Author: Tim

Today we decided to warm up our legs and head out for a ride along the coast.

We arrived in Belem early enough to have a short line at Pasteis de Belém for their famous pastel de nata (yes, it was life-changing!), but the tourists were already descending on the other attractions, so we headed out quickly.

The ride along the coast varied greatly from wide, well-marked smooth bike paths along the coast to narrow, pot-holed lined cobble streets with steady traffic. As we got closer to Cascais, it became beautiful, and we stopped for a snack overlooking the waves and the surfers.

Past Cascais, we followed the coast around and started climbing, our destination being the Santuário da Peninha, one of the highest points in the Sintra-Cascais Natural Park, which would afford us 360° views for dozens of miles.

(There it is, all the way at the top of the hill, in the picture below!)

You can kind of make out the Ponte 25 de Abril bridge in Lisbon, 40km away, behind us.

Finally we headed down into Sintra. It was getting late, and the riding past Pena Palace and Castelo dos Mouros was beautiful, so we decided to take our time and enjoy the views and hang out at a cute bar to have some tapas and beer. Steve has discovered that the local beers both have a non-alcoholic version that many bars carry, so he’s been able to join in for a toast or two. I resisted having a ginginja, a cherry liquore that comes in a chocolate cup. I had two a few days ago and they are delicious. Beer makes me take abstract photos, so here you go:

 

One of the things that is going to take some getting used to is sticking out like a sore thumb in our cycling get-up. We got quite a number of stares today, and some guy on the train kicked Steve’s bike and said something rude-sounding in Portuguese and then got up and walked out of the train. There was plenty of room in the train, so I’m not sure what his deal was. It’s difficult trying to figure out the cultural faux pas we are undoubtedly making, given that we don’t speak the language.

We have a host family lined up near Evora for Monday night, so initially we were planning to stay another day in Lisbon, but we are starting to get tired of the over-priced and over-touristy area we are staying in. We are well over our budget already, and whenever we walk out of our hostel, we are instantly bombarded with dudes pushing drugs (we’ve been told they aren’t real, so don’t get excited!) and people trying to corral us into their shitty restaurants. We have had some amazing experiences in the city that more than make up for these annoyances, but we are ready for a slower pace for a while, and we are eager to get going for real.

So instead, we are thinking on Saturday to take an extra day riding south to find some beach-side camping along a part of the coast that we hadn’t planned on visiting. Stay tuned for more details. I’m also going to bug Steve to write another blog post! He has some great photos from today.

Today we slept in a bit before enjoying a delicious grilled octopus lunch (sorry, no food porn! Next time). We then spent some time at the Museu do Aljube Resistência e Liberdad.

Portugal was under a dictatorship from 1933 to 1974, when a peaceful revolution overthrew the government and instilled a democratic one. The Portuguese are rightly very proud of this accomplishment, and this museum portrayed some of the horrors of authoritarianism, including torture, silencing of the media, and severe restrictions on freedom.

As an American, it’s interesting and empowering to see a culture that’s recovering from an authoritarian regime, at a time when we are flirting with one.

We later joined a walking tapas tour of the city, sampling some tasty bites throughout the city. Tomorrow we hope to cycle to Belem, Cascais, and Sintra.

We spent our second day doing some Lisbon city tours. We started off with a free tour from a company called Sandeman, not expecting much, but we were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the tour. Although our tour guide, Ricardo, was fairly new, he gave an excellent tour. Of course, since it’s free, tipping is expected (the guides are unpaid), and we stopped in the middle for a soft sales pitch for their other paid tours. They were reasonably priced, and we felt they steered us away from over-priced tourist traps, so ultimately would save us money.
We learned a lot of history and great tips for good restaurants where locals hang out, and we decided to sign up for the Alfama tour that afternoon as well. Our guide there, Yuri, had a great energy about him and invited us and a few other guests to join him and Ricardo for beers at a miroudoro (vantage point) and later on, dinner at a restaurant co-op in a more local neighborhood.

