travel - Justin Foell

I got to ride bikes twice in Italy. The first time I almost died. But I chose to ride again because it was still wonderful in a chaotic way.

E-Bikes – a game changer

I rented a bike in Rome and also in Florence. Both were electric pedal assist. Riding them is so incredibly easy – you could blast around without ever breaking a sweat. E-bikes are a “no excuses” type of transportation.

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The annoying thing? Every city or municipality has partners with a different bike share company. In Rome I downloaded the app for Lime, signed up for an account, added my credit card, and found a nearby bike. Then in Florence I had to do the same thing on Ridemovi. A first world problem for sure, but still annoying.

I almost died ☠️

I set out from my hotel in Rome for the gluten free grocery store: Celiachiamo Lab. I fired up google maps with bicycling directions and set off. But there was trouble at one very complex intersection:

I was on the one-way road, on the right side (opposite the green arrow above) getting ready to turn right. What I didn’t realize is that when the light turned green the signal with the red arrow also turned green to merge together.

To give you an idea, I turned where the small black car is in the next photo. Not realizing more traffic was also going to be going to be merging – where the box truck is:

Luckily the front of traffic was a swarm of motor-scooters starting from a stop. They were able to quickly stop, honk at me, and let me clear the area 😰

In retrospect, the proper right turn probably should have followed this bikeway on the right:

See that sign with the bike and the arrow? ⬆️🚲 Well that means bikes ahead only. I missed that. (Barely) Live and Learn!

Once I cleared that intersection I was on a separated bikeway that was divine 🤩

Run whatchu Brung

I also observed what the local riders did… 🕵️

Before I left the US, I had a picture in my mind of Italians riding bikes. It’s the home of the the Giro d’Italia. Surely everyone would be riding Bianchi, Pinorello, or Colnago bikes – all with Campagnolo components.

Some folks were riding Bianchis and Pinorello bikes, but they were people that looked like they were serious about riding – going on bike-packing tours, or putting out some serious watts.

The bike I spotted that most closely resembled the picture in my mind was owned by a college-aged kid at the train station. He had a 1970s Motobecane. Sure, it’s French, not Italian, but it was vintage and it was cherry 😍

Everyone else just seemed to ride whatever they had.

Nothing really stood out amongst the regular bikes, but a couple brands seemed to be popular.

B’Twin

B’Twin is a store-brand of a sporting goods retailer called Decathlon. As the largest sporting goods retailer in Europe, I imagine it’s a bit like Dick’s Sporting Goods. Decathlon also has a Rockrider brand of mountain bikes and I also saw several of those.

Imperial

Imperial was the other brand that showed up a lot. You can see another in the background of the B’Twin photo. This one I really liked the color scheme on – especially the matching basket, grips, seat, and spoke-guard.

Strangely I couldn’t find any information about this brand on the internet. <Insert Jackie Chan “What?!?” Meme Here>. Seriously, internet dead-end. It’s not this Imperial Bicycles – they make components and exactly one model.

But these bikes were everywhere, both vintage and clearly brand new as the above photo would suggest. Maybe it’s a model or a style and not a brand?

Dangerous but Delightful

Riding in Italy was a bit harrowing at times. Their roads are very narrow, the intersections complex. Then you’ll find yourself on a delightful bikeway. It’s all part of the charm. Just own it. If you’re on an e-bike, riding near traffic doesn’t matter anyway because you’re going to be zooming upwards of 30km/h in seconds 🚲💨

If you have any leads on the mystery “Imperial” bike, let me know in the comments!

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As someone with celiac, I had a lot of reservations about traveling to Italy. But then I read an article that explained how good (actually great) it is. I won’t re-hash everything they said, but I will reinforce much of it. Plus I’ll share some times when the experience went from good to simply fair. Above all I want to stress that dining out in Italy is much better regarding food allergies (and similar conditions like celiac) than in the US. When it’s fair instead of good, that’s when it’s on par with the United States.

Consider Prosciutto – Italy’s favorite dry-cured ham. When they dry the hog’s hind leg, the open end is stuccoed – covered with a lard and flour mix to seal it from the outside. Italy (yes the whole country) changed from wheat flour to rice flour for celiacs. Same great taste, now gluten free for everyone!

