Messages from the Pale Blue Dot

Moving Towards Rapprochement With United Airlines

As a follow-up to my previous posting, I have just received a very cordial letter from United Airlines Global Services Customer Relations in response to my letter of complaint. They have apologized for their decision to charge me for my bicycle and have said that they would be happy to refund me the US$175 handling fee. They have also offered to refund the charge if it is ever made again. In addition, they have credited 10,000 miles to my Mileage Plus account.

So, for the time being, I’ll continue to fly with United, since this was a good gesture and I now have the assurance that if I do meet a counter agent who is less than helpful, I will simply pay the handling fee and submit it for refund later. It will certainly make the check-in process less stressful and I won’t have the pre-airport anxiety wondering if I’m going to become road-kill in the tension between workers and management at United.

However, I do have to point out that if more United Airlines executives were cyclists and not golfers and skiers, we would see more intelligent rules regarding the transport of bicycles. My lightweight bicycle and bag do not weigh as much as a set of golf clubs and are a lot less wieldy than a set of skis and poles. And, at the end of the day, I probably weigh less than 80% of the Business and First Class passengers because of the bicycle… not to mention the carbon offsets.

Anyway, this is a pleasant turn of events.

Pissed Off at United Airlines and Two Days of Rented Rides in San Francisco

First of all, let me say that I am just furious with United Airlines. However, the upside of United’s great screw-up for me as a customer has been that I rented a lovely bicycle in San Francisco yesterday and discovered a new level of cycling performance that might be personally transformationally. Let me explain…

With no sense of shame or embarrassment I admit to being a major international traveler. Running an organization that provides international conference services at more than seventy meetings per year and raising and generating several millions of dollars a year in both sales of services and fundraising means that I have to show up at places all over the world. Fundraising for, and managing, an international operation like IISD’s Reporting Services, means that travel is a big budget item for us.  My cost-cutting strategy has been to book Business Class Round-the-World tickets out of countries where the US dollar has been strong, most recently in South Africa and Thailand. For between US$5,000 and US$8,000, I can attend three or four meetings per trip, while spinning around the planet and incorporating in some fundraising stopovers  in with  travel to international meetings, keeping my travel costs to a minimum. As a result, I both generate a lot of money for our organization, manage teams in the field and also fly considerably, racking up some big miles with my home air carrier, United Airlines.

As a result, I have moved to the highest status level with United Airlines called Global Services. This is the somewhat secret “fourth tier” level of recognition in the United system, which gives a level of personal attention that recognizes brand loyalty and rewards it with superb customer service. This type of mega-flyer status was recently written about in an article in the New York Times, No Perk Too Small for Top Fliers and also referenced in the film Up in the Air with George Clooney. This level of recognition from United Airlines makes it very easy to both book United flights and move easily through the UAL system, making it a simple choice to continue spending money with United and flying with the Star Alliance. There are, without doubt, some stated and unstated benefits to being a Global Services customer, including some unwritten perks, including (or so I thought) the waiver of unreasonable luggage handing charges.

That said, I have taken advantage of my Global Services status (and my Star Alliance Gold status) when traveling with my bicycle. My bike, in a soft case, weighs 11.6 kg (25.5 pounds) and I have always checked it in as a “checked bag equivalent.” While the airlines are trying to increase their revenues by adding in “handling fees” for items like bicycles and extra bags rather than increasing fares, they have chosen not to charge their most frequent flyers for their bags or other perks, fearing that they will alienate (as they have done with me) their high revenue passengers. The non-US carriers are much better about this than the US airlines, who understand that the high mileage business flyers are a group of travelers who should be pampered and not punished for choosing to fly with their airline. Up until this last week, every single airline has chosen to exercise the highest of good judgment in checking my bike in without charging me a “handling fee.”

However, on Christmas morning at the United Airlines check-in counter at JFK airport in New York, Jeannie Garcia, the UAL counter agent, insisted in charging me a US$175 fee for transporting my bicycle from New York to Los Angeles despite the fact that I was traveling on a business class ticket (upgraded with miles to First Class) and as one of United Airlines’ high revenue passengers with Global Services status. Unfortunately, there was no Global Services representative at JFK on Christmas morning to help Ms. Garcia to make a better decision on how to deal with my bicycle.

Here we were, four of us (Pam, Sam, Kai and myself) all traveling on First Class tickets and with United’s highest level of customer status and my bicycle was the lightest of our five bags and they wanted to charge me US$175. If I had lied and said that it was golf clubs or a snow board or skis, it would not have cost me anything extra since United will transport some lightweight sporting equipment but not others for free. I was furious with both Jeannie Garcia and also her supervisor, Kathryn Williams. Unfortunately, it appears that the corporate management with United Airlines are golfers and skiers, providing golfers and skiers with the ability to travel without an extra charge for their equipment, but not cyclists.

 

It was my distinct impression that neither Ms. Garcia or Ms. Williams was interested in the long term advantage of their employer, United Airlines. After listening to “galley talk” for many years, it is clear that there are a number of employees at United Airlines who do not work in the interest of the company. Any reasonable employee of a company who has the opportunity to avoid alienating a good customer would be expected to exercise some good judgment and discretion in the application of the guidelines regarding optional fees. I explained, quite plainly to both Ms. Garcia and Ms. Williams, that my continued customer loyalty to United Airlines depended on their choice of whether to charge me, as one of their high revenue customers, this additional charge. They seemed determined to lose me as a loyal United traveler, probably due to their dislike for their employer. Just my impression, but certainly a plausible explanation for why an employee would purposefully alienate a high-revenue customer.

Over the last few years, it has been increasingly difficult to remain as a loyal United Airlines customer since United has eliminated all international flights from New York. If I want to make a flight to either Asia or Europe, I have to fly from one of the NY airports and connect in Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles or San Francisco. So, it was with some interest that I have been following the addition of Continental Airlines into the Star Alliance and the possible merger/consolidation of the two airlines, since Continental has heaps of non-stop flights to international destinations from NY. My guess is that in the next year Continental will absorb United, retaining the United Airlines brand but under Continental management. However, in the meantime, I’ll probably be moving a lot of my personal travel over to Continental since their policy for the bicycles is much better and I have been assured that if I am traveling on a business class ticket with Continental and as a Star Alliance Gold flyer, I will NOT be charged an additional fee.

OK, so that was a very long explanation for why I had to rent a bicycle in San Francisco this week.

During the last week in Palm Springs  I was so upset by being charged US$175 by United Airlines that I dreaded flying this weekend from Los Angeles to San Francisco and then this week from San Francisco back to New York. Potentially, if the LAX and SFO counter agents wanted to charge me for my bike, the cost would be an additional US$350, just for two days of bike rides in and around the Bay Area. As someone who abhors confrontation, I was quite anxious thinking about the confrontation at the airports. Although I had written to the United Airlines Global Services customer service agents, asking for a clear understanding of the unwritten rules regarding that a UAL high-revenue customer could expect regarding my 12 kg bicycle, I had not heard back from them. So, I decided to send my bike back to NY using FedEx Ground, leaving me without a bicycle to ride here in San Francisco.

On arrival