Ultimately it ended up being a fantastic day of sight-seeing and making friends! Some interesting photos below…

It couldn’t have gone more smoothly, except for the sleep deprivation due to our jet lag!
Landed in Lisbon around 8am local time and breezed through Customs and Immigration. Because we had a one-way ticket, we were a little concerned they may demand proof of onward travel out of the Schengen visa zone, so we “rented” a return ticket on FlyOnward.com, but we never were asked to show it. Nice to have for the piece of mind, but unnecessary.

It was our first time putting our bikes together after 5 amazing lessons from a generous bicycle mechanic friend. We found a quiet corner near the parking garage and started unboxing the bikes. Aside from a glance from a few security guards, no one gave us any trouble. One woman asked us about our trip and was very excited to hear about it. It took us about 3 hours to do both bikes. We asked someone at the lost & found luggage department where to leave the empty boxes, and he said he’d take care of them for us, great!

The ride into town was a bit tricky as we got used to the way the bike paths are laid out; they seem to appear and disappear at random, either dumping you off on the sidewalk or at a crosswalk. I’m glad we mapped the route ahead of time on the GPS. Pedestrians were courteous but seemed surprised to see us in the bike lanes, where they walked by default, though we weren’t the only bikes. Auto traffic was much more friendly than we expected after repeated warnings by friends about the horrible Portuguese drivers; I think riding in Boston is scarier! The scenery riding through town was fantastic, and we couldn’t have asked for better weather, slightly overcast and 24°C.

We spent the remaining evening having late lunch at an over-priced tourist trap restaurant next to our pensão and wandered around town sipping as much espresso as we could to keep from falling asleep when we sat down.

Enjoyed our first of many pastel de nata; they are as delicious and crispy as everyone told us, OMG! Found a great food court (Time Out) so we could eat a few appetizers in lieu of dinner, since we planned to be in bed by 8, when all the restaurants open.

Stumbled onto a very friendly bicycle shop who replaced Steve’s water bottle cage that broke in San Diego and hooked us up with some spare nipples for our wheels, the one spare parts item we’d not had time to get before our trip.

My biggest anxiety was about getting our bicycles to Lisbon in one piece, so from here on, it should be smooth sailing!

We are going to explore Lisbon a few more days, and then Saturday we ride inland towards Evora, and we are starting to look up camping options along the way. Stay tuned!

I’ve been trying to figure out how to express this idea, and I’m not sure I’ve done a good job, but let me try.

Today, we are at an inflexion point where everything changes. Tomorrow, everything shifts instantly from being about planning and preparation to being about experiencing and sharing. In a way, it’s no longer about us and the things we’re doing; it becomes about a shared experience in communities we have yet to discover.
Instead of boring our friends with our endless details of plans and training, we will now begin to enjoy the stories of others, the feelings of other environments, and the cultures we know little about.

Instead of riding our bicycles to prepare our bodies, we will begin to ride our bicycles to visit other places and connect with other people.

Instead of ticking off tasks from our To Do list, we will start living in the moment, trusting in the unknown, and joining others in their goals.

All this is good because, frankly, we are getting tired of talking about ourselves and looking forward to talking about more interesting things!

Everything is about to change, and to answer the most common question we’re asked: no, we probably aren’t ready, but we’re doing it anyway!

We just got home from our last bicycle ride in the USA for quite some time. I wanted to blog about it as I hope we continue to do on our tour, so here it is.

Stopped by Coffee Cycle near Fiesta Island where this amazing guy Chris has been making some of the best coffee you’ll find in San Diego (not exaggerating) out of his bicycle-powered custom-built cart. Adios Chris!

Not sure how much longer this little shack has in Ocean Beach, but I’ll bet they enjoy the view.

Always thought this sign was funny, given that this school is on one of the most difficult streets in our training routes in San Diego, Hill St, which hits a 18-19% grade.

How much more California can you stand, with this awesome tie-dyed van and my jersey?!

On this trip, we are hoping to step up our video production game a bit. On our last tour, our videos consisted mostly of us talking into the camera. It captured some real emotions and pretty backdrops at times, but they weren’t very captivating!

