Sunday September 2, 2018
5:00 a.m. Room 208, Cahaya Asahan Hotel
Kisaran, Sumatra

(130,000 rupiah/$8.50 US per night; great hotel; great staff; professional; indoor parking with security; nice room; two beds; air conditioning; Wi-Fi; nice, clean bathroom; shopping center with grocery store across the street)

At long last, I have made it to Kisaran. Assuming I don’t ride to the small town of Tanjungbalai, this is the last stop before getting on the ferry to Malaysia. I have to say that the ride from Banda Aceh to here was much more demanding than I expected. It was no simple ride to the corner store. It’s interesting that in my head, I don’t really take bike rides as seriously as I should. I think that comes from how strongly Indonesians react to the idea. Their minds are blown away when I cycle just twenty kilometers from one place to another on a day trip. And they can never fathom the idea that I am alone and have no companions. So, when they react like that, I respond with a breezy devil-may-care attitude. “Hey, man. It’s no big deal. People cycle around the whole world all the time. You just ride a few kilometers every day, and before you know it, you’ve crossed a whole country.”

 

Perhaps this false bravado penetrated my brain and became real, because I really did treat the ride to Kisaran quite lightly. And it came as a bit of an unpleasant surprise when the days became very hard at times. And I had this feeling that I’d been riding forever and I was still three hundred kilometers away from my destination. This was compounded by my various illnesses, the rear hub failure, and a lot of pain in both my butt and my hands. Out of all the problems, the pain is the most pressing one. The pain has been so bad that I can honestly say that if conditions remain unchanged, I won’t be able to do any more cycling like this. The pedaling is fine. The physical exertion is fine. I could probably put out twice the physical effort without any problem and cycle twice as far each day. But I’m stopped cold by that pain. I’ve been adjusting the position of my handlebars and seat a lot, but it has made no difference. I’ve also been fiddling with my saddle itself. I changed from my old comfort saddle to a gel-filled ergonomic saddle. Then I added a thick gel cover. I even took a towel and folded it up and shoved it underneath that cover to give even more cushioning. But the pain was always there.

The standard response from every cyclist in the world is the same: cushioning doesn’t help. Cushioning, they say, actually hurts. They all say that I should buy a Brooks leather saddle. However, I tried that long ago. I bought a super-expensive Brooks, and it was the worst and most painful saddle I’ve ever used. It was horrible. And it was time-consuming and complicated to maintain. A leather saddle has to be treated with special lotion called Proofide. It has tightening bolts that have to be adjusted constantly to maintain the proper tension. And craziest of all, it can’t get wet. It comes with a waterproof cover, and you have to put that on when it rains. I knew little of this when I bought the saddle. I don’t think I would have tried it at all if I knew that you couldn’t even get it wet. Forget about the rain, when I ride, I sweat like a demon. My pants get soaked through and when I get off the bike, the saddle is often drenched in sweaty water. That’s just cycling. So the Brooks saddle got wet even when it wasn’t raining. Riding on a Brooks was more painful than on any other saddle for me, and it soon became a shapeless mass of hard leather.

I was talking to another cyclist about my saddle problems not long ago, and, as he is full of strong opinions, he strongly recommended getting a Brooks. Even when I told him about my experience, he simply assumed I had done something wrong. He told me that I had to treat the leather with Proofide, and he didn’t hear me when I told him that I had done that. And he told me that I had to keep it dry. And he gave the standard lecture that everyone gives about how we sit on our two sit bones, and the Brooks saddle conforms to the shape of your body over time and creates the perfect shape to accommodate your sit bones. This could easily be true for other people. But it’s not true for me.

Anyway, I have to work on this problem. I think I will start off with the handlebars. I’ve long thought that I should switch over to butterfly bars. And I’ve long thought that I should get a stem extender and raise my handlebars. I’m not sure which is the best route, though. It might be better to simply keep my current handlebars (and bar ends) and raise them up. Try that out first and see how it goes. I don’t know anything about them, but there are adjustable stem extenders that allow you to move the handlebars through an arc that raises and lowers them and moves them closer or further away. That would probably be the best route to go. And that might be all I need to do. If I still have problems with my hands, I could then try butterfly bars.

