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Call me biased. When I go biking in Italy, I sometimes get caught up in the picturesqueness, the good food after a long hard bike ride, nostalgia for history (both Italy’s and my own), too much coffee and not enough sleep. Then the blinders go up, and Italy seems perfect and can do no wrong.

It’s time to fess up. Italy has her flaws, just like everywhere else, and if you’re planning to tour Italy by bicycle you should know about some of the problems that await you.

An article in The Telegraph points out the racism that is all too present in Italy. The city of Foggia in Southern Italy recently set up a separate bus line for immigrants. The two buses follow approximately the same route, but only one of them makes stops in an Italian neighborhood, while the other goes to a quarter where most of the residents are immigrants.

Nobody is being forced to ride one bus line over another, so comparisons to Apartheid or the segregated buses of the south in the 1950s aren’t fair. Still, this story points out a significant problem.

The immigrant bus line was set up because of friction between Italians and non-EU citizens, and the idea was to keep the two groups away from each other. That there’s even a need to do this shows the level of animosity that a significant number of Italians have towards outsiders. An animosity so strong that someone in the local government felt a compelling need to separate these two groups.

This isn’t the first time I’ve encountered racism in Italy. I once turned down an apartment in Rome because the landlord told me they didn’t allow “dark-skinned people” in the building.

If you come to Italy for a bike tour, you probably won’t be harassed by anybody. I’ve been through Foggia on a bike, and I also happen to look like an Eastern European, one of the ethnic groups that are often the target of a lot of hate. Yet I never had any problems.

More than 99.9% of the Italians I’ve met are kind, generous, unbiased and friendly people who will welcome you with a big smile, especially if you’ve come by bike and you’re there to spend money. But be aware. Like the rest of the world, Italy isn’t perfect.

Before anything else, here’s the link to donate to the Italian Red Cross: http://www.cri.it/donazioni/index.php?mode=form

I’ve done a lot of bike touring in Italy, and I woke up this morning to the news that a lot of Italy is now collapsing. Abruzzo got hit hard around 3:00 a.m. by an earthquake that measured either 5.8 or 6.3 on the richter scale, depending on different sources. People were crushed and buried in their beds.

Imagine you’re huddled in blankets or dusty clothes, gazing at the ruins of your house. Or maybe you’re dragging boulders away, trying to dig out your friends and family who are still buried underneath the rubble.

The gorgeous cathedral that has been around since before your grandparents’ great grandparents were born is crushed. And so is everything you knew. The very ground beneath your feet is no longer solid. It’s unreal.

But people pull together in times of crisis. Your neighbors are out there with you, sharing their food, their clothes, their muscle to help rescue those who are still trapped.

For me, this is personal. I had roommates from Abruzzo, where the earthquake hit. My old colleague from Rome hasn’t heard from his family in Casano, and he doesn’t know if they’re okay.

If I could do it, I would go there myself and help with the rescue, give first aid, cook food or clean toilets–whatever was needed. But since I can’t, I plan to help those who can. If you’d like to help too, here’s the link to the Italian Red Cross: http://www.cri.it/donazioni/index.php?mode=form 

And the American Red Cross: http://american.redcross.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ntld_main&s_subsrc=RCO_RedTab&s_src=DRF

Apologies in advance for the rant. I just get really pissed off sometimes because L.A. could easily become one of the most beautiful places in the world. It probably was, a few hundred years ago.

Now the City of Angels has suffered from short-sighted planning and simple human apathy. But today, at least, some people tried to do something about it.

I was riding down Vermont Avenue (never a good idea) and right at the bridge over the 101 freeway a band of Greenpeacers were protesting global warming.

I thought it was kind of ironic that they were holding up “stop global warming” signs under a street sign that said “No Stopping Any Time.” Weirder still, but understandable, were the passing motorists who honked and cheered as they drove along, contributing to global warming.

I know most people don’t have a choice, but if we had infrastructure that made it possible to cut back on driving at least some of the time, maybe it would make a dent.

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The final irony, not directly related, is that the Global 20 are meeting today. The leaders of the world’s largest, most powerful nations are getting together to talk about solving some of our global problems…on April Fool’s day.

Just in case you wanted to see, here’s a shot of the demonstration on the Vermont Avenue 101 overpass:

Below you’ll see the endless river of cars, crawling along like blood in the clogged arteries of an overfed bacon addict.  And this shot was around 4 in the afternoon, when most people are still at work.

I get pissed off like this sometimes because L.A. has the potential to be such an amazing, beautiful place! If you look closely you can see the Santa Monica Mountains, nearly obliterated by smog.

Any ideas on how to make riding a bike so cool and so much fun that everybody wants to do it as much as they can?

I wish I’d thought of this sooner. I want to make this trip happen, and I want it to be affordable for you to come along. I finally figured out a way to get this happen, do some good for the world, help the global economy and have even more fun, to boot!

I’m going to team up with a nonprofit group, and the Italy bike tour will be a fundraiser. I see it working like this: You go to all your friends and family and colleagues and get them to sponsor you on this tour, which will raise money for a cause.

I’ll come up with a clear estimate of the cost for this trip, and we’ll round it up to create a fundraising goal. Let’s say the total cost of the tour is $1400. Your “goal” would be to raise $2,000.  The first $1400 would fund your tour, and the remaining $600 would go to the non-profit we’re supporting.

Of course we’d have to be honest and aboveboard about this–tell your donors that most of their money is going to support your ride. It’s all on the honor’s system, too, because they’ll be handing you the cash and it’s up to you to allocate the right amount to the non-profit.