So I set out to see what we could produce solely using apps on our Android phones. After playing with a few video editing apps, I settled on two: PowerDirector and VideoShow Pro. I’m pretty amazed at the powerful features in both of these apps for about $10 for both. We also used Microsoft Hyperlapse to stabilize and speed up parts of the video.

Here’s the result! Click the link to watch our first real YouTube video for this tour.
It’s not going to win any awards, and we both think we sound like dorks, but I think it’s an improvement. Hopefully we’ll get better with time. Happy to hear your honest feedback.

In this social media age, we tend to exaggerate the positive and distress about the negative.

The truth is: We will have bad days. We will get flat tires. We will get delayed in travel. We will have things stolen; we may even get robbed. We will have things broken. We will get sick. People will disappoint us, maybe even mislead or con us. Some places will not be like we’d hoped; we will find some things inhospitable despite our most open minds and positive attitudes.

But what it’s important to understand is: that’s not the point at all. The whole reason we are taking this adventure in the way we are choosing to do it is NOT to find the”perfect” experience, or even a comfortable one. It’s to find genuine experience. And genuine experiences are not always nice. But, they are the ones we will remember for our lifetime. They are the ones that will teach us something. They are the ones, arguably the only ones, that will make us grow as human beings.

Our goal will be to tell you about these experiences as honestly as we can, good and bad. We are looking forward to the adventure!

Hi…This is Steve my first post on our blog and I will start to post more now that I’ve figured this new app out.  More posts coming soon and thanks for subscribing.

The photo with my name on the side of the totes is what I’m putting in storage with my good friend Russ that offered as we pedal the world for the next 2 years.  The photo with the couch and boxes is when I stored all my “STUFF” in my friend Ann’s garage for 3 months when I moved to San Francisco in 2011.  

The process of downsizing in the last 6 months since our cycling tour last summer from Canada to Mexico has been freeing and enlightening to say the least.  While we were on that tour, there was very few things “stuff” that we missed besides the kitties, and for me the comforts of a good cup of coffee every morning to an extra pillow to sleep with.  I realized on that trip that I had everything I needed to be comfortable and I was carrying it all on my bike from my clothes to shelter in my one man quarter dome tent.  

The process getting to the 10 totes has been both prosperous and rewarding.  Prosperous in the sense of all the “stuff” I/we sold on OfferUp (a local selling app), and eBay.  We’ve sold a sofa, piano, queen bed, and other furniture to many smaller electronic items like an old film camera, to an iPhone 6, and kitchen appliances.  Rewarding in the sense that we’ve donated a ton of our “stuff” (dining table & chairs, clothes, and trinkets) to Auntie Helens here in San Diego that supports HIV/AIDS services to our local community.  We’ve also given a lot of our “stuff” (bedding, kitchen gadgets, and clothes) to several friends.  I can honestly say I don’t remember everything that is gone now and don’t miss anything that we’ve sold or donated.  

So what’s in the totes with my name on the side you might ask and what did you decide to keep?  I just had to keep my first cycling helmet that I pedaled 8000 plus miles with in 2016, and the Cubs t-shirt I wore to Spring Training in AZ and all throughout the season and World Series.  I also kept two blankets and a scarf my Mom has crocheted for me over the years.  I also kept old photos and albums as opposed to scanning all my pictures like Tim did….I’m just too “old school” I guess and will like looking through the physical pictures when I’m 90.  I also kept old letters from my Uncle Ed when he was in Indonesia for 30 plus years, magazines that my sister has been featured in for her design work over the years, t-shirts from fundraising walks I’ve done over the years to AIDS/LifeCycles I’ve been a part of in the past two years and where Tim and I officially met.   The totes will be like time machines when we return after pedaling 4 continents around the WORLD.  I’ll most likely wonder why I kept some “stuff” and downsize even more. 

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We will be posting more videos about our preparation and our trip as we go! There are lots of videos there from our last trip and we are starting to add some for this trip as well.

Thanks!