Curtis Howell

TLDR Grand Prix 5000 TL 28s fit on my Canyon Aeroad with a few millimeters of clearance.

Last week I converted my Canyon Aeroad I bought in June 2019 to tubeless. I have the CF SL Disc 8.0 Di2 model with DT Swiss ARC 1400 Dicut 62mm wheels. I went with Continental Grand Prix 5000 TL 28 tires. I couldn’t find any information as to whether the tires would fit on the bike so I’m writing this in case you come across it while thinking about converting an Aeroad to tubeless using these tires.

The wheels came with the rim tape pre-installed so I didn’t have to fuss with that.

The first hurdle was getting the correct valves. My wheels came with 32mm valves and it was quickly apparent those weren’t going to get the job done on the 62mm wheels. I sent an email to [email protected] and they put the correct valves in the mail the following day, no questions asked.

Once I had the correct valves, they didn’t quite fit. I took a drill bit (not sure which size) and bored out the hole in the wheel by hand–no power tools needed. That let the valve get fully seated and fit nice and snug.

Next, the hard part: getting the tires on the wheels. As anyone who has attempted this will tell you, mounting the tires is no easy feat. It was my first time so I’m no expert. I found that getting them on as far as possible and then waiting overnight seemed to help. Maybe the time on the wheel stretched the tires or maybe it just gave my finger pads a chance to recover. Either way, they’re on there now after a lot of yelling, force, and frustration, and a little blood. I’m already dreading getting a flat and having to remove and reinstall the tires on the side of a road. Hopefully it happens close to home.

Once the tires were on, I added some air using a regular floor pump. I don’t have a compressor or one of the fancy pumps that lets air out in a burst. Fortunately, the tire beads caught the wheels right away and held the air. I removed the valve cores, added a little more than an ounce of Orange Seal Endurance, returned the cores, and pumped up the tires. Based on what I read on some sites, I filled both wheels to 85psi.

My first ride on the new wheels felt great. The ride is noticeably smoother and I’m hoping for fewer flats.

Special thanks to Diego and James for the encouragement to go tubeless.

My siblings and I have bought the Mountain Collective ski pass the last few years. I made a map with all the ski areas that the pass covers to help with our trip planning. Maybe you’ll find it useful!

Mountain Collective Map

To learn more about the Mountain Collective pass, visit https://mountaincollective.com.

A few months ago, some friends and I backpacked to Nelson Lake in the Yosemite Wilderness near Tuolumne Meadows. Nelson Lake is a little more than 5 miles from the trailhead at the Tuolumne Meadows campground. I couldn’t find a GPX file to load into my GPS watch so I made my own and thought I’d share it with you! We followed the route pretty closely and it worked for us.

GPX file

Suunto Movescount route

 

Dealing with multiple job offers can be exhilarating and stressful. Glenn Kelman offers some good advice in his talk at UW CSE in 2007. One of the most challenging aspects of navigating an offer to work at a private company is calculating a value for the equity portion of the shares. Glenn offers some questions you should ask a startup you are considering joining in the slide titled “Questions You Should Ask Any Start-Up Employer,” from the video linked above.

• How should I think about the value of these shares?
• How many shares and options are out there?
• What was the company valued at in its last round of financing?
  • If the company is sold is the money split between investors and employees according to the number of shares they own?
  • How many rounds of financing will it take to build the company? How many more shares do you expect to have to sell?
• Are you losing money now?
  • How much per month?
  • When do you run out of money?
  • What has to change for the company to start making money?
  • When will that happen?
• How big can this company be? What’s the market size?
• What keeps you up at night?

Link to photos on Facebook

I really liked Barcelona. Of all the cities I traveled to on this trip, Barcelona had the most parks within the downtown area. Even most streets were lined with trees, which provide much-needed shade from the Mediterranean sun.

Highlights:

Segrada Familia Church

This Gaudi-designed churn is quite incredible. I had heard from someone that it is not worth the wait in line and the entrance fee but I definitely disagree. Construction started in 1882 and it’s no where near done, although it was labeled a basilica by the Catholic church in 2010. I think when I was in Barcelona there were either 5 or 7 construction cranes on the top of the structure. The exterior of the building is dark and gothic. I was surprised to see that the inside of the church is bright and light colored. There is a lot of stained glass of all different colors that project colorful images all over the inside of the church.

