in Slovakia). The last Slovakian town we passed was Becherov, the only place that had a Cyrillic sign:
The early part of the ride was a 6-mile climb (250m) up to the border crossing; here's a shot of a couple of us getting ready to attack the steepest part of it:
Although both countries are part of the EU the crossing is quite a serious one. High fences, gates, numerous guards with guns, motorbikes, jeeps and so on. And very quiet in terms of traffic: only a couple of cars passed through while we loitered on the Slovakian side (spending our SKK at the border shop, which unfortunately offered only chocolate and alcohol). Our passports were closely inspected, but none of us did anything rash or silly and we were permitted to pass. The road surface was very nice and we cruised downhill for the next 12 miles or so (passed several times by border patrol people on the aforementioned motorbikes and jeeps). The countryside was quite scenic: nice rolling hills and fairly prosperous-looking farms.
We climbed another long uphill section, and discovered to our general displeasure that its downhill counterpart contained some of the worst road surfaces we'd faced so far: not so many large potholes but innumerable small holes, broken surfaces and all the other properties that make a speedy descent a truly bone-jarring process. Not only bone-jarring but bicycle-jarring as well: all of MJ's chainring bolts had become slightly loose (fortunately these are easily tightened). Far worse, we discovered that P's rear cassette had jiggled itself extremely loose. As we didn't have the exact tool designed to tighten it, we would be stopping every five miles or so to tighten it back down as best we could. One more climb and then it was downhill the rest of the way to Nowy Sacz. It's fairly big (pop. ~80,000) and we found ourselves riding along a quite busy highway to the city centre. There we stumbled across a very nice hotel just off the main square, the Panorama (overlooking the river valley):
The rooms were good, the staff were very helpful, and there was even a quite secure sort of cellar area where we could stash the bicycles. MJ and P set off to find a cycle shop where P's cassette could be properly tightened (after a small wild goose chase they did find a workshop, where all it took was a good turn with a long-handled cassette wrench), and HH and I went on a less difficult mission (finding a nice outdoor cafe where we could have a coffee and a beer and some snacks). Nowy Sacz seems to have some interesting sights but we were much more inclined to sit and relax. Once the "cassette mission" had been completed, we took a bit of a wander, stopping for a couple of Zywiec Porters at a very lovely art deco jazz bar.
Dinner was at a very nice (although deserted) basement restaurant ("Restauracja Kupiecka") specializing in traditional Polish food. The cassette-mission boys went for the "most traditional/typical" option, pork in a prune sauce with buckwheat grits. They weren't a fan of this dish at all. However both HH and I had extremely delicious food: mine was trout in a creamy sauce, HH's was a venison dish, rated as perhaps the best food on the trip. And then it was time for a short wander round the square before returning to the hotel. Some of us had to stop and pose for a picture with the Pope sculpture:
MJ (front), Pope (rear)
Distance ridden for the day: a very pleasant 50.9 miles
Time on the bikes for the day: 4:15 (moving time)
Moving average: 11.9mph
Maximum speed: 37.7mph.
