@Criggie Still, the US and Canada are rather popular destinations for tourism for EU citizens, and so GDPR would anyway be breached. Good thing we're not presented with a widget "confirm you are not an EU citizen" every time we visit homedepot.com/.ca.

so, yeah its a thing

literally that's in the installer.

@AndyP but but but surely I need a lifted Ford F-350 with a dual rear axle to get groceries in downtown NYC!

Didn't they have flooding from a storm there a few years back?

Legitimately you also need a schnorkel for deep-water wading then.

you need a pickup truck with submarine mode

be prepared for anything!

just like the cargo bed, 4 wheel drive and rough terrain tyres

@Sam7919 Yep, when I wrote "day at the trail", I didn't mean that the time on the trail should be the full day, I was more thinking to the duration of the full activity, journey included (from here, the journey to MTB tracks that could be named such would take at least 90min one-way).

two thousand US dollars for that bike rack ? Ouch

@Criggie On the other hand, having a car that has the capacity to carry 3 bikes can cost you much more than $2k, if carrying 3 bikes is part of the requirements.

heh that rack has kashmir coating on the sliding parts - like a high-end fork

not really necessary.

Yep, but that doesn't change my point ;) If I would have taken the station version of the Golf instead of the hatchback, I would have paid an extra 2k€, and it would still be less convenient to carry bikes than the hatchback + a rack (technically, I'd need to add an extra 700€ to add the tow hitch).

Gravel bikes eliminate the need for big trucks to get to the trail 😄

You mean: gravel bikes eliminate the need to go to the trail?

Not quite; they probably allow you to reach easier trails which are enough of a challenge on a gravel bike

Pulled the ol' "I know a nice little path in the forest" followed by the obligatory "I don't remember it being that bumpy" on a friend recently. He was not amused 😄

@Erlkoenig :D

our saying of the week was “just 100 meters more!”

when we couldn’t find half the climbing crags we were looking for

"I know a shortcut!"

mhhh, nice morning ride for tomorrow or too much elevation change? connect.garmin.com/modern/course/233790969

if only I had an 28t chainring …

@Michael I was about to write: "you pass next to Cinque Terre without passing by, serious mistake". But then I made some checks, and you'd need not only a 28t chainring, but probably a gravel bike as well (although a MTB would be even better there).

My mistake, it's not Cinque Terre, it's the Portofino park, that is fine too. Cinque Terre has proper roads, but is further.

komoot.com/highlight/827449 (Cinque Terrre)

I could take a train to La Spezia …

Yep, but maybe worth to not plan a loop.

good point

If you're going to use the train at all, might as well plan to do a longer one-way ride and train back.

be careful, many trains in Italiy don't allow bicycles at all

@Erlkoenig I’m using the Trentalia app with “travel with bike” enabled

so far everything went perfect in 5 different trains :)

Ah very good ;-)

though I’m not sure about the ticket situation. I bought tickets with the Trentalia app (with “travel with your bike” selected) and then it only showed tickets for myself. Bought bicycle tickets as an extra option and somehow paid 17€ even though it should be 3.5€ o.O

nobody every checked my tickets, so I don’t know what’s going on

“On regional trains marked with the special symbol, and limited to available spaces, each passenger can take an assembled bicycle on board with them – including pedal-assist bikes – up to a maximum length of 2 metres, for a daily supplement rate of €3.50, which is valid until 11:59 p.m. on the date indicated on the ticket or, alternatively, another second class single ticket.” I guess I somehow ended up buying a second full price ticket :D

@Erlkoenig Really? Most of the regionali we took last month had dedicated spots for bikes in most of the coaches. Half of them came with charging.

Obviously if you're looking at a freccia they won't have bike spots. But you're not going to use one of those for a short distance between minor stations anyway.

@DavidW Yeah on some tracks there is only a Frecciarossa, no regional alternative, so you can't take a bike there at all (e.g. Bologna - Firenze)

@Michael You shouldn't need to pay extra for your bike on regionali and intercity.

@Erlkoenig That's not true at all. shop.italiarail.com/…

The trick is that there's limited capacity in Firenze Santa Maria Novella so you need to change to a different regionale in one of the suburban stations.

If you select "high speed" or "direct" then you'll end up with a choice of Italo or Frecciarossa; pick "cheap" instead to see the regionali.

@Michael I don't think they check for the supplement; after all, if you're taking more than one train how do they track it? We never got asked.

(Then again ticket checking on lower-level trains was pretty half-hearted to start with.)

@DavidW Interesting, I wasn't able to book anything like that

@DavidW here it says 3.5€: trenitalia.com/en/services/travelling_with_yourbike.html

@Michael Interesting. Nobody (not even at the station) mentioned that to us.

I mean, we're standing there with bikes, in gear, buying tickets. They could have mentioned it...

I’ve been traveling on 5 different trains for a total of 12 hours and nobody ever checked my ticket, so maybe it’s a moot point anyway :D

the swiss guy with a gravel bike I met on the train yesterday had the 3.5€ bicycle train ticket

Well, he's Swiss. Of course he did.

Are Swiss so different from Austrians? :p

We only got ticket-checked once in 6 rides.

In Belgium, there are only clichés about French speaking Swiss, not the German-speaking kind or Austrians ;)

Likely nobody can tell (or perhaps merely nobody cares) about the differences among German-speakers. :D

The Italians I know tend to lump all German-speakers together as "Germans" (dismissively) regardless of their actual nationality.

Well, being from a small country living under the linguistic shadow of a bigger one, it's not something I'd do, but that doesn't mean there's a proper cliché for the other small countries.

(I suspect that if they had any inkling of the difficulty someone from Köln might have speaking to someone from Vaduz it wouldn't make any difference. Though in fairness my friends in Köln normally spoke very good Hochdeutsch except to their parents.)

Ahem

I wouldn't consider that it's a remain of WWII. It's just that Belgian likes good food, that can only be found in France and Italy. So nobody dares to venture into German speaking Europe, where you can only find schniztels and cheap beer.

German and Swiss German are very different

Germans often can't understand Swiss people at all

Also there's plenty of prejudice about certain German specific people 😁

@Renaud We have plenty of excellent Döner and also Indian places!

And Halbtrockener Weißwein :)

@Renaud You mean the lightly fermented grape juice they sell in the Mosel valley? :)

(Apologies if I've offended any German wine drinkers; I admit I do like a nice Riesling Spätlese.)

@DavidW It stills contains more alcohol per liter than most Belgian beers :p

Best German dish 😜

dang

If that's not your thing. 'Boeuff a la mode' does without the 'Blaukraut' and is sweeter because of onions. parsely roots, and carrots

I haven't had this since my favourite 'Gasthaus' closed down. They made it since 1806, only interrupted by a couple of wars and revolutions. Until three years ago when they gave up after being short handed and with no one to take over the place.