Parque Guell

Our hostel was near this park. Another Gaudi creation and it afforded a great view of the city with the sea on the horizon. Great place to have a beer or two.

La Rambla

The main street in Barcelona, also home to one of the few Starbucks I found in Europe! I couldn’t resist the urget to get a vanilla iced soy chai tea; yum. Unfortunately, the only Starbucks in Copenhagen is at the airport (there are 3 at the rather small airport) and the drink just mentioned is 10 bucks instead of 5 like in the states. Ouch. Back to Barcelona… My favorite part of La Rambla is the market to the west of the street. Similar to Pike Place market, minus all the flowers and with numerous of small vendors selling fruits, veggies, nuts and some crazy-looking seafood. Back out on the street, I got a stein-like glass of Sangria with fresh fruit floating in it- really good.

The Olympic Park and Nearby Castle

The Olympic Park was underwhelming but there was a really cool castle on the top of the hill that is free to get into. From the top of the hill you get a great 360 degree view over the whole city. The surrounding part would be a great place to go for runs if I was staying in barcelona for longer. On the back side of the castle there is a funny driving course with every sign and type of intersection imaginable, only on a small scale. I wonder if it was a driving instruction course for motorcycles, as cars surely wouldn’t fit on the miniature roads.

Beaches

Barcelona has great beaches. Nice sand, right downtown, topless women and immigrants to give 5 euro massages right on the beach and sell 1 euro bottles of water.

Link to photos on Facebook

Traveling from Cinque Terre to Nice was the biggest contrast in locations I experienced on my trip. I went from a pure, natural national park to an artificial tourist attraction that felt like France’s version of Vegas. There are enormous, extravagant hotels and casinos that are lit up at night everywhere you look. Luckily, I was in Nice during France’s holiday, which was quite impressive. Every night I was there, I was an incredible fire works show over the Mediterranean. The first night I was there the main boulevard that parallels the sea was shut down for pedestrians. There were numerous free concerts along the street that lasted well past midnight, which even the families with little kids stayed out to see.

Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat

This peninsula between Nice and Monaco is far and away the wealthiest place I have ever been. It puts Hunts Point to shame in terms of incredible homes and class. I took a city bus from Nice to the east and walked around the entire peninsula. Every other car was either a Ferrari, Bugatti, Rolls Royce or Maserati. I think the people driving S classes were embarrassed. All the houses on the point (the ones I could see from the road) were villa-like mansions. There was a fair amount of new construction and each new home was being built with a yellow tower crane! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a single family home being built that needed a yellow crane to complete construction. My favorite part of the peninsula was sitting at the end of the marina and watching at all the mega yachts. I love seeing slideshows of these class of boats on the internet and this was the first time I’ve seen them in real life. They were close enough that I could see the crew preparing the yachts for use by their owners by getting out the jet skis, ski boats, etc from inside the yacht.

Cannes, Antibes

On my second day in Nice I took the train southwest to Cannes and Antibes. First impression: the trains are no where near as tourist-friendly as they are in Italy. The electronic ticket machines are only in French, only accept coins. The problem is the station doesn’t have a coin machine and the cafe in the station won’t give out enough coins in change to buy a ticket. And for those of us without a credit card with a chip in it, this is a problem. Cannes was similar to Nice- lots of money, people trying to be something they weren’t, etc. I did enjoy walking the docks and seeing some of the yachts parked in the harbor. The most impressive boat there was a massive sail boat that must have been at least 200 feet long. I laid on the beach, walked around and headed back up to Antibes via train. Antibes was a much smaller town, a big relief to me. It has a very large harbor with lots of fishing boats and a few mega yachts wer parked just off shore the day I was there. There is a cool covered outdoor art bazar with lots of pretty weird art next to the Picasso museum. I think it said Picasso lived there at one point. I considered going in the museum, mostly because Picasso and I share the same birthday (which, by the way, is coming up in 2 weeks from tomorrow (today now) wahoo), but it was getting late so I took a rain check and hopped back on the train to Nice.

Monaco

For my last day in Nice, I really wanted to go to Monaco. I have heard a lot about it and always imagined an amazing place so I flagged it as a city I thought I should see. For some reason I imagined it much flatter than it is. It extends from the water’s edge pretty steeply up into hills. I met two people at the bus stop in Nice waiting to go to Monaco. They both had the same agenda I had so we decided to spend the day traveling together. The bus from Nice goes way up into the hills to a small, old village. We stopped at the village, took some pictures, then took a hiking train down the hill to the train station. From there we caught a train a couple stops to the East to Monaco. After seeing Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat a couple days earlier, Monaco was quite underwhelming. It looked like a pretty standard urban area. We walked down to Hotel Monte Carlo as all tourists do, and to our surprise we were able to go inside. We had heard that the dress code is pants and a collared shirt but all three of us wore shorts and t-shirts- no problem. After the casino we walked around, went down to the harbor, and decided we had seen enough of Monaco. We made our way back to the station and took the train one stop to the west. We got off, crossed the tracks, and walked along a path next to the sea to the west for about half a mile to an awesome, rather secluded beach. From this beach, you can swim out about 1/8 of a mile to the west of the bay where there is a cave you can swim into! It was far and away the highlight of our day. Check out the pictures and if you go to Nice or Monaco, definitely check this out. As a bonus, there are plenty of topless swimmers. After our swim, it was back to Nice, dinner, another firework display, then I caught my bus to Barcelona after looking for the bus stop for upwards of an hour.

I’ve given up on posting photos to my blog photos. I am posting all my photos on Facebook publicly so you do not have to be my friend to see them (but you may have to have a Facebook account).

https://www.facebook.com/curtisjhowell?sk=photos

August 7- 9

Before I set out on my trip, I heard from many people that Venice is very tourist-heavy and there is not much to do there so I did not have high expectations. I normally prefer more natural places that are important for reasons other than just entertainment. However, I stayed in a great hostel with nice people that ran it and met some fun people so I ended up having a great time! The hostel was only 5 minutes from the main train station so it was easily accessible but not near the main attractions.

When I arrived on the 7^th, I needed to do my laundry. There was a local laundry mat so I took my dirty laundry there. It cost around 20 USD to do a load of laundry. Ouch. That night I decided to eat dinner at the hostel. The girlfriend of the hostel manager makes dinner every night for 5 euros and it’s a good place to meet other people staying in the hostel so I went for it. Food wasn’t too great but I met some nice people and we all walked outside for about half an hour.

In the morning after a nice breakfast at the hostel, 5 of us from the hostel decided to go on a walking tour with the manager and his girlfriend. It’s a free tour and tips are greatly accepted. They knew some interesting facts about Venice and were a lot of fun. We walked by a shop that takes old 1.5L water bottles, washes them, then sells wine in them. It had at least 15 varieties of wine and we decided to try it out. In Europe it is ok to drink alcohol in public. We drank wine out of plastic water bottles walking down the streets of Venice- pretty strange experience!

All the streets are very skinny and there are no cars. There are all types of boats in the canals. Some of us were speculating whether couriers delivered packages via the streets or the canals. About five minutes later we saw a boat with UPS painted on the rutter.

The main square of Venice is very old and has lots of designer stores. The hostel manager told us that one of the columns facing the water on the government mansion on the corner of the main square is closer to the edge than the rest. If you look at the spacing between the columns and the foundation you can see it’s true. This signified the pole that criminals would be tied to and punished with lashings. He also told us that it is not possible walk on the ledge between the column and the water with toes facing the water and not holding the column. I tried and failed. If you are ever in Venice, give it a shot.

 

We learned that Venetian cuisine is heavy on seafood so a few of us decided to go out to eat and try some local food. I got a mixed grilled seafood plate. The fish was OK and the waitress was quite rude.

August 9-12

I am quite sure Cinque Terre is the most naturally beautiful place I’ve ever been. It was definitely my favorite place on my trip so far. If you are not familiar with it, Cinque Terre is 5 small Italian towns on the Mediterranean and they are connected by hiking trails. Most tourists only hike on the trail that links the 5 cities near the sea, but there are many more trails up in the hills that are amazing. Several of them wind through vineyards and all have awesome views of the hills, cities and sea.

 

The first night I stayed in Riomaggiore, the first town from the east. After I checked into the hostel I met someone from Philadelphia and we decided to go for a hike. We hiked to Manarola and then all the way up the hill to the park boundary, then back to Riomaggiore. The Cinque Terre national park is surrounded by an electric fence to keep the wild boars out so we purposely chose trails within the park as we were unsure whether the wild boars like to eat grapes or humans. At the top of the park we found a few summer homes with amazing views. We talked to a lady that lived in one and she told us they though the original structure was medieval and was built to watch for African pirates. We sampled a couple grapes as we walked through the vineyards and they were all really good! We found some interesting vines that had both red and green grapes in the same bunch.

The next two nights I slept in Corniglia, the middle town, so I decided it would be fun to hike with my backpack instead of taking the train. Unfortunately, the coastal trail between Manarola and Corniglia (2^nd and 3^rd towns) was closed indefinitely due to a landslide. So I had to hike via one of the inland trails which was quite a workout with my pack. I locked my backpack up at my hostel and decided to continue along the trail to Vernazza and Monterosso, the 4^th and 5^th towns.

The last day I started from Corniglia and hiked to Vernazza via the coastal trail, then took an inland trail to Monterosso. Once I got to Monterosso I decided to continue hiking along the coast to Sant’ Antoni (or Antonio, I went swimming with my map in my pocket so it’s pretty hard to read). From this point, I could see an amazing view of all 5 cities.

After both full days of hiking, I ended in Monterosso and went swimming. Monterosso is the most touristy and largest cities of the Cinque terre and has 2 large beaches. Most of the beach is covered with beach chairs and sun umbrellas for which you have to pay to use but I found the free beaches to be just fine. The sea in Monterosso is very salty, similarly to how it was in Greece, so I was very buoyant and swimming was easy. However, the water was much colder than in Greece. Focaccia bread is very popular in Cinque Terre. In Monterosso, there was always a very long line coming out of the focaccia bakery. They served it with various toppings, such as olives or pesto. I tried it with olives and it was very good.

Food

One day for lunch I ate a Cinque Terre specialty pizza called frutti di mare, or fruit of the sea. This was the best pizza I have ever had and included clams, mussels, calamari and shrimp. I decided to de-shell the animals and empty the meat onto the pizza and it turned out nicely.

For my last night in Cinque Terre, I met up with someone I live with and 2 girls he is traveling with. It was a coincidence that we both ended up in Cinque Terre at the same time and our reunion can be attributed to none other than Facebook. We met in Monterosso and went to a restaurant recommended by Rick Steves. We got the dish that Rick recommends, a seafood stew with many types of creatures including shrimp, mussels, clams, squid, mini lobsters and some other animals I didn’t recognize. It comes in an enormous bowl in the middle of the table. As Mr. Steves suggested, the stew and a plate of pasta is plenty of food for four.

Also called out in the Rick Steves Italy guidebook was a winery in the town where I stayed, Corniglia. A local 3 Euro glass of wine is served in a purin, which aerates the wine to give it more kick. I didn’t get a video but I’ll be happy to demonstrate the technique if anyone is interested. It’s a little messy at first but I started to get the hang of it toward the end of my glass of wine. A purin will most definitely be on my list of items to acquire when I return to the states.

On my last day, a forest fire (vineyard fire?) lit somewhere in the hills between Riomaggiore and Manarola. I first noticed it when I was past Monterosso and was first a bit concerned that I wouldn’t’ be able to get back to Corniglia if it spread quickly but luckily the Italian fire fighters got the fire under control. Because the hills are so steep and there are not many roads, They fought the fire with a seaplane that scooped up water from the sea and dumped it on the fire. I’ve seen pictures of these planes but I’ve never seen one in action. It was pretty impressive. They also had a helicopter that was dangling a bucket on a cable to do the same thing but the airplane was much more effective. By the next morning, there was no more smoke and the plane was not dumping water on the hills so I assume they put out the fire. Hopefully the grape farmers have insurance, as it seems like a fire could wipe out a livelihood pretty quickly because most of the vines are quite thick, so I assume they have been in the ground for a long time.

I realize the quality of these Europe pictures sucks. If you want to see an image in better quality, click on it! Because I don’t want to fix it.