It was a gradual-up-and-down day:
Total distance for the ride so far: 212.8 miles, and only one more day of riding left.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
After the previous evenings' carnage, getting up in the morning was quite difficult. Fortunately there was a nice breakfast (with great coffee), and a reasonably short and easy ride ahead of us. Having figured out that our reading of the area's topography was dead wrong (except knowing for certain that there was one substantial climb, of unknown height, noted as 12% grade on the map), we were fairly pleased to note that the day's ride to Bardejov would be relatively short and easy. Our original plan was to do the entire distance from Stary Smokovec to Bardejov in one day, but we decided that Bardejov (preserved medieval city, UNESCO World Heritage site, etc.) should remain the day's destination. Here's a view from just out of Stara Lubovna, looking east towards Bardejov:
And another of the many roadside shrines along the way:
Although we were on a fairly major road, there was very little traffic in general, except for the occasional bus or loaded lumber truck. Quite a few people seemed to be getting around on foot instead:
There was only one real climb on this ride (a mere 160m or so), so we made much better time than we had even expected. As a result three of us (HH was riding ahead) decided we could afford to take a short uphill detour to check out one of eastern Slovakia's noted wooden churches (here is a general historical note, and here is a quite extensive site about them). Here's a picture of the church at Krive:
(More info and interior photos can be found here). We were fortunate that a carload of well-organized German tourists happened to be visiting at the time; they had arranged for the caretaker to let them in. So we too were able to inspect the interior (most notably 17th century icons). Now I should note here that I was the first of our group to arrive at the church, and being anxious to get inside and see it, I locked my bike rather than leaving it unattended. Imagine my dismay upon leaving the church when I realized that the padlock key was nowhere to be found. I had to admit this to my traveling companions who began helping me look around the grass to find it. The Germans hadn't left yet; although they were lightly sympathetic and highly amused, they had no suitable tools to chop a cable with (I still contend that attacking the lock mechanism itself would have been more productive). Very fortunately the key was found, right beside the bicycle. So we were able to unlock the bike, although I was no longer permitted to be custodian of the key.
The remaining distance to Bardejov was a pleasant downhill along a fairly busy (for Slovakia, anyway) highway. We arrived in the gorgeous town square to find HH semi-snoozing on a park bench. Here are a few pictures of the square:
Although it should be quite a tourist draw, Bardejov seems to lack slightly important tourist facilities like accommodation. Or at least that's how it seemed to us. We did find a very cheap, very damp pension where all four of us (and our associated filth) got to share a room. Hot water only sufficient for two or three showers, vaguely musty aromas, etc., but at least we could store our bikes indoors, take showers, and sleep on beds. Then we headed back into town; some of us went into St Egidius' church to see the impressively preserved 15th century wooden altarpieces (some visible here; I tried taking pictures but it was just too dark). Bardejov is very much worth visiting despite the possible issues related to accommodation. Otherwise we just wandered around the old town, stopping occasionally at one of the many outdoor cafes for a cold drink and a small snack. When it came to dinnertime, well, there wasn't a whole lot of choice. For some reason just about every restaurant in town was a pizza place. We selected one of them and ate our fill of (surprisingly reasonably decent) pizza, slightly less than enjoying the accompanying music (an unholy blend of traditional southern German and Slovakian folk music with a lively techno beat). And then it was off to bed; after the previous night none of us were remotely interested in even thinking about anything considering nightlife.
Distance ridden for the day: 37.2 miles
Time on the bikes for the day: 3:09 (moving time)
Moving average: 11.8mph
Maximum speed: 33mph.
The altitude profile shows that this was a pretty easy day (note the compressed vertical scale compared to previous days):
Total distance for the trip so far: 161.9 miles
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
After the previous day's hard ride, it was a little difficult getting started. My knees were quite sore after their abuse on the climbs, but I was buoyed by the promise that a significant part of this ride would be downhill. This was originally planned to be a rest day in Stary Smokovec (possibly including a loop ride to Poprad and the Low Tatras) but we thought it was probably best to press on a little further, thus distributing the next day's ride across two days (a misguided reading of the map suggested that the terrain offered some significant climbs). Once again the weather was beautiful: sunny but rather chilly, so we all started out in long sleeves. Here we are getting ready to set off:
I was quite surprised to note that the promise of "all downhill" was actually true; the next 7-8 miles I didn't need to pedal at all, except to stretch my legs. The main highway was the only way down, but the road surface was quite nice and traffic was light. It was no effort at all getting into Stary Smokovec, which is apparently the Slovakian version of Zakopane. Here's a shot of the Grand Hotel which was our goal the previous night (if it hadn't been dark, we definitely could have reached it):
At this point my knees were still suffering quite a lot, and I felt like it could be quite problematic trying to keep up with the other guys, so an alternative plan was hatched. I would let them ride on to Stara Lubovna (taking a slightly circuitous route to avoid highway traffic which had increased somewhat once we reached Stary Smokovec), and I would continue down the river valley to the town of Spisska Bela where I could catch a train to Stara Lubovna. Here's the last I ever saw of the other guys:
OK, maybe I'd see them a lot sooner than I even expected.
