Albert's travel blog - a rider's view

I planned a reasonably easy, but long ride today, but I was only half right. The climbing was steeper and harder than expected, but fortunately, my legs have been getting used to it and even the very steep 250 feet of vertical towards the end felt pretty good.  Since I had enjoyed riding next to the sea so much yesterday, I decided to experience more views of the water and headed south to Cabras , with a plan after lunch there to enjoy the Mediterranean again.  In Cabras, I used Google to find a delightful restaurant that anchored a tiny square. They were supposed to open at 1PM, but the shy waiter saw me waiting outside in the heat and kindly let me in a few minutes early. The decor was blue and white inside and evoked the sea. It was so clean and nice that I felt slightly out of place in my cycling kit. I ordered a single plate of culurgiones with eggplant and smoked cheese. It was not a large plate, but was the perfect sized meal to get me the remainder of the way back to...

For my 8th day on the Island, I wanted to reprise a ride that I attempted last year from Bosa to Alghero and back. I couldn't actually complete the ride I had mapped out due to a car race which closed most of the key roads. But to start the day, I wanted to eat at a different place for breakfast, upon walking by I realized they only open on the weekends for breakfast, so I will be back in a few days.  The ride began with the climb up the descent that I had taken the previous day, and it was a marvelous way to see different vantage points of the Bosa unfold. And of course, because it is Sardinia, there were very few cars on the road. However, during yesterday’s ride I actually saw quite a few cyclists of all stripes from serious looking racer-types to full on e-bike German tourists in their 70s. I love the latter and the spirit with which they are still getting out there! I forgot to mention that on my descent into town yesterday, I saw someone in a full on UAE kit together with the...

I woke up after a great night of sleep, assembled my bike, and headed to a breakfast down the street of cappuccino and chocolate croissant . After writing a blog entry, I mapped out a course to head to Macomber and traverse the interior before descending back into Bosa . The ride started quite windy with a very impressive headwind. It was pretty slow going, but I left at a reasonable hour and wasn’t worried about making it home in the dark. I crossed the little tiny railroad tracks for the train from Arabatax to Macomber a few times and later on found myself on a tiny one lane road through fields grazed by both sheep and cattle. During a 5 mile stretch I saw precisely one car cross my path! I stopped for a light lunch of grilled chicken and vegetables close to where the side road intersected with the highway about halfway through the ride. On the return, the winds worked in my favor and I had several nice descents, the best of which was the final 5+ mile roller coaster into Bosa. It...

I will never complain about luck and timing. Today was a transition day from  Orgosolo  in the East to  Bosa  on the west side of the island. I had kind of thought that it would be perfect if I would just do the drive in the morning, unpack and assemble my bike outside, go for a ride and then check into my  AirBNB . Nope, that idea of perfection didn’t happen. What did happen was weather. It has been hot the last few days, and combined with the rain from yesterday, today’s precipitation pretty much nixed any ideas of riding. But it also brought temperatures down 10-15 degrees, which was nice after the last few days of hot sunny weather. I made the mistake of directing my day from my stomach,  as I tried to look for little mom & pop trattorias in the little towns between Orgosolo and Bosa. Fortunately, it did not end in a bunch of crunched rental car metal like when our family visited Cinque Terre seven years ago. But it was CLOSE! In little town of San...

Today, I headed towards the reservoirs west of Orgosoloto see the visual juxtaposition of the bodies of water against the mountains and trees. The scenery did not disappoint! After riding by  Lago di Gusana , I stopped in Ovodda  for lunch. I was directed at the urging of three men who saw me looking for a meal to their favorite (maybe only) restaurant in town. I ordered a half portion of the  antipasto , which included  beans with onions , some slightly vinegary soft boiled potato bits, a  frittata with zucchini ,  prosciutto  and  salam  (sorry - no picture!), and some super tasty homemade  ravioli  topped with dried  Sardinian cheese .    While I savored every minute of the meal and would have liked to stay, I had to get back to Orgosolo . The first tiny climb was quite painful, and while the subsequent climbs in the ride didn’t sting my legs as much, it was pretty slow going because my body was busy digesting that...

I had such a nice ride over to the beach in Orosei today. The weather was beautiful and it was fun to remember last year's ride through the lovely hillside town of Dorgali , where last year I learned that you need to find the German motorcyclists if you want to lunch with protein. From Dorgali, the descent to the beach featured a beautiful, freshly paved one lane road that offered a wonderful vista of the sea as it came into view. Once at the beach, I had a a not-great prosciutto, spreaded cheese and eggplant sandwich. Too much bread. But they made up for it with and outstanding and pretty peach tart . Why did I forget to take a photo of the it - maybe I was just hungry? Or maybe I was distracted by the cat? The directions continuing on from the beach said to cross a small section of sand to continue the ride. Definitely hike-a-bike territory without a mountain bike, but only a 100 yards of walking. Score one for riding with mountain bike shoes!  After the path crested a hill, it...

I had planned out a shorter ride due to the strenuous start, and budgeted more time in the day to non-riding activities. Like all my cycling so far on this trip, I was greeted with a preposterously steep hill. This one was early in the ride and required me to dismount off the bike to catch my breath for a bit. Fortunately - no walking! The earlier start meant cooler temps, but just at the start as I still ended up going through a ridiculous 6 bottles for less than 40 miles of riding as it became sunnier and hot towards the end. After the steep climb, I magically ended up in Nuoro through some back way passage, and then from there I was planning on proceeding to Monte Ortobene , about which Sardinian Nobel Prize laureate Grazia Deledda wrote about in her novel Old Man of the Mountain . I saw lots of mountain bikers heading down the hill, as well as many, many people hiking the hill. I knew from the course profile that the end of the climb was off road, so I figured that is why people...

I thought I would try to do an early bike ride, but with the time change, I combined a pretty lazy morning with the lengthy process of setting up the new bike computer. When I bought my Wahoo bike computer last year, the bike shop told me for the simplest experience, buy the Wahoo. After spending more than an hour configuring the Garmin , I still could not really figure out how to even start and stop the ride. The initial map view was also super confusing compared to the Wahoo. During the first 30 minutes of my ride I wasn’t sure how to perform basic operations like swapping between the map and heart rate / speed views, even though this Garmin is supposedly way easier to use than previous models.  Anyway, after figuring out the Garmin basics, I found I liked the map and climbing telemetry displays better than the Wahoo. But it is disappointing to not be able to monitor heart rate when in the map or climbing screens. I also miss controlling the computer with the blip buttons on th...

Getting to Sardinia this year was very auspicious. It started with Swiss Air flight 55 to Zurich , after which I’d be taking a connecting flight to Cagliari , the capital of Sardinia. As we got up to speed on the tarmac, it felt like the plane hit a large bump and the captain then hammered the brakes. Fortunately, my five electronic devices were wired up to their charging cables in preparation for cruising altitude and they did not meet the same fate as the airline supplied plastic water bottle which went flying into the seat in front of me. The captain calmly told us that the engine overheating light had gone on, so we had to abort takeoff. I thought maybe they were going to take a beat and try again, but then I looked out the window to my right and saw several airport fire engines accompanying us with their lights flashing.  Clearly, we were not going to take off, and it probably was something more than a warning light. Then we were told by the cabin crew that we were going to...