This should be OK, because most of you won’t cheat. A few may not be able to raise the full amount, but the non-profit won’t be cheated because other riders will raise more money than the official goal. Also, some of our fellow bike tourists may choose to pay for some, or all, of their bike tour out of their own pocket, leaving more funds for the nonprofit.

And anyway, the nonprofit group will benefit from the publicity, and the tour itself is a good cause to support, as I’ll explain in a moment.

So, which cause are we supporting?

I just thought of this, and haven’t actually contacted any nonprofit organizations yet. I have a few in mind, and I’m open to suggestions. (Post yours in the comment section, below!)

I’d like to support a group that’s focused on ecology, sustainability, biking, alternative energy, or international understanding. This seems appropriate for a bike tour in a foreign country.

The tour itself is going to be a call to action, showing people that you can get around on your own power. Just doing this is going to get a lot of people thinking about getting around on their own power, especially when we publicize the bricks out of it.

This is also going to be a big push for small mom-and-pop businesses and farms in Italy. I’m contacting pro loco goups all over southern Italy (they’re sort of like a Chamber of Commerce for tiny rural villages and hill towns) to make the most of festivals and local small businesses. We’ll stay in agriturismo sites, small campgrounds and family-owned bed and breakfasts.

I’m also getting in touch with other bikers I met on my last trip, like the members of the Terracina Cycling Group. We’ll ride together, and maybe take a day off to stash our panniers and ride fast in the hills with Italian cyclists.

Anyway, I’m getting really excited about this and I hope you are too. I’m thinking May, 2010 as the date of the bike tour because that gives us a year to hook up with all the groups and make things happen.

My recent martial arts quest has had an interesting economic side effect. My girlfriend and I have spent hundreds of dollars at a local martial arts store, and it occurred to me that any time you pursue a hobby or persuade others to do so, you’re stimulating the economy.

Right now, somewhere in your city there’s a manager crunching the numbers and saying, “If we don’t make x dollars this month, we’ll have to let someone go.” The extra $30 one customer spends might end up saving someone’s job.

Next time you buy a new set of bicycle tires or a jersey, you might ensure that someone in your neighborhood still has a job. When you and your buddies meet for coffee before a Sunday ride, or grab some beer and pizza at the end of the trek, you’ve just helped keep a restaurant open.

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So get out there and ride your bike, or follow whatever other passions excite you. Encourage your friend and neighbors to do the same. Thousands of these tiny ripple effects all over America might accumulate into one big mighty wave that can release an economy that has run aground, and get things moving again.

And biking especially has this stimulating, life-giving force. It keeps your energy levels high and your stress levels low. It saves you money on gas and doctor’s bills. The light you share with the world is contagious. Just riding out there on the street is an inspiration.

It’s exactly what we need right now. Ride on!

There’s a new movement going on in L.A. for new bikers. Bike Sages are training newbies to ride fearlessly on the streets of Los Angeles. If you’re here, and you’ve ever thought about biking in LA but you were worried about the traffic and other dangers, you can get a personal mentor to help you find fun and safe routes near your home and job.

Trek bikes has started their annual essay contest. If you’re a woman and you ride, you could win a new bike designed specifically for women, and trek gear that’s made for a woman.

You only need to write 500 words, which is less than 2 typewritten pages.

This is your chance to tell the world why you ride, explain the importance of a bike in your life, and possibly score some free stuff:

http://www.trekbikes.com/women/women_who_ride/contest/

I was doing some research on luxury brands for a client, and I stumbled upon an ad for “Cadillac Luxury bicycles.”

I never thought I’d do this, but I have to give a thumbs up to this automobile company for diversifying and manufacturing a truly fuel-efficient vehicle.

I doubt this will have much of an impact on the company or the industry just yet, but it’s a start. Someone at Cadillac can see the writing on the wall. They’re focusing on high-end buyers, even implying on their website that true roadies are elite–which of course we are

There are still two overwhelming prejudices that keep most people from riding bikes. One is that you have to be some sort of super-athlete, and the other is that bikers are geeks, and definitely not in a cool way.

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But now your “bike” can be a Cadillac. This is very cool, it’s probably creating new jobs somewhere, and it’s dispelling these two dead myths.

I’ve been getting a lot of emails (as well as a few comments added to old posts) from people wanting tips and advice on biking in southern Italy. Some of you are riding (or even hiking!) the Via Appia, and it’s a shame that it’s so hard to get a group of people together when our schedules, wills, and finances are all in alignment.

We’re basically all doing prettymuch the same ride, just not at the same time. So… (more…)

What kind of pictures do you take when you’re [tag-tec]bicycle touring[/tag-tec]?

You and your bike on a cliff edge or a rickety bridge, overlooking an ice cold torrent of swirling water? How about this instead:

Out on the 7th Street bridge where it crosses the freeway. During rush hour. I saw a group of [tag-tec]bike tourists[/tag-tec] there, taking photos of each other, making certain to get all 10 lanes of dead-stopped traffic underneath. “Now that looks scary. You wouldn’t want to fall down there.”

It really makes sense, after all, doesn’t it? You want photos of your [tag-tec]bicycle travel[/tag-tec] to get an “Oh, my God” exclamation of disbelief. Rivers and mountains are great when you can be there, but what about the profound effects of five million commuters trying to drive home all at once? Isn’t the result an emergent quality of nature, too?

Adventure is where you find it.