The road to Spisska Bela was still a gradual downhill, with the mountains behind me. I passed quite a few people sitting on the side of the road trying to sell wild mushrooms or heaps of potatoes; quite a sad sight given the tiny amount of traffic along this road. Not long after that I reached a very nice pond/lake where I stopped to soak my legs (and take another picture):
The park adjoining the lake also had a substantial collection of tourist-friendly signage about the local area (including English!), but most importantly for my purposes, a very nicely detailed topographic map of the area, apparently showing that our calculations about the serious hills between Stary Smokovec and Stara Lubovna were entirely incorrect. It seems that we had mistaken shaded areas (depicting forest or park, I believe) for indications of topography, and thus guessed wrong about the direction of flow of the rivers indicated on the map. In fact, it appeared that the route from Strbske Pleso to Stara Lubovna was entirely downhill. Nonetheless, since I was on the outskirts of Spisska Bela, I thought I may as well visit the train station and check out the timetable. As it turns out, Spisska Bela is quite pretty -- a well-off medieval guild town in its day (some history here). Off the main highway there were hardly any cars at all:
There was a tiny train station there, or at least a house where a couple of rail employees were waiting. A train was arriving right as I got there, but going in the wrong direction. I tried asking the employees about the next train towards Stara Lubovna, but neither English or German were useful at all. Fortunately gesturing is always a possibility (point towards Stara Lubovna, point towards my watch with a questioning expression, and offer a pen and piece of paper). She obligingly wrote down the times for the next trains: the very next train would be arriving in a mere three hours' time. Since a number of schoolchildren had started to gather around and were taking quite a bit of interest in me and my bike, I decided I may as well hit the road instead. As it mostly ran parallel to the train tracks, I could always stop and wait for a train if the riding became too difficult. Turns out it didn't, and I continued mostly downward along the river valley (quite scenic all the way)
In this part of Slovakia there are numerous shrines along the way. Some of them large enough that you can probably go inside them for a quick prayer or nap (although I certainly didn't try).
As I cruised along the highway, I passed through a couple more small towns like this one:
and suddenly caught up with the other guys who had stopped for a snack and a drink. As I pulled up on my bike I was handed the remains of an ice-cream bar and an ice-cold Coca-Cola. Seems my pace was a little better than I had anticipated. From there it was a straight shot to Stara Lubovna. We rode around the main square and checked into a nice hotel (apparently the best hotel and the best restaurant in town). After a much needed shower and a spot of shopping (trying to find me a knee support for the remaining rides. Turns out the shop we needed was right next to the hotel, and would reopen at 8am), it was dinner time. We had balcony seats so we could watch the comings and goings of the locals (especially the local teenagers who were busy with the usual sorts of activities involving skateboards, rollerblades and irritated adults). My Slovakian vegetarian specialties (pierogi/haluska/potato pancakes) were tasty but not all that exciting. Once dinner was finished, we decided to check out the nightlife (at least around the town square). A dimly-lit bar offering billiards seemed like a good choice; shooting some pool would be a good diversion. Or so we thought, until the barman obviously misunderstood us, instead turning on the lights for ... THE BOWLING LANE!
It's a version of ninepin bowling: pins laid out in a diamond shape with substantial space between them. Pins were reset after every roll (they had strings attached to their tops for easy resetting). The balls were relatively small and didn't have holes, and the lane didn't have gutters (only rails). As we didn't know the rules, we tried various approaches to knock down the pins, mainly focusing upon the richochet technique off the rails. Only later did the barman explain to us that this is a foul: you score no points if the ball touches a rail. Scoring: apparently if you knock down all nine, you get another go (none of us ever did better than 7). We had a few rounds of incredibly inexpensive beers, and gradually a few of the locals came by to chatter. Mostly in broken German although a couple of them had a bit of English. Of course this kind of socializing has its risks, and soon enough the barman brought us some shots of the local drink (high-octane peach schnapps I believe, clocking in above 50% alcohol). Well, it's a bit difficult to refuse, so we asked him to join us and have one himself as well. Ouch! One of the most unpleasant things that's ever touched my throat. A few more rounds of beers and some more rambling conversations with the locals, and we were ready to go. Or so we thought... we had to face another tray of deadly peach schnapps. We so badly wanted to refuse, and even tried it on. Unthinkable! At least the barman had one himself (again), but I think we were all struggling to keep it down. We rushed to pay our bill (something like £4 or £5 each for loads and loads of drink + an hour of bowling) and get out of there before the dreaded schnapps made another appearance. A quick round of beers at the local hostel and we were definitely ready to return to the hotel and crash.
