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| Date | Starting Place | Ending Place | Author | Last Update |
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| 09-02-09 | Schaffhausen, Switzerland | Schaffhausen, Switzerland | ray | 02-26-14 15:03:31 |
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I started the day in Sopra Bolzano, Italy. At 6:00am, I and my two heavy bags (45 and 50 pounds, respectively) were driven from the B&B where I was staying to the cable car station to catch the first run of the day at 6:40am. I wrestled the bags down to the train station, about half a mile from the cable car and boarded the local train to Verona. It turned out that tickets for local trains have no departure time associated with them so I had to stamp the ticket at the machines that are on the platforms. I tried to do this several times but the machine didn't seem to do anything. After 4 or 5 attempts, which included putting the small ticket into the machine every way I could, I heard a noise and assumed that I had accomplished this task before I boarded the train. When the conductor arrived to check my ticket, he told me that my ticket was not stamped and that I would have to pay a penalty of 50 Euros (on an 8 Euro fare). I protested vociferously that I had, in fact, stamped the ticket. He showed me that there was no stamp on the ticket. I protested more that, in fact, I had attempted to stamp the ticket but the machine malfunctioned. We did this dance for about 10 minutes (in English) when he finally relented, gave me the "only this time" speech, wrote all over the ticket and went on his way. It wasn't an auspicious start. The train was on time to Verona and I had 15 minutes to get the bags off the train, down and up to another platform. I managed to do this with the help of elevators, which were in all the train stations I visited in Italy. The next leg was the train to Milan. Even though Verona was not the starting point of this train and there were already people on the train, I was able to find spots to put my bike box, which didn't fit in the overhead rack. The other bag did fit on the rack but I had to do a 3 step move, like a clean and jerk, to get it up there. I had another 15 minutes to get myself and luggage to another train at Milan. This train was headed for Zurich and was full of passengers (I had a seat reservation) with no place to put the bike box. Eventually, I was able to convince some people to move things around so that the box was out of the way. I got off the train in Zurich tired and without a ticket to Schaffhausen in case I wanted to take a break. I checked out the schedule and there were a couple of trains to Schaffhausen every hour. I got some Swiss Francs, bought a ticket and quickly discovered that the Swiss will smoke cigarettes anywhere they can. I made phone calls to my hosts and after standing around for about an hour, I boarded a train for Schaffhausen. Len picked me up at the train station and drove me back to his place near Stettin, a suburb not too far from Schaffhausen. He cooked a tasty meal, I caught up with Carla and Len, and went to bed. The trip from Sopra Bolzano to Schaffhausen took about 10 hours and I felt like I'd just taken a trans-Atlantic flight. The next day, I put my bike together. I took pictures along the way to show what it takes to reassemble an S&S coupled bike. Here is the box the bike comes in (45 pounds)  Here is open box  In addition to the bike box, I have to take another large bag (50 pounds) with the racks, bags, clothes, and other bike touring equipment. The photo is a bit out of focus (sorry).  Here is everything taken out of the bike box  The major frame components put together.  The saddle and handlebars added on  As you can see from the time stamps, it took about 20 minutes to go from everything in a box to an assembled frame. But, then all the hard work starts. I had to put the brake arms, racks, tires on the wheels, wheels on the bike and adjust it all so that the bike is ready to ride. This took another hour and a half, with several breaks thrown in. Here is the assembled bike, ready to ride (shot the next day).  |
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