What I did on my Summer Vacation

I need to mention that I feel a little better about passing on the Turkey to Greece bike trip. Even though it would have been memorable, and I would have remembered it for the rest of my life, and I would have gotten my name and picture in some Greek papers for bike riding... it was fucking hot in that part of the world! Not just, oh my god it’s hot. But record setting 115 degree in the shade hot. I could only deal with that because I was on a beach where I could jump into the chilly Aegean. But to be biking uphill at 2pm in the sun with my eye-balls melting? My fucking word!

Maybe they’ll do it again next year and it will only be a blistering 95. I can handle that.

These are the wonderful beaded handlebar grips, cable covers, and brake handle covers. They may actually come in the arrive in the mail today. At least they’re supposed to. Along with making great gifts (I mean, pimp this ride, baby!), I’m hoping they’ll sell for a fortune on e-bay and then I can then monopolize the beaded bike accessory import business!


The charming bike store where I bought the beaded work. The man then shared his lunch and offered to give us a bike for our first born. Made me think we overpaid. But everybody in Syria was that nice. Sure, we probably could have haggled, but it’s not like they were expensive. And the lunch was delicious.


Here’s a handy way to modify a bike to become a roaming bike coffee and tea vendor. Latakia, Syria. Just ignore all the Bashar pictures… I mean, there was just an election the previous week. He won. Uh, unanimously, I believe.


You’ll just have to trust me that this man delivers his bread on that bike. In fact, the majority of bikers are swerving around Cairo carrying bread on their heads, often without functioning brakes.


Elsewhere in Cairo, and this has nothing to do with bikes, I just want to play with all the porn-loving google-image searchers, here are real nekkid cameltoes for sale! This from the “Friday Market” in Cairo. Hey, I didn’t kill the camels, I just took the picture.


For complete pictures of these summer travels, click here.