Distance ridden for the day: 43.8 miles
Time on the bikes for the day: 3:42 (moving time)
Moving average: 11.8mph
Maximum speed: 31mph.
The ride really was downhill all the way:
Total distance for the trip: 124.7 miles
Friday, September 22, 2006
And here it was, the first day we were actually going to do some real riding. Rather than rushing right off at a suitably early hour, however, we decided to have a relatively leisurely breakfast (including some tall tales from P. and I about our supposed experiences with Zakopane's nightlife) and check out one last cycle shop to see about finding the crucial replacement chain ring. A bit more wild-goose-chasery as MJ went from rental shop #1 to rental shop #2 before finding a real-live supply/repair/workshop type shop. Which didn't open until 10am. So we idled about, hoping an employee would turn up even a little bit early (let me tell you, as a former retail employee myself, we absolutely love it when customers are waiting when we arrive, and demand to have their urgent needs met immediately, ie before the normal pre-opening responsibilities have been completed). It turned out that they didn't have the exact chain ring required, but the mechanic offered to fix an entirely new set of chain rings for approx £30, and do so in an hour. However, as our ride was going to be long, and much of it mountainous, we thought that would be too much of a risk (we weren't reallly equipped with lights, nor prepared to ride unfamiliar mountain roads in the dark even if we had lights). So we hit the road, leaving my bike un-repaired (the plan was to ride on the large front chainring on flats and downhills, the small ring on uphills, and try to keep the switching to a minimum. Switching was at least possible although not smooth. It turned out to be a reasonably-manageable annoyance once I got used to manic shifting when I needed to drop down to low gears).
Our original plan was to take the shorter (east) route from Zakopane to Stary Smokovec, figuring that the ride into Zakopane might have taken too much out of us, so we should keep the most mountainous ride the shortest. But since we took the bus to Zakopane, we figured we may as well take the longer western route around the highest of the High Tatras (basically the shortest way you can get to Stary Smokovec on roads, heading west from Zakopane). Leaving Zakopane the road surfaces were impressively good quality (and had plenty of shoulder space), and the traffic was relatively light once we got out of town. It was a chilly, sunny morning with fresh mountain air and the smell of pine everywhere, and we kept up a nice pace through gently rolling (largely downhill) terrain. We saw numerous cyclists coming the other way; every few minutes you'd hear another "ahoy" despite being well out of Talk Like A Pirate season. Here's what the area looked like:
P. with his Poprad. We would eventually have to negotiate the hills you see in the background...
After not very long at all (surprisingly soon, actually) we reached the Slovakian border, a proper border crossing despite both nations' EU status. The quality of the road surfaces dipped noticeably, and we noticed there was a lot less road traffic. People walking everywhere, quite a few working bicyclists, just the occasional bus or massive truck. We'd already ridden up what I thought were a couple of fairly decent climbs (the first going from about 830m to 950m; the second from about 700m to 950m without any real breaks), but then I saw my first gradient warning sign:
Warning of 12% grade. P. up ahead.
This was a major uphill (at least in my world), the most I've ever climbed at once. Starting about 780m we went right on up to 1120m with only one relatively flat bit about halfway up.
The boys taking pictures and a much needed rest at the scenic overlook.
The scenic overlook itself.
HH getting in the mood to tackle the downhill.
