Photos Montecorice, Italy to Dubai, UAE

[Colinleath]

[this is a work in progress and may take a few days to finish. I'm publishing now because STP currently has no long-term stable draft mode and I don't want to lose more work. So there should be more to read here eventually.]

Index of previous posts on this trip.

Montecorice is the extra small dot to the left of Sala Consilina.

Not long after leaving where I wrote the previous post, I started to get flats in my rear tire. Eventually I realized the rim liner wasn't working. But by that point I had no spare tubes or patches.

I looked on Google maps for bike stores and found something 6km away. They could help later in the day. The closest hardware store was only 3km away, in Acciaroli.

(Me after realizing I was no longer independently mobile and would be walking or hitching a ride somehow.)

This is the part of bicycle trips you always know can happen and generally seek to avoid but when they do happen can lead to interesting experiences. As it was I'd patched or replaced the tube two or three times that morning before finally realizing I needed enough cloth tape to cover the rim holes to keep them from cutting into the bottom of the tube. Somehow I'd been able to go so far without that happening until fixing a flat from a glass shard has caused some rearrangement, and now the rubber rim tape, which was too narrow, didn't effectively cover the sharp edges of the spoke holes.

I go through this with nearly every bike I do a long distance trip on it seems. I should just always carry enough 1" cloth medical tape to wrap each rim twice and first flat I get replace the existing rim liner. Plastic rim liners have sharp edges and will cut tubes at high pressure. The rubber ones, if wide enough, should be safe though. More hip, up to date cyclists recommend tubeless. Which I have yet to figure out.

So I'm walking my bike to Acciaroli. It's a nice day. The road is not at all busy. Not more than 500m along, some bicyclists show up and end up offering to help.

(Yet another cyclist happened along and took this photo after my tube was replaced. L-r: Colin, Cesare, Ismael, Tappa or Mattia, and Alfredo. Ismael donated the tube. He saved me two more times with tools and know-how over the next several days, and he is the youngest of the group at 23. Grazie a ti, Ismael!! Alfredo helped me find cloth tape and patch kits in a Chinese(?)-run store in a small town. The prices were way cheaper than I expected: €1 per roll of tape for example. €1/ patch kit.)

One (Ismael) has a tube the right size. I put it in and don't pump it up too hard. It's siesta time in Acciaroli, and the hardware store is closed. I biked on with these guys from Bergamo and they are helpful and welcoming helping me check stores along the way for the tape I want and spare tubes. And we eat together at a cafe as well.

A hill at least some of us had to walk up.

These guys have a penchant for stopping in the old towns along the way and biking or walking the narrow streets to explore the old town centers and plazas. Here is one such town after we had left it:

We probably stopped by a grocery store, got water and headed out of town looking for a place to sleep. Then Alfredo got a flat. Cesare and Tappa went ahead to keep looking. Ismael and I stayed with Alfredo. I think he had an extra tube so the fix was quick.

We all reunited eventually after dark and finally settled on a spot that worked very well. But this was new to me: not doing exactly what I wanted and camping where I wanted. I relaxed and went along instead of insisting on my ideas. Ismael made a point to look for hammock trees which made me feel even more welcome. Honestly I don't think I could have found a better bunch of people.

They found a table and chairs and we all cooked something and had dinner. It started to seem like it might rain and they all moved under the tree next to my hammock. And I put up my tarp. So that night under eucalyptus trees I lay there listening to them talk and joke and did not understand much. I think I considered recording their voices for a sound memory, but it looks like I didn't. What I did do was attempt to use Google translate to decode some of it. That really didn't work well either. Much much later, and only about a week before I left Italy, I finally started to study Italian using the Duolingo app, but, as they say, that is another story for another time.

The next morning was bike repair time.

Replacing the too-narrow rubber rim liner with cloth medical tape. I wrapped it twice and then used an end of my small pair of scissors to create the hole for the tube valve to stick through.

Because of some offending pieces of metal which used to hold my chain guard (before that got bashed from dragging my bike over a fallen tree or rock), my shifting got messed up at some point and my chain got pinched. I didn't realize this until examining the bike in the morning trying to figure out why it could not shift smoothly any more (one of the links was bent and twisted). I was yet again saved by Ismael because his multitool had a chain tool and I was able to extract this link and reclose the chain without using an extra quick link which no one had.