Or I could change both at once. The way butterfly bars are designed, I would have to get a stem extension at the same time. They can’t be used with the stem that I currently have on my bike. But perhaps changing the handlebar height, handlebar angle, and the type of handlebar at the same time is introducing too many variables at once. I’ll look into it more when I get to Malaysia.

My ride from Tebing Tinggi to Kisaran is over, and it was one for the books. It’s something of a miracle that I am still alive to tell the tale. There was an insane amount of traffic on that road, and the road was too narrow for all of us. I kept hoping that a comfortable paved shoulder would develop, but it never did. To make matters worse, the asphalt was raised up quite a bit from the surrounding gravel shoulder, so there was no easy way to just steer off onto the gravel and back onto the road. I had to hug the side of the road (like a frightened kitten), and I had to be very careful to keep my bike’s wheels and trailer’s wheels far from that edge. It was a sharp drop-off, and if my wheels dropped over, I’d go for a tumble. And when I was faced with a truck coming straight at me as it passed other trucks, I had no choice but to steer over the edge deliberately to get out of the way and avoid getting killed. But to do that, I had to steer to the side at a very sharp angle. I couldn’t just veer away. It was nuts.

 

(Heavy traffic on the narrow road.)

I knew I was in trouble from the minute I left from my hotel. I can’t remember what time I finally got on the road, but it was pretty early. I think it was about five-thirty, so it was completely dark. Yet, the roads were jammed with huge trucks. I’ve never seen so many trucks on the road. I felt like a mouse trying to join in with a stampeding herd of cattle – without getting trampled. Nothing of particular note happened the entire day to be honest. It was simply keeping my head down, pedaling, and trying not to get killed. I had my eyes roaming constantly from the road ahead to my rear view mirror as I tried to gauge the level of danger I was in. I felt like I was in danger all the time, but there were many times when I would literally have been killed if I did nothing. This always had to do with other vehicles passing each other. The basic issue is that there is such a variety of vehicles on these roads. They are all different shapes and sizes and they all travel at different speeds, so they have to pass each other all the time. And there would be insane stacked passing. A truck would pull out to pass another truck while a car would be trying to pass that truck and a motorcycle would be trying to pass the car. And they’d all be trying to go around me. It was insanity. Multiple times I had no choice but to turn off the road, over the edge, and just pray that I didn’t crash. It was that or be hit head on by a speeding truck or flattened by one coming up from behind.

Even so, the most dangerous moments – the ones that almost got me – did not involve the trucks but car and motorcycle drivers who simply didn’t care at all. They did the dumbest and most insane things. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen such oblivious driving in my life. They’d just drive in such a way that if I didn’t hit my brakes hard, turn sharply, or make a dash for the side of the road, they’d have hit me. And they saw me perfectly clearly. They just didn’t care. They wanted to go in this or that direction, so they just went there regardless of anything or anyone around them.

At times, I started to feel bad that I was causing so much trouble. I did my best to hug the side of the road and stay out of people’s way. I monitored all the traffic around me and took evasive action to avoid problems as I saw them developing. But there was no question that I was a pain in the ass for most of the truck drivers. If the road was clear ahead of me, they could go around me without too much trouble. But that was rare. The road was usually jammed, and the trucks would have to slow down and take up a position behind me and wait for their opportunity to pass. And that was never easy because it’s not like they could drop into passing gear and go from zero to sixty in three point two seconds. These were massive trucks with heavy loads, and they had to work their way up the gears slowly to pick up speed. It wasn’t easy for them to get around me once they slowed down. I would have gotten off the road and onto the gravel shoulder to let them pass, but it wasn’t possible. The drop from the pavement to the gravel was too sharp and too far. I had no choice but to stay right where I was.