The downhill section that followed was quite an intense experience itself. Just as I haven't climbed many mountains before on the bike, neither have I descended them. And this descent was significantly more than the climb, going from 1120m right down to about 580m including a bunch of hairpin turns and big sweeping downhills. Only a few vehicles, and good road surface (thank goodness) but I sure used up a lot of brake rubber just controlling my speed. Once the road levelled out (and my slight case of the shakes subsided), I stopped and took a picture looking back up the hill:
We were in dire need of nourishment at this point, since we'd gone about 85 kilometers (53 miles) and still had some distance to go. Especially because our various map-based estimates of the total distance seemed to be some 15% under the actual distances as measured on the road. Fortunately we were at the last big town before the High Tatras began in earnest, Liptovsky Mikulas. I can't say too much about Liptovsky Mikulas except that it had a large grocery store in the center of town, which we pillaged for sugary beverages, candy bars, trail mix and water (our first money spent in Slovakia, things seemed to be much cheaper than they were in Poland). We sat in the shade for only a few minutes, gobbling down our fuel for the last little section of the ride.
Liptovsky Mikulas is just full of bicycles; we were quite surprised to see all the bike lanes and people on bikes, even on the highway out of town. But I suddenly realized I was having quite a difficult time: my knees were really suffering (despite gobbling some ibuprofen) as my unfamiliarity with extended uphill rides had led me to use a riding style (pushing rather than spinning) that caused undue stress to the knees. This was quite a problem as we had some significant distance still to go, and sunset fairly quickly approaching. Therefore a change in plan was necessary: MJ gave me his wheel and instructed me to follow as close as possible, thereby giving me a substantial reduction of wind resistance. Quite important since I was the only one riding a mountain bike and thus using a much more upright posture. This went on for a while until we reached the steeper sections of the climb. Through some combination of extreme granny gears and drafting in the aforementioned manner we climbed, and climbed, and climbed. All the time the sun was getting lower and lower:
We switched into our most reflective (and long sleeve) clothing, because it was really starting to get dark, and eventually MJ and I crept into Strbske Pleso, the highest settlement in the High Tatras, having climbed continuously from Liptovsky Mikulas's 580m right on up to 1350m. Although Stary Smokovec was not far at all (and all downhill), we decided it was too dark to continue safely, so we checked into a hotel. All of us, that is, except for P. who had taken the bull by the horns and pressed on ahead into Stary Smokovec (fortunately there was a taxi available, only twenty of your English pounds). The rest of the evening was somewhat of a blur: the hotel was quite nice; MJ bought some really inexpensive bottled beers from a shop (I doubt he spent more than a pound on 8 bottles), and then we went to a restaurant just across the way (seemed like the only place open in the September off-season).
A couple of the guys had a big-heap-o-meat plate (disappointing, I understand) while this time the vegetarian (or vegetarian-ish; just about everything had flavor bits that may have come from living creatures) options were the standouts. Top of the table was a Slovakian garlic soup, very much like French onion soup (croutons, cheese, hearty broth) but with garlic replacing the onions. Just what we needed after such a major ride. I also had halusky, a Slovakian dish much like gnocchi, and some excellent fried potatoes. And I couldn't resist ordering the dish described in the English section of the menu as "Salad with cabbage, onion, tomato, vegetable, mildew and moldy cheese". Turned out to be a very serviceable blue cheese salad. Mmmmmmm good. And that was about it.