Here you can see one of the offending chain guard holders. These I repeatedly bent back and forth until they finally broke off closer to the bottom bracket to avoid any more problems. Less can be more on a long bike trip. I'm still rocking my fenders but they have gotten bashed repeatedly and are increasingly difficult to keep from rubbing on the spinning wheel.




saf

 

[ali]

Looking forward to the rest of your updates on this post.

Since you have been cycle touring a long time, do you think there are some specific things that break down more often than others, and are worth learning how to fix yourself? I only have my experience of my one trip across Turtle Island, but for me the top five were: 1. need to lubricate the chain regularly, 2. need to know how to replace a tube, 3. tires go bald, 4. spokes break, 5. cables wear out. I think if i end up traveling by bike here in Central America i would first like to know how to replace spokes and cables. Although perhaps cables less important because i think most mechanics or hardware stores can help with that. Is a broken or bent chain really that common in your experience?

 

[Colinleath]

Looking forward to the rest of your updates on this post.

Since you have been cycle touring a long time, do you think there are some specific things that break down more often than others, and are worth learning how to fix yourself? I only have my experience of my one trip across Turtle Island, but for me the top five were: 1. need to lubricate the chain regularly, 2. need to know how to replace a tube, 3. tires go bald, 4. spokes break, 5. cables wear out. I think if i end up traveling by bike here in Central America i would first like to know how to replace spokes and cables. Although perhaps cables less important because i think most mechanics or hardware stores can help with that. Is a broken or bent chain really that common in your experience?

I've had chain issues at least twice in recent memory, this being the second time. The previous time a chain I had rejoined with a tool, not a quick link, broke. I walked to the next town and bought a chain and chain tool. Though with most upright bikes you can just take a standard chain and install it without removing any links.

Broken spokes were an ongoing problem for me. I would carry extras but can only fix the ones on the non-sprocket side on my own. Using robust high quality wheels helps i think (my current btwin bike has been through a lot of rough riding with no shocks and so far no broken spokes). In the past I also used bikes with front shocks and hung my luggage on the handlebars and wore a pack to try to get weight off the rear wheel.

Cables are easy to replace at least if you have a good cable cutter!

My early trips were often with little money so i did all sorts of odd things to save $$.

If I had plastic pedals they would usually break pretty quick.

Learning to lube the chain took me longer than necessary too. The guy in Idaho who installed the new drive train pretty much told me how. A drop of lube on each link and then wipe it off and also clean the chain as much as possible before adding more lube too.

I carry two small bottles one with some lube, the other empty which has a cap with a hole poked in it. When i need oil i switch the caps.

Most bottles sold in the stores are too big.

So you can fill up those little bottles from discards from empty bottles in oil shop dumpsters or just beg a mechanic for some.

But this time I bought some park lube and filled a single serve vodka bottle and that's been enough for Mammoth to Bozeman, Charlottesville to Knoxville and Marseille to Catania.

Hub bearings and freewheel bearings will eventually want maintenance or replacement.

Truing a wheel is a good skill but to this day I still don't like doing it.

Dealing with replacing and adjusting brake pads is also important and that continues to be something I'm pretty bad at. I've never had disc brakes for a long trip. Mainly because the budget bikes don't usually have them. I think they can also be hard to protect when boxing the bike when flying unless you just remove the rotors so they don't get bent.

For the most part as long as biking is faster than walking I'm pretty happy. Don't have to carry my luggage on my back but the downside is usually being near cars unfortunately.

Another downside is needing to maintain it and the difficulty of flying with it. Fortunately my friend here in UAE just wants company for exploring the desert. So I get away from both cars and bikes for a bit.

(Tried uploading a video but i only hear the sound.)

So here it is at YouTube:




The bike though has been very useful in town to get to a nice swimming beach.

Dubai is a crazy place and the air quality is often abysmal, but still generally easier to deal with than the southern European diesel for me.

My friend lives a 5 min walk from the second largest mall in Dubai (Mall of the Emirates). The Carrefour in there puts most American grocery stores to shame. A very odd contrast in motivations to say the least (my friend lives for the desert and traditional life ways but spends most of his days in a mega city!) but a good adventure.

 

[Colinleath]

Ok, So it turns out there is a time limit of 10000 minutes to edit a post before it gets frozen. So to continue to the story I will just reply.

