Biking according to AARP
Not that I am a member of AARP, but I do subscribe to their travel newsletter. OK, maybe I am a member, but you don’t have to be old to join. The latest issue of the newsletter had an article about bicycling in Italy. (http://www.aarpmagazine.org/travel/biking_in_italy.html) I clicked on that link first even though it was halfway down the page. My excitement quickly diminished when I saw the mention of Lance Armstrong in the first sentence. What does Lance Armstrong have to do with touring? Does he seem the type to stop and smell the roses or chat up the locals at the cafe? He moves so fast that he doesn’t even get a whiff of the roadkill and certainly doesn’t need to stop and eat because he has ridden 50 miles in a few hours and doesn’t need to eat so soon again. When I think of Lance Armstrong, yellow might be what first comes to mind, but it certainly isn’t touring.
I suppose that Lance does wear spandex and it seems that the tour company advised the writer to get some over-the-shoulder shorts. Now, several interesting images came to mind and then I decided that maybe what was recommended was a pair of bib shorts. I am not sure at all what these have to do with a bicycle tour, but maybe they have some super special powers that we mere mortals are not aware of. And to see that this poor guy was also told that the first rule of bicycling was not to wear underwear.
I haven’t really toured with a company mostly because the weekly fees would be enough to buy a very nice touring bike. It seems common for these touring companies to underrate the difficulty of the terrain as seemed to have happend on the tour in this article. This practice seems rather deceptive and for somebody like the author who researched several companies and itineraries to chose a route and degree of difficulty that suited him, it’s especially unfair. I have seen ratings of trips that take in the West Coast of New Zealand that are rating easy or moderate. I would hate to see what would be rated as difficult. Riding up a Great Wall? I came across a New Zealand trip with one of these easy ratings. Reading between the lines helps. This particular tour started at the top of Haast Pass and the top of other long, grueling climbs. Getting into the support van at the start of any hill seemed par for the course. I laughed when I saw the route between Fox and Franz Glacier passed off as nothing too difficult. I think it is at the Fox Glacier Visitor Center that there is quite a nice 3D model of the road between the two glaciers. We look at that and our knees weaken at the thought of what lies ahead. It isn’t an easy climb in either direction.
Since we are planning on training for the cross country trip, I figured that I would check out the “Before You Go”. We have been to the sports medicine facility and usually follow their training program, which is similar to the what is recommended in this section.
In that back section I discovered why I probably haven’t gone on a trip with a touring company. These four guarantee that your biggest worry is road rash. Do they plan on lots of accidents during their trips? No thanks. I can crash on my own dime and on my own time.