Distance ridden for the day: 80.4 miles
Time on the bikes for the day: 7.5 hours (moving time)
Moving average: 10.7mph
Maximum speed: a hair-raising 33.2mph
Total distance for the trip: 80.9 miles
I brought along my GPS (Garmin Etrex Legend) so I also have some interesting data about the contour of the ride:
As you can see we saved the best climb for last.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
The next morning we got up, assembled our cycles and then lazed around town until we got word on HH's missing bag. Fortunately we were able to leave all non-necessary items (e.g. bags to take the bikes on the airplane, floor pump, extra set of clean clothes) at the hotel for the duration of our cycle trip. It had been suggested to us that the first section of the Krakow to Zakopane ride would be the least pleasant of our entire trip, mainly due to busy roads getting out of the Krakow sprawl. So we took our cycles to the main square, checked out St. Mary's Basilica (linky. I took a few pictures but my hand wasn't sufficiently steady to post them here), and had a bit of lunch. About 12:30 we got the word: the bag had landed, and would be delivered to our hotel within a couple of hours. We could have spent that time in a fruitless search for a cycle shop that was open on Sunday, but instead we lazed around in the park a while longer. By the time the bag arrived, we had decided it was too late in the day to make a possibly-unpleasant, entirely-uphill ride to an unfamiliar town where we had not yet secured accommodation. Fortunately, we had been told that it wouldn't be a problem to take the bikes on one of the quite-frequent buses to Zakopane. So we rode on over to the bus station, where we found a Zakopane-bound bus ready to depart.
There was quite a crowd of people already starting to board, many of them with heaps of luggage. But we opened up the luggage doors and found that there was possibly enough room for the bikes, if we were really clever and stacked them in pairs. As we started doing this, the surly driver came out and began berating us in Polish. The only words we understood were "stop" and "no". So we started pulling the bikes back out, only to find that he was actually ok with the bikes, as long as we didn't damage or dirty other passengers' luggage. But he was in an extreme hurry to leave, so we'd better get moving if we wanted to be on the bus (or at least, this is how we interpreted the situation). It was an absolutely frantic scramble as we removed wheels and bags, and carefully/quickly jammed them into the small spaces available (as MJ put it, good thing none of us are precious about our bikes). And the bus was rather raggedy but we took up seats at the back and cruised to Zakopane in style (and only about two hours).
Upon arriving we unloaded our bikes, put them back together and leisurely cruised into town. Zakopane is the highest town in Poland, and as the gateway to the Tatras it's a serious tourist town. We checked into a nice, inexpensive hotel at the top of the main pedestrian drag where we could lock up our bikes, and got ready to check out the town.
The view from our hotel balcony: Looking south toward the High Tatras
Another view in the direction we'd be heading in the morning (actually this was taken in the morning; apologies to you continuity pedants).
Wooden houses just off the main street
Tourist action on the main drag. We did wander up and down the main street a couple of times looking for bike shops (recall that my broken chainring had still not been replaced). Zakopane is a very sporty town and quite well equipped with bike shops, as it turns out, but nothing was still open at that time of the evening. No worries, we decided to check it out in the morning. We passed quite a few dodgy vendors (selling cheap binoculars, smoked sheep cheese, single roses, and all the typical cheap tat you find people selling on the main drags of tourist towns) and then we saw it:
When we walked by this crowded restaurant with rows of open-flame grills and mountains of meat everywhere you looked, our dinner venue was decided. I'm a bit of a pescetarian but was egged on into trying just a little something:
(Photo sent by one of my traveling companions to Mrs. Dunce with the title "Busted!"). Well, I can definitely say that the horseradish sauce, mustard, and barbecue sauces were quite nice. Not so sure about the kielbasa, though. Afterwards we headed back to the hotel. Upon getting there, P. and I realized the night was young, so bidding our traveling companions good night, we decided to sneak right back out to the main drag. Things had quieted down substantially but we found a nice bar where some musicians were playing a sort of fiddle-and-accordion-based distant cousin to bluegrass. As we hadn't tasted much variety in beer, we ordered a couple of the different choices from the menu. P chose the Okocim Karmi, and I the Okocim Mocne. Little did we know that the former was a non-alcoholic beverage, and the latter a super-strong (7.1%). Oops. Anyway, no harm done and a couple rounds later, the lights went up and we headed back up the hill to the hotel. Except that just around the corner, we were drawn into a huge, empty nightclub, full of attendants and staff but with no more than 15 customers. I'm sure it's busier in the high season, or on a weekend, but on a September Sunday night it was a strange and eerie place. Here's a picture of me out on the dance floor (I should note this was as busy as the dance floor ever became):
And then it was off to bed, ready to ride in the morning.
