Suzin 1000

On the way from the 2250m high "Col d`Allos" into the Verdon valley we hit Susan`s first 1000 kilometer on this trip. Since we are in France, what is better to celebrate this event than a bottle of Champagne?

We stop at the roadside in a small forest and "Hurray (French: ´urray)!" goes the bubbly. With it goes our balance. After we drown the bottle we both decide that we better leave the bikes be bikes for the rest of the day. Conveniently, there is a beautiful camping spot right there in the forest (...I guess a bottle of booze might have the power to turn quite a large number of average camping spots into beautiful camping spots...).

After we set up camp and start feeling less dizzy we realize what a beautiful camping spot it really is: there is a wild roaring river with cristal clear glacier water right next to us and the whole forest is full of wild strawberries!!! We start loving the place so much that we stay for two days before we continue towards the grand canyon.

Wild strawberry milkshake - great!

Apricot cake (or: the double boiler)

One day we decide to eat pancakes. Pancakes rock - they are sweat and easy to make, especially when one carries a hiker`s teflon pan (it`s just a standard household pan but with the handle sawn off... very recommendable :)
The downside of making pancakes: what do you do with the rest of a whole kilogramm of flour and sugar? Having had a double whammy of pancakes for breakfast (with self made plum jam from self picked plums on the roadside - yummy) one is less likely to eat another serving for dinner.
Pancakes won`t happen for a while.
Since we have a big bunch of apricots (also collected at the roadside) I decide to start a small experiment: "Is it possible to use my Primus fuel burner as an oven?" Using my biggest and smallest pot I create a double boiler. A butter-rich dough spiked with fresh apricot slices goes in. I try various variations for the lid: no lid, flat lid with holes, upside down teflon pan. The teflon pan works best!
After an hour of fiddling I`ve got a slightly soggy but coherent apricot cake on my plate. Success - long live the Primus double boiler!!!

(It also works great for Thai rice, Polenta and Spanish Tortilla. No burning at the bottom... let me know your recipies if you start your own experiments :)

Piemont and the Maritime Alps

From Corsica Susan and I ship to the Italian port or Savona. We hadn`t yet determined how to continue from here. So now we need to decide between the ocean route the along the Mediterranean Cote d`Azur (via Nice/Nizza and Monacco) and the up-and-down of the Piemontese Alps. We are both pretty tired from the tough hike in Corsica but in the end opt for the more challenging but pitoresque inland route: via the provincial capital Cuneo through the steep Piemontese Stura-valley across the 1996m high "Col de Larche" pass to Haute-Provence in France. The pass will be Susan`s first by bicycle. After a good rest in the small and welcoming town of Millesimo we head to Cuneo and into the hills.
To the majority of people Piemont might only be known because its cherries are turned into the candy "Mon Cherie" by the producer of "Nutella" and golden "Rocher" balls. Tourism has not touched Piemont much in the past - the landscape is much to rough for skiing tourism or easy hiking. Additionally (or as a cause of this) Piemont has become depopulated; the young polulation continually moved away to the bigger industrial Italian cities to find employment and pleasure. But since a few years so called "Eco-tourism" has been introduced into the region and offers breathtaking hiking routes combined with an experience of the local culture and cuisine. The famous long distance route GTA (Gran Traversale di Alpi) crosses Piemont during its 60 day-hikes from Switzerland all the way to the coast of the Mediterranean - a fabulous trip that leads almost every day a steep way over a high pass and down into a new valley.
(I hiked part of the GTA in 2007 and highly recommend this trail to all long distance hiking enthusiasts!)

But for now Susan and I are riding bicycles. Considering the weight we both carry in our panniers even the lower passes are challening. The "Col de Larche" has been part of the famous "Giro d´Italia", the Italian equivalent of the "Tour de France". In two daytrips we make it to the top and cross the Italian-French border. Susan is tired but also very happy as she whizzes downhill into French province Provence.

When we arrive the small town of Barcelonette I discover that I had been ignorant to the fact that the magnificent canyon of the Verdon river lay to our left. There is only one problem between Verdon and us: another alpine pass: "Col d`Allos".

Surprisingly, Susan is all up for it. On my map the pass is indicated with an altitude of 1759m, a small cookie compared to yesterdays 1996m. As Barcelonette is already on 1100m we only have to make a bit more than 600 meters - not so terrible.



The next day we start off early any wind up the narrow pass road through breathtaking terrain. One detail that we observe is that the road is closed for motorized traffic every friday morning so that cyclists can enjoy their ride without petrolized disturbances. What a great idea. The second thing we observe is that there are little milestones on the roadside every kilometer to indicate the gradient and the actual altitude. The third thing we observe is that there is a milestone that says 1844m. Wasn´t the pass going to be at 1759m?

I verify with the map and realize that I had gotten the wrong number - the pass is at 2250m, so we actually have to cycle almost twice as high as expected!!! In the end it all works out - once you`re at it you`re at it. We are both exhausted and happy when we arrive on top and take a glance into the next valley and at the gorgeous downhill that expects us.

Susan. And Sardegna. And Corsica.

Who is Susan? This is Susan :)
We leave Berlin early on a sunny morning and fly to Sardegna with our bicycles packed in two big heavy cartons - to arrive at the Mediterranean in a chilly downpour. But the weather changes quickly and after a few days we sweat away at almost 40 degrees centigrade on the steep roads of this amazingly beautiful island. Susan just comes out of her job in Nigeria and the hills present a rather hard training.
However the hardship - in the end the beaches and the clear blue water compensate for any painstaking effort that one has to go through in order to reach them.
Sardegna offers a wide range of different landscapes. Steep rocky terrain with small hidden bays, dense pine forests, dry rough hills, high cliffs falling into the ocean, sanddunes, low wide fertile agricultural plains, narrow canyons, wide sand beaches... and always fantastically clear blue water!

After two weeks on the west coast of Sardegna we take a ferry to the northern island of Corsica. The beaches are just as pretty as in Sardegna and after a first dip-in we decide to do something antirely different: mountains. Corsica has a massive mountainrange running all through its middle from south to north and it features what is described to us as the european cult-hiking-path GR20. We leave the bikes at a camping site at the beginning of the trail and pack our backpacks and get going. The trail is tough and demanding. It leads through a different type of terrain almost every day and on clear days you see the ocean - sometimes to both sides of the trail!!!

Hiking-fanatics: this is really worth a trip :)

Tough and hot as it is we don`t manage to do all the 15 day hikes that it takes to make ot all the way from Porto Vecchio in the south to Calvi in the north or Corsica. We decide to make our GR20 adventure a GR10 stop in the middle to hitch hike back to the bicycles. Then we follow the east coast all the way up to Bastia where we sit now and wait for the famous yellow ships of Corsica/Sardinia Ferries to take us back to the European mainland.

The new bike

So this is the new old look... Hardo Wagner managed to send me their "Trekking" frame quick enough to arrive in Berlin at the same time as Susan does. Her bike is already receiving a thorough overhaul...

At the same time as I change my frame from Fat City Cycles to Hardo Wagner I also change my brake system to Magura hydraulic rim brakes (see Statistics on http://www.globetreter.gmxhome.de/).

The bike rides great. And on top of this it is as BLUE as my old one.

:)