 

But nobody really seemed to mind. In fact, the truck drivers constantly gave me cheery toots on their air horns. These trucks always had an assistant in the passenger seat, and this assistant would give me a big thumbs-up and shout something encouraging. Lots of people stuck their smartphones out the window and took pictures or videos of me. And if I started to feel bad anyway, I’d realize that I was the least of their problems. The things that Indonesian drivers routinely did were far, far worse than my presence on the road. The worst offenders were almost always the passenger vans that serve as public transportation. It was their job to drive up and down this highway and pick up as many passengers as they could. And they didn’t care one tiny bit how their driving affected other people. I was astonished most of the time. One of these guys would see a potential passenger, and he’d just stop his van right in the middle of the road and right at a busy T-intersection. And he’d wait. Total chaos would develop around him and there would be near accidents everywhere, and he wouldn’t care at all. He’d just sit there and wait. I think that not only do Indonesian drivers not care about how their driving affects other people, they don’t even notice. They’re not even aware of it. So if someone got angry and yelled at them, they’d have no idea what the problem was. The driving behavior I saw all day long was enough to make them the target of utter road rage in Canada or the US. In the US, they’d probably be shot or beaten half to death. But here, no one cares. It’s like there is a pact among all the drivers that they can do anything they want and cause as many problems as they want as long as everyone else can do the same when it benefits them and it’s their turn.

 

At long, long last, I arrived in Kisaran. I rode straight to this hotel and I was very happy when I arrived. It’s a great hotel for many reasons. It has a covered secure parking garage, and I could just ride my bike right inside it, and then go into the lobby to check in. I can leave my bike safely down there locked up. It’s guarded and very secure. The prices are low. They’re so low that I didn’t automatically choose the cheapest room. I asked for a Standard room, which comes with a TV and air conditioning and WiFi and a nice private bathroom. And even then, I jumped up one level. The cheapest standard room was 120,000 rupiah a night, but they told me that it was on the third floor. For 130,000 rupiah, I could get the same room but on the second floor. I decided that an extra dollar was a small price to pay for not having to climb up another flight of stairs with all my gear, especially when the final flight was a very narrow, steep, and dangerous metal staircase. I remembered that staircase from when I stayed in one of their fan-only rooms on the third floor. And back then the WiFi was bad on that floor. So I went for the Standard air con room on the second floor, and so far I am very glad I did.

Another great thing about this hotel is that it is very organized. The staff are great. There are usually three people working at the front desk, and they all have walkie talkies and are efficient. It’s a very professional operation. They keep paper records and provide receipts. Finally, there is a huge and modern supermarket right cross the road. I don’t have to get on my bike and go roaming all over the city to find a shop. I can just pop across the street and buy more Corn Flakes and cold milk and whatever else I want or need.

 

My plan for today was to buy a ticket for the ferry. However, when I contacted a friend of mine here, he reminded me that on Sunday, the travel agency would likely be closed. So I guess I will have to wait until Monday. And considering I have such a great room here and the WiFi signal is so strong and it’s relatively cheap, I will probably book my ferry ticket for September fifth – the very day my visa expires. I’m nervous about that, but I’ve counted the thirty days over and over again to make sure that my visa expires on that day.

2:00 p.m.

I’ve done nothing all day except hang out in my lovely air conditioned room and watch some YouTube videos. And I think I managed to sneak in a nap. I couldn’t help but wake up at four this morning, so some sleepiness overcame me midday. I contacted my friend Al here in Kisaran. He helped me when I first arrived in Indonesia long ago. We met the first time at the immigration office in Tanjungbalai, and his wife ended up offering to be my sponsor for my visa. That didn’t work out, unfortunately, but that was not their fault. She just had the wrong address for the immigration office clerks.

Al is from Singapore and he speaks English well and has a certain cosmopolitan air about him. His hobby is raising song birds. He enters these birds in competitions, and he wins much of the time. He is quite skilled at it, and he wins a lot of money. There is a competition this afternoon, and Al invited me to come see it. If I have the energy, I will go to check it out. It will at least be a good opportunity to touch base with Al in person without going through the hassle of a formal social engagement. Those never work out well for me.

Monday September 3, 2018
6:00 a.m. Room 208, Cahaya Asahan Hotel
Kisaran, Sumatra

I did end up going to the birdsong competition. It was quite interesting. Al told me that it was taking place at a hotel, and he gave me the name and I tracked it down on Google Maps. Al told me that this hotel might be a good place for me to stay because it had a pool. I somehow got it in my mind that this was a large hotel with extensive halls for public events like birdsong competitions and conventions. This image was so strong in my mind that when I found the street, I cycled right past the hotel without even seeing it. I did see an old, worn-out, broken down building. It looked like half the buildings in Sumatra – derelict and abandoned and empty. But it turned out that that was the hotel. And the birdsong competition was NOT taking place inside the hotel. That was kind of funny because I had deliberately worn long pants and a nice shirt because I thought I’d be walking around inside a fancy hotel. I’d even asked Al if they would let a visitor like me inside to just wander around. I imagined footmen at the gate turning away the riffraff. But I was completely wrong about everything.