Total distance ridden for the day: 0.5 miles (slow ride into Zakopane)
Total time on the bikes: approx 5 minutes.
Total distance for the trip: 0.5 miles
Maximum speed: 12 mph.
But tomorrow would be different.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Our journey started at the ungodly hours between 3 and 4am as we had to be on a 3:55 train to reach the airport the designated 2.5 hours before departure to Krakow. For future reference it's no problem to fit two loaded cycle bags and various other assorted gear in a black cab. The 2.5 hour flight to Krakow was uneventful, except that when we arrived, one of the bags hadn't made it onto the plane (all the bikes had arrived, but HH's bag containing everything else had been left behind). We were told to expect the bag on the next flight (same time the next day), so we crossed our fingers and made the requisite comments of sympathy and solidarity whilst secretly being pleased that our own bags had arrived. We stayed at the Hotel Polonia, right in the old town and very close to the train/bus station.
But we couldn't sit around and enjoy the town just yet; we had a mission. You see, I experienced various difficulties related to preparing my bicycle for the journey. The touring bike I planned to take was not suitably geared for mountainous terrain, and it seemed to have a fairly obscure rear freehub for which replacement cassettes with very low gears are not readily available. After some various attempts to solve the problem (Replace the cassette? Not readily available. Get a new wheel? 27" wheels aren't readily available around here either, and I'd have to replace both front and back, plus tires and possibly brakes. Get a new front chainring of a "granny gear" variety? Still wouldn't suffice, would necessitate replacing the whole front setup. And so on) it was decided that instead I would borrow MJ's mountain bike, geared quite low, with a rack and reasonably well suited to touring. However, a few days before departure MJ opined that the rear rim was very close to failure (after having a similar rim failure on his own bike) so he had a new wheel built, with a new rear cluster and a fresh chain. This was only ready the day before departure, and as I took it out for a test ride, I discovered that the middle chainring on the front was so worn as to be unridable (this will often happen when a fresh new chain is put onto a worn ring: the old chain will be cruddy enough that it doesn't slip). The large and small chainrings were ok, but this causes some problems in the area of seamless gear-shifting. Anyway, after some panicked attempts to disassemble other bikes to scavenge an appropriate part (which didn't work out, due to differences in sizing and so on), we ended up in Krakow with the bike still un-repaired. Surely there will be a cycle shop in Krakow, we thought (after all, there were loads of cyclists around). Armed with the Polish word for cycle ("rower") we set off on a wild goose chase to a few cycle rental shops near the old town (no parts/service departments), one of which actually appeared to be a wheelchair/prosthetics shop, before finally piling into a taxi to get a "real" bike shop. Being Saturday, of course it had closed by the time we got there. And of course would not re-open until Monday. So we decided I should make do with the gears on the bike for now, and gave up the quest for the day.
After a very much needed nap, we headed back out for a cold one, some coffee and some snacks (assorted pierogis, herring, + strange smoked cheese curd, "oscypki"), hanging out in one of the zillions of outdoor cafes, doing some people-watching and (for three of us) still secretly being glad we had a change of clothes. For dinner we headed over to Pod Aniolami (recommended by a local!). Located in an ancient building, they focus especially upon very traditional dishes taken from centuries-old cookbooks. The carnivores in our group couldn't help but go for the hardwood-smoked grilled meat dishes ("Nobleman's shashlik, pork roasted in wine with prunes" or "King's shashlik, pork with bacon"); I had a hickory-grilled mackerel with a very tasty horseradish sauce, dill potatoes and baked apple. Plus the most amazing fried pierogi (of the Russian variety, ie cheese and potatoes). Such a heap of food, but we figured it would be a good base for the next day's riding (assuming the bag showed up soon enough). Perhaps the best meal we had on the whole trip.
Total distance ridden for the day: 0.0 miles
Total time on the bikes: 0:00
Total distance for the trip: 0.0 miles
Maximum speed: 0.
Oh yeah, don't worry that there are no photos on this post. This will be remedied in the next entries.