We've got to go back in time to November 12, 2021. That was the morning we were fixing bicycles in my first camp with the four Italian guys. The town of Palinuro had been their goal the previous day and that morning after our late start, we made it there.

The guys had some breakfast at a cafe while I went to get some euros from an ATM.

We refilled our water and then Alfredo found a store where he could buy a new tube. Turns out most auto shops repair bicycles too and often have the tubes for them.

And then we headed inland to Poderia would be my guess:

And I we did a fair amount of relatively boring riding on an interstate-type highway.

At some point we stopped and regrouped to find a more interesting route.

And from then on we took smaller roads that took us through towns.

And consistent with their habits they managed to find after a few twists and turns and narrow roads an interesting and empty plaza overlooking the route ahead.

Looking the other way this particular town had a view I found less relaxing:

(Some ferocious cliffs that are over 2000 m high)

This was the town of Bosco, Salerno, not the amazing Bosco Verticale of Milan (mini-skyscrapers with trees and shrubbery growing out of most of the walls).

Then we rode downhill to Sapri, where we were able to swim and shower by the beach, get food at a Eurospin, and head out of town to look for a place to camp.

The elder of the group (Cesar) didn't trust the water options at the marina on the way out of town so it was decided to go back and camp in a park.

I gave that a shot for a bit but it was too busy for me so I went into the hills on my own, spent the night there and found them again in the morning.


The next day we had some fun riding along the coast but then headed uphill and into the rain.

Their objective was a Eurovelo route in the mountains that connected several national parks. At any rate we bicycled uphill a lot and hid in a cafe for quite a while and then in a flower shop near a graveyard.

On our way to Lauria.

We eventually got going because the rain mostly quit and kept heading into the hills. I got a flat and cesar and Ismael stopped to help me. This time I patched my tube with patches Alfredo had got for me. Ismael recommended I hold the patch in place for 5min in addition to letting the glue dry 5 min. If he hadn't reminded me to do this (I'd gotten out of the habit from using the peel and stick type patches) I doubt the patch would have held.

We made it into town, got (more) food and set off to find a place to sleep. By this point I had begun to intrude upon group leadership and tried to get them to follow me out of town to find a secluded place to sleep. They followed me a good ways up the mountain before the navigation became too ridiculous for all of them to tolerate. . . ( we had to carry our bikes up stairs for a bit or turn around).

So they went back to find a place closer to the town. I kept on going up and out and about an hour later found a place to my liking along a rail trail.

There were some of the mandelbrot / variegated violets I had last seen in the coastal pine forests of Turkey:

We reuinited the next morning along the rail trail and followed it into the next few towns. Fortunately it was a bright sunny day for a change!

There was a very nice plaza in Castellucio Inferiore where we sat in the sun for a while and eventually got to talking with a friendly woman who had a small fluffy dog.

This was a wonderful situation. Only one car drove through the whole time we sat there. There was a church service going on in the church and the singing could be heard.

Angelina and my Italian friends were having a conversation with the whole town, with people walking to and from church, with men, women, children popping out from balconies in various directions around the plaza. As if the whole place were a theater and I as the audience was sitting in the middle of the stage.

It was a memorable and peaceful experience of a great public space pretty nearly impossible to find anywhere in the US yet almost possible to take for granted in many european towns.

I made a recording of a bit of it. (and a youtube version is linked below)

The woman's name is Angelina Russo. Her dog is Camelia.



So, she did invite us to lunch. We all crowded in her apartment. She solicited a few donations from neighbors and we also contributed pasta and peas and probably a few other things. Like a bottle of wine maybe?

Eventually we left after a lot of singing and joviality and social media videos.

For some reason not entirely clear to me Ismael wrote that calligraphy on her wall. I believe Cesar may have told her that Ismael was an artist, so she asked for an inscription on her wall!

I was certainly restless after having sat still for so long. My Italian friends found a place to stay in Laino Borgo and I kept going another hour and uphill to Laino Castello. That was the last I would see of them because the next day I set off to go downhill and get back to the coast where there was less rain and warmer temperatures.

I believe that is a map of the route that they hoped to follow part of.

There was still some chance we would meet the following day, but after seeing which way the weather was headed, I left them to their higher elevation challenge.