In fact, the birdsong competition was taking place in an empty lot beside the hotel. It had nothing to with the hotel at all. The empty field just happened to be beside the hotel, so Al said it was taking place there. There was an old rusty fence around the field and a structure with a roof in the middle. And that was the entire venue for this competition.

The competition was a lot more fun and more casual than I expected. Men came from all over the region with their prize birds in covered cages on their backs or loaded into vans. They enter their birds into specific categories. And the categories also seemed to have different levels – some for the best and most experienced birds and some for beginners. The entrance fee is higher or lower depending on which category you enter. And the prizes are larger or smaller depending on how many entrants there are. When their category is called, the men enter an enclosed area in the field and hang their bird cages from a raised roof at special numbered spots. Three judges then enter with clipboards and listen to each bird and make notes, eventually zeroing in on the three they think are the best and then allotting them first, second, or third prize. The owners sit near their birds and call out to them and clap their hands and make other noises to encourage them to sing. Beforehand, I thought it would be tricky to get your birds to sing at the right time. But it didn’t seem to be that difficult. These birds loved to sing and the sound of each contest was quite loud. I wondered how the judges could even distinguish one bird’s song from another. I’d definitely attend another one if I had the chance.

 

One thing really caught my eye, and this was the special backpack attachment they’ve developed to carry their bird cages. A lot of these men came by motorcycle, and it’s difficult to carry these large bird cages. So someone started making a padded back with long straps and buckles on it. They are designed to attach to the bird cages with the long straps going all the way around them. And then the men can walk around or even drive their motorcycles with their bird cages on their backs. It struck me that this would be a good way to carry a pannier bag. In the past, I drilled holes into the base of my pannier bag and attached rings to bolts that I threaded through the holes. And then I could just attach normal backpack straps. But that still left the hooks of the pannier bags digging into your back. Perhaps with one of these bird cage things, I wouldn’t have to drill holes, and there would be some cushioning for the hooks. I’m going to check them out anyway. Al says he sells them at his bird shop, and they are only about $5 US. Might be worth the risk to buy one.

4 p.m.

On my way to the travel agent’s office on my bicycle, I stopped by Al’s house and bird shop. Al is the one who introduced me to this travel agent long ago. I parked my bike and went inside the shop’s open front door. Al’s wife was sitting at the counter, and she told me that Al was in the bathroom. He had just woken up.

When Al emerged, he instantly got on the phone and called the travel agent. He found out that the owner – his friend – was out of the country. But he spoke to the clerk and confirmed that they were open. And then he offered to take me there on his scooter. It was about seven kilometers away. We got there in no time, and then Al translated and helped me buy my ticket and make all the arrangements. The arrangements were actually pretty complicated since I would be going to the ferry dock separately on my bicycle. Their normal customers all just show up at their office and are transported to the dock by bus.

In short, Al was extremely helpful and generous with his time. And he took a task that could have been disastrous for me and made it a breeze and effortless. We both hopped on his little Scoopy scooter and drove back to his place after that. My ticket cost 500,000 rupiah, and that includes the company rep handling baggage and immigration for me. I’ll have to pay extra for my bike and trailer, I’m sure, but they make the arrangements for me. When we got back to Al’s place, he got out a chair for me, and he hopped next door and picked up two cold bottles of orange juice and a box of chocolate chip cookies and we sat there and chatted.

I had to leave my passport with the travel agency. I wasn’t happy about that, but the way it works is that the staff from the travel agency go to the ferry docks early in the morning with the passports of all the passengers and process them with the dock authorities. Our names get added to the ship’s manifest, and if my last experience is any guide, the travel agency staff also run my passport through immigration and get me stamped out of the country. That’s what happened last time. Of course, last time they also told me nothing. So I ended up standing around the dock for a long time all by myself in the heat and in the chaos with no clue what was going on, and I was worried the whole time that I needed to go check in and go through immigration and do all the other stuff. The travel agency staff were actually doing all these things for me, but no one told me that was how it worked, so I was stressed out the whole time.