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☕ Coffee & Ice Cream 🍦

I set out to consume two things every day Italy: espresso & gelato. I think I missed one day for each in total. My first day in Rome I got an affogato at a cafe across from the Coliseum. 2-in-1 💪

Gelato shops were ubiquitous. Most of them had gluten free (senza glutine) cones. But there’s trouble in paradise: the farther we got from Rome, the less of a chance of finding a gluten free cone 😥 By the time we got to Venice, I had to have my gelato in a cup! First world problems, amirite?

Communicating with locals

85% of the people I interacted with spoke enough English for me to feel safe. “Senza Glutine?” went a long way with waiters and hosts. They’d typically reply with “Pasta” or “Pizza” and then I’d stop in. If they said “Salad” I’d pass. That’s like the time the waiter at Applebees tried to sell me on steamed broccoli – I instantly wanted to fight him 🥦👊

For others that didn’t speak English (it was rare), I had purchased, printed, and laminated an Italian GF restaurant card. I presented it to a hotel kitchen staffer that didn’t speak English and then she brought me an entire tray of GF goodies! 💥

Celiachia App

Italy takes celiac seriously, and they have an app called AIC Mobile. Get it! Sign up for an account a few days ahead of time because it’s not intuitive. They’ll ask for a member ID but you can skip it, which wasn’t clear to me. Members (Italians diagnosed with celiac) get free access to the app, but you can pay $3.99 in-app for “Welcome Access” that lasts a week or so.

Gluten Free Gems

These are a few must visit places if you’re in the area:

Celiachiamo Lab (Rome)

An entirely gluten free grocery store. A must see above everything else I listed here. I can’t begin to tell you about all the things they had, so I’ll just show off their bakery case.

Quinoa GF Restaurant (Florence)

Entirely gluten free restaurant – yep. I’m lucky that we have a handful of dedicated GF restaurants in Minnesota. Amazing to encounter one abroad. Beer and fresh baked bread 🍞🤩

Officina Gastronomica (Parma)

Sort of a hole-in-the-wall strip-mall deli case. Not dedicated gluten free, but more than half of everything they had was GF and kept separate or sealed. It’s not far from the Parma train station, if you’re in the area.

I had a GF ravioli that was stuffed with potato – almost like a pierogi. I had the cook put some buttered spinach on the top and washed it down with a GF beer 🍺

Eat up, don’t worry!

There are so many delicious GF things I ate in Italy, many of them just at regular restaurants. I’m telling you, some of these dishes are life changing. In Rome alone: GF tiramisu at Tiz Cucina e Sofa and a parmesan bowl full of pasta at Ristorante Cantina 26. I even had a fantastic GF bacon cheeseburger 🍔 (yes I had ONE burger in Italy) from Deliburger in La Spezia.

The bottom line is you don’t need to worry if you’re celiac or gluten sensitive. I was there for 9 days and didn’t have any issues. On the flip side, I got sick last year on my trip to Scotland from a hot chocolate mix of all things 🤢 Italy, especially Rome, was a truly amazing dining experience 🇮🇹🍝

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I recently took a trip to Scotland. I didn’t plan ahead to add international calling because I thought I could disconnect for a week. Sometimes the world has other plans.

After landing in Glasgow I turned on airplane mode and left wi-fi enabled. Not surprisingly, I received a couple iMessage texts from some of the Minnesota Brass staff.

What did surprise me is that I was able to send and receive regular text messages as well. I wondered if it was because I had enabled Wi-Fi calling. My suspicion was confirmed after I enabled it on my wife’s phone and text messages came pouring in 😩

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Wi-Fi calling to the rescue

It came in extremely handy when British Airways automatically canceled our flight home. An aside about British Airways:

BA is an excellent example of a company that has automated too many things. Our flight from Glasgow to London got moved by 20 minutes. We received an email stating that it had moved and if everything was OK, no action was required. Behind the scenes the automated systems at British Airways determined that the time to make the connecting flight was no longer sufficient and automatically canceled our return trip (without notification).
We tried to remedy this by walking over to talk to the BA baggage and ticketing agents directly at the Glasgow airport. But they’re just contracted workers that can check in luggage, they can’t do anything when it comes to reservations. The only option was to call.
We spent 4-hours on the phone calling and re-calling British Airways to remedy the situation. Calls of course were routed to their call center in India where it was extremely difficult to get through (usually a 20-30 minute hold time) and once we got through they were very eager to get us off the phone, stating that “the team is working on it.”
The fastest way I got through was to call American Airlines once they were open (who was the US partner for London -> Chicago). Then I gave them my ticket number and they transferred me to the BA support line, and somehow I was magically at the front of the BA support queue.
Ultimately half of our party got home on the original flight, and the other half had to stay an extra day.

Enabling WiFi calling on iOS

For iPhone, WiFi calling is available on every major carrier. Turn it on under phone settings:

Once it’s enabled you’ll see a “<Carrier> Wi-Fi” message at the top when you’ve got a good wifi connection.

You’ll need to verify your home address for emergency calls. Keep in mind that if you’re on wifi with the cellular network disabled, the address reported to emergency services will be the address you entered (likely your home address). So if I dialed 911 in Scotland they’d think I’m calling from Minnesota – be careful!

When making calls over wifi with your cellular service off, it will be like you’re dialing from home. No need to dial any extra country code stuff. Just mind the timezone differences 😎

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Our family did our first post-COVID airplane trip to Salt Lake City, Utah. We were there for a week, so I looked up Intermountain RC Raceway (IRCR) – a place I had visited before but never raced at. Their off-road club racing is Wednesday night, so I got the B6 ready to hit the clay. It was also the first airplane trip that I wanted to bring my RC car on. Normally on road trips it’s a no-brainer. This would be a learning experience – hopefully you can learn from my (many) mistakes. I could (and probably should) have just packed my car to travel on the airplane as it was only $30 per checked bag – I thought it was going to be $50. Instead I mailed my car to a relative at our destination for $40. If you’re looking for a good video on packing your car for air travel, check this one out by Team Associated:

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Touring a city by bicycle is the best way to get to know it. You can move quickly from place to place, and stop easily along the way. You’re never too isolated from your surroundings to enjoy any sights or smells along the way.

I’ve made it a point to book a bicycle tour in new cities I’ve visited, and you’d probably be surprised which ones were the best. That is not to say I’ve ever had a bad bicycle tour experience, but some are just better than others.
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1. Brussels, Belgium

This bike tour is my favorite for a number of reasons. I was able to share the experience with my then 10-month old son Jules. Even though he doesn’t remember it, he was a great passenger. We were also able to eat what I can only describe as life changing french fries during the tour.

Our tour guide spoke perfect english – because she was from Ohio. She was none-the-less very knowledgable about Brussels and its amenities. We stopped by several landmarks including the European Committee of the Regions (where the European Union meets), mannequin pis, and several monuments.

But the best stop was at a market in Leopold Park that had a permanent french fry stand called Maison Antonie. The fries were cooked in lard which was so clear it simply looked like boiling water. They had at least 20 different sauces – ketchups, mustards, hot sauces, barbecue and several variations or each.

2. Toronto

The Toronto bike tour was great because of the diverse neighborhoods. Each of them seemed to have a specialty cuisine whether it was a bagel shop or a sushi shop. Our tour guide was very knowledgable, and she offered her favorites for each neighborhood.

3. Portland

I put Portland last on the list not because it wasn’t great. It was a very good tour. But perhaps with Portland being the cycling mecca of the United States, I had set expectations too high.

It was a good tour, and I’d easily recommend it to anyone visiting. Our tour-guide was very knowledgeable and knew the city inside and out. They even gave us maps with a few of their favorite spots highlighted.

I wished we had made a quick stop along the tour for a beer or some french fries. Maybe in Portland’s case it should have been a donut instead – our guide suggested Blue Star Donuts over the more touristy Voodoo Donuts. It’s all probably my mistake because I didn’t instead sign up for the beer or foodie tour.

But maybe it is just Portland itself. Fun, but predictable. Even being naughty here is legal. Kind of homogeneous. Maybe it’s just me.