Far off in the distance along the coast there appears to be an edge to the cloud cover.
It was a ridiculously long mostly downhill ride.

And it was warmer and blue sky was in sight at the bottom.

The sun made a brief appearance at sunset.

I dumpsterdived frozen fish behind a Eurospin, and some ice cream to be honest, and found a place to hang my hammock in an olive grove below a cemetery.

The following day finding a wild space to hang my hammock was not in the cards (the Italian coastline is generally very developed).

And it was still raining these days and mostly for the rest of the trip some rain could be counted on.

To be continued (the last bit of mainland Italy and then on to Sicily).

 

[Colinleath]

This story continues at substack (and i may use substack for all subsequent reports because it will save drafts indefinitely):

Sicily to Catania and Dubai up to UAE desert walk with Saad - https://colinleath.substack.com/p/sicily-to-catania-and-dubai-up-to

 

[ali]

Thanks for linking on to your further travels. I must admit i find Substack kind of annoying, because years ago i subscribed to one or two China-related newsletters there under a pseudonym to avoid linking it back to my real life in China, then every damn blogger in the world moved there, and the website doesn't let you create different personas for different newsletters, so there is no real privacy if you want to separate out different "sections" of your life. It's like an even worse version of that hideous Disqus commenting system that meant your identity got tracked across every blog you commented on. Like, how to make blogs just as fucking shit as Facebook, you know? Anyway, that is my Substack rant. So i won't subscribe to you there with my China account, but if you see some anonymous reads coming in from various countries around the world, it might be me.

 

[Colinleath]

Thanks Ali. I'm finally starting to work on the next section. The only thing that comes to mind is to use a different email app like tutanota or protonmail. But maybe I don't totally understand. These posts will be so long that you'd probably have to "open in browser" but then you could copy the link, use a different browser, vpn, etc.

It's just really nice to be able to start a draft, not publish it, still have it be there in a month. And do it on a phone.

Guessing I'll keep using it for those reasons, since it's more of a personal journal and while the added engagement posting at STP can be fun that doesn't seem to be my main concern.

 

[ali]

Looking forward to the next instalment! I have discovered a good way to follow public Substacks without formally subscribing is through the RSS feed. In your case: https://colinleath.substack.com/feed This way i can add them to a feed reader and follow without having to link it to the email address i have used to subscribe to other newsletters.

I am pondering setting up a Substack myself. I already post elsewhere than StP for more personal journaling and edit it down to post stuff here that might be more helpful to the folks who read this website, but i wonder if Substack might be a better way to actively keep in touch with family and friends who tend to not want to bother visiting websites outside of the Facebook bubble. If they could subscribe to an email, they might be more inclined to keep in touch. Is it free (or reasonably economical) to host images there too?

 

[Colinleath]

Looking forward to the next instalment! I have discovered a good way to follow public Substacks without formally subscribing is through the RSS feed. In your case: https://colinleath.substack.com/feed This way i can add them to a feed reader and follow without having to link it to the email address i have used to subscribe to other newsletters.

I am pondering setting up a Substack myself. I already post elsewhere than StP for more personal journaling and edit it down to post stuff here that might be more helpful to the folks who read this website, but i wonder if Substack might be a better way to actively keep in touch with family and friends who tend to not want to bother visiting websites outside of the Facebook bubble. If they could subscribe to an email, they might be more inclined to keep in touch. Is it free (or reasonably economical) to host images there too?

I'm in the process of testing substack to the max with a mega update with tons of photos.

Seems to be working so far and it's all free.

Just a slow process. (Must select images one by one)

One issue, leaving a browser window open to an older version of your draft can cause the draft history to get a bit messed up (the older draft will get put on top), but aside from that it seems to work quite well.

I had to open it on chrome in Android to get it straightened out though and select the correct draft.

Then back to editing in Vivaldi because i can set the background to black there (much easier on the eyes).

I might try using Google docs next time.

That's great about the RSS feeds. I used to use a feed reader years ago but after Google feeds went away i think i gave up on it.

Some newer decentralized sites don't seem to offer email,

Mirror.xyz for example,

So to follow those I'd need to learn to feed read again i think.

Also many projects i follow only release info on their discord announce channel.

I'll look up some feed readers and see if they work with mirror.

Any particular feed reader that you like?