Finally, even though I handed over my 500,000 rupiah, I got nothing in return. No receipt. No ticket. Nothing. All I got was a business card with a phone number circled. I was told that I had to show up at the dock at nine a.m. and then call that number. Unfortunately, I don’t have any calling credit on my phone, just data credit. I never use my phone as a phone. So we made other arrangements, and I connected with the travel agent clerk on Facebook Messenger. So when I show up at the dock, I have to send her a message. That’s all well and good, and I sort of trust them, but when the dust settled and I left the travel agent, I had no passport and I handed over 500,000 rupiah. And I had no receipt or ticket or proof of anything.

Tuesday, September 4, 2018
6:30 a.m. Room 208, Cahaya Asahan Hotel
Kisaran, Sumatra

As I said, I don’t have a ferry ticket or anything, but I paid for passage on a ferry leaving on September fifth, which is tomorrow.  I booked a room in Klang, Malaysia, at a relatively cheap hotel just around the corner from the ferry dock. The hotel is almost certainly not amazing. I spent a long time going over the various hotels listed on Agoda and Booking.com, and I was tempted by all these hotels that had very high ratings, good reviews, and cheap prices. However, most of them were some distance away from the ferry dock. The best option was actually about nineteen kilometers away. I considered staying there. I don’t think cycling nineteen kilometers after arriving in Malaysia would be a big problem. However, I think good sense prevailed, and I went with the sure bet, and I booked a room at the oddly named d’Spark Hotel. It cost $19 Canadian for one night, and even though it has a mediocre review rating of 6.2 out of 10, it has the great advantage of being located less than one kilometer from the ferry dock. No matter if the room is small or somewhat dirty or whatever, I can be happy that once I make it through immigration in Malaysia after my ferry trip and I go through the hassle of collecting my bike and gear, I will be a short distance from my home for the night.

I might not have worried about cycling a fair distance to a hotel except that even after spending an hour or two with Google Maps and other online maps, I could not find a route from Klang that did not involve major highways. I’ve ridden from the airport to Kuala Lumpur, from Kuala Lumpur to Klang, and within Kuala Lumpur, and every trip was an utter nightmare of high-speed highways where bicycles aren’t even legally allowed. Despite a ton of research and poring over maps, I was unable to find any local, normal roads that I could take. Every route eventually led to a major highway system, and I couldn’t get off them. So even a relatively short ride of nineteen kilometers could be very difficult, especially as I’ll be arriving in the afternoon as it approaches the rush hour. So I’m happy with my decision to play it safe and stay the night at the d’Spark.

While looking into cycling routes into Kuala Lumpur, I stumbled across the very interesting fact that it might be possible to bring a full-sized bicycle onto the KTM Komuter train from Klang. They introduced this new policy recently. From what I’ve read, the policy says that folding bicycles can be brought onto the train at any time, but only in the first and last cars. Full-sized bicycles also have to be brought onto the first and last cars, but they can only be carried during off-peak hours. This seemed too good to be true, and after some more research, I found other indications that this policy has been canceled. Or it has been canceled for some train routes but kept for others. In the end, I couldn’t figure out if it was really possible to take my bike on that train or not. All I can do is go to the train station in Klang and ask them directly. I might have to hide my bike from view so that they don’t see that it is actually a bike plus a trailer and multiple bags. Luckily, I will be at the Klang station, which is the final (or first, depending on your perspective) station on that route. The train will be completely empty there, which should make it easy to get my bike and trailer onboard and safely stowed for the journey to Kuala Lumpur before all the people crowd onboard. Plus, the Klang station is very accessible. It is completely outside with a simple sloping ramp from the street right to the gates onto the platform. There is no need to go into buildings and navigate stairs and elevators and hallways. And the platform is wide and completely open on both sides. If they allow me to buy a ticket for both me and my bicycle, it should be relatively painless to get on the train and ride into Kuala Lumpur. That would be incredibly easy compared to the nightmare of the bike ride on the deadly highway system. Of course, navigating KL Sentral station when I arrive there will be an entirely different story. I’ll have no choice but to find wide gates and elevators to get from the arrival platform to the outside world. There will be nothing easy about that, particularly with the trailer. I think the trailer will be more difficult to handle in this situation than a set of pannier bags would be. The bike plus trailer will simply be too long to fit into the train car or into an elevator while attached. So I will have to separate them and move them individually. That could mean leaving one behind at each stage. Though, now that I think about it, I don’t know that the trailer is really at such a disadvantage. It’s easier to roll just a bike with pannier bags onto a train car, it’s true. But that bike will be very wide and very bulky and very top heavy. It could easily fall over with the swaying of the train. My combination of bike and trailer might be better. The trailer has no issue with stability of course. It just sits there. And the bike will be light and unencumbered and easy to prop up on its kickstand. The only challenge will be moving two large items at a time rather than just one.

This could all be useless speculation, though. I could be told that bicycles are not allowed at all because the new policy has been revoked. Or I could run into a station manager that simply hates bicycles and won’t let them on even though the policy states that it is okay. A number of cyclists have reported this experience online. Anyway, I won’t know anything until I arrive in Klang on Wednesday.

Today is Tuesday, and I will pass the day pleasantly in my hotel room fiddling with my bike and gear and getting it ready for tomorrow. I had thought about riding to Tanjungbalai today to be closer to the ferry dock, but I decided against that when the travel agent kept my passport. I was nervous to begin with about returning to Tanjungbalai where I had so much trouble with corrupt immigration officials, corrupt police, and corrupt city government officials. I’d be even more nervous to go there without a passport. It’s better to stay here at this hotel in Kisaran where I already have a room and have already shown my passport.

Wednesday, September 5, 2018
4:00 a.m. Room 208, Cahaya Asahan Hotel
Kisaran, Sumatra

The day is finally here, the day I take the ferry back to Malaysia with my bicycle. It feels like it has been a long time coming. It has only been thirty days since I landed at Banda Aceh airport, but with the somewhat difficult bike ride to get to Kisaran, it feels like it has been much longer. It feels like I’ve been working towards this day for a long time.

I didn’t really need to wake up so early. The way it stands now, I have to be at the ferry dock at nine a.m. It should take as little as an hour and a half to get there, so I don’t really have to leave until seven-thirty. But I’ll probably leave at six or six-thirty. And even that is still two hours away. I’ve just gotten into the rhythm of going to bed early and getting up early. As I’ve said a thousand times, waking up at four in the morning is not difficult if you go to bed at eight or nine the night before. It’s just a matter of adjusting your early to bed early to rise hours.

I just made the mistake of checking the weather forecast for both here and Kuala Lumpur. Both places call for rain and thunderstorms for a solid week to come. Does it ever stop raining anywhere?

Considering the luck that I usually have, today could be a difficult day as I am heading to an international ferry dock to board a passenger with an over-loaded touring bicycle. I spent part of yesterday afternoon thinking through the best way to pack. I decided to try something different this time. I’m going to leave my two pannier bags on the bike instead of trying to pack them inside the trailer. In the past, I wouldn’t have done that because I would be worried about security and convenience and simplicity. And I try to do things that I think would help make the jobs of the baggage handlers easier. But when it comes to boarding a ferry like this, it’s difficult to say what is better for them.

Anyway, I decided that leaving the pannier bags on the bike should be safe enough. I can put a lock on the zippers, so they can’t be opened without cutting them open. I will also put the rain covers over them so that they will be less tempting for thieves. The pockets and compartments won’t be visible. And doing it this way will be easier for me. I can just hook the pannier bags up to the bike as usual and just leave them there. The baggage handlers will have to wheel my heavy bicycle onto the dock and manhandle it onto the boat anyway, and I don’t think having the pannier bags on it will make much difference to that process. Finally, I realized that having the pannier bags on the bike might protect it. If the bike falls over or the baggage handlers dump it on its side on top of other luggage, it will lie on the pannier bags, not on the derailleur or wheels. And with the bags sticking out to the sides, it might mean that the bike will be located in a spot with more room around it.

I also changed how I packed generally. Normally, I put lightweight but bulky items in the pannier bags and all the heavy items in the trailer. But when I do that, the trailer can get very heavy and difficult to handle as luggage. It wheels behind the bicycle just fine, but carrying it up and down stairs, along narrow docks, and into and out of a boat would be a challenge. So I thought I would make it as light as possible. So I took as many heavy and compact items out of the trailer as I could and put them inside the pannier bags. I’m also going to be wearing my Osprey knapsack, and, of course all my valuables will go in there including my computer and camera gear and hard drives and other electronics. That is a large part of the weight of my load, so the trailer should end up being significantly lighter and easier to handle. It’s not clear if I should leave the tow arm attached or remove it and put it inside the trailer. The tow arm makes it easier to roll the trailer around, but it sticks out from the front of the trailer a long way and could get in the way. I think I should remove it. It’s still possible to pull the trailer along by the front nub of the tow arm attachment point. And it might even be easier since the Indonesian men are quite short, and it will be easier for them to reach it.

In making these preparations, I also had to modify the rain cover. I plan to keep the rain cover. on the trailer for the whole trip. That will protect it from damage and from theft. In fact, I’ve started to keep the rain cover on the trailer all the time. When I first bought the trailer, my idea was that I wanted to access the interior of the trailer during the day as I cycled. So I packed in such a way that all the items I needed during the day were packed in the rear of the trailer where the zipper opened. Then I could easily park the bike, walk around to the back of the trailer, zip it open, and then remove a camera lens or whatever I wanted. But over time, my habits changed, and I found that I was not opening the trailer during the day. I packed it in the morning and then I rarely touched it until I arrived at my destination at night. And even though the rain cover by itself is useless as protection from the rain, it protects the trailer from dust, dirt, rocks, mud, and the sun. It’s surprising how much dirt gets onto the trailer even on a non-rainy day. So it makes a lot of sense to leave the rain cover on the trailer all the time.

One thing I’ve learned about the trailer – a kind of unexpected consequence – is that the flat expanse of the top and the sides is a sun magnet. At the end of the day, when I open up the trailer inside a hotel room, I find the contents to be surprisingly hot. Anything near the top of the trailer can be burning hot. And this makes sense since the sun is beating down for hours on top of the expansive, flat surface. Pannier bags generally offer far less surface area open to the sun. I don’t remember ever opening a pannier bag and finding that things were hot to the touch. But that’s what happens with the trailer. And with that in mind, it’s easy to imagine how much damage would be done to the trailer bag material with the sun beating down all day. The Cyclone IV trailer is remarkably modular, and it would never be necessary to replace the whole thing. It breaks down into parts, and it’s possible to replace any component. The trailer bag, for example, is completely separate from the trailer frame. So one could replace the bag without having to replace anything else. However, a replacement bag costs $230 US while a new rain cover. costs $40 US. So it’s better to wear out a rain cover. than the entire bag. Also, it’s a lot easier to clean the rain cover. than the whole trailer. I just peel off the cover, shake it out to get the dried dirt off, and then I rinse it with water and hang it to dry. To clean the entire trailer is much more difficult.

Anyway, the point is that I keep the rain cover. on all the time. And I certainly want to leave it on while it is in transit in the bowels of a ship. BUT I also want to have the wheels in the luggage position at the rear of the trailer during this time. And, in a design oversight from Radical Design, it is impossible to have the rain cover. on the trailer with the wheels in the rear axle holes. The rain cover. can only be on with the wheels in the center riding position. To fix this problem, I realized I had to cut holes in the rain cover. where the rear axles would go. I have been planning to do this for a long time. I just never got around to it. But yesterday, I took the time to do it. It was difficult to figure out the best place to cut the holes, but I think it won’t matter if I am off by a little bit. I think by the time I’m done with the modification, the holes will be relatively large and allow for the rain cover to shift position either up or down or left to right. These holes will be at the bottom of the rain cover and it won’t matter that much if water gets into them.

And I guess that is about it. I doubt I will be firing up this computer on the ferry, so the next words I type will be in Malaysia at the funny little d’Spark Hotel in Klang.

Tags: bike tour, Bike Trip, Birdsong, Cahaya Asahan, Indonesia, Kisaran, Sumatra