How many of you know where Girona is? Sounds Italian, right? Nope; it’s in Catalonia, in the northeast corner of what some consider Spain, and others consider an independent country. It’s not far from the Mediterranean coast, and just south of the border with France. And it was the location for many scenes from Game of Thrones, including the stairs of Sant Marti Sacosta. Several fellow Rippers and I just spent 5 days bike riding the gravel trails and dirt roads of the region, using Girona as our base, on a tour with Trek Travel, a bicycle tour company affiliated with Trek Bikes. They run tours all over the world,…

Wacanid, pronounced Waw-Can-Eyed, stands for Washington, Canada and Idaho. It is a six day bicycle tour (with a day off on Day 4, hence I had time to start to write this post!) put together by local Rotary Clubs in Idaho, Washington and British Columbia, together with the International Selkirk Loop, and Stephanie Sims, its Executive Director. It is not for the faint of heart. It is a total of 395 miles in five days of riding, with over 24,000 feet of climbing, including 102 miles and over 6,000 feet of climbing on Day 1. But it is spectacular country, and the support by the Rotarian volunteers was incredible. They…

A wise friend once told me that when you receive a nice invitation, you should try hard to accept. So last winter, when the ultimate planning Ripper cast out an invite for a Canadian Powder Adventure for 2022, My fellow Ripper and I happily agreed to be part of the posse. At the time we accepted, we hoped beyond hope that the whole world would be vaccinated, and Covid would be in retreat. Fast forward to 2022, the coronavirus stayed put and we started to wonder why we were leaving the country. Crossing the border takes preparation. Canada is serious about testing. It requires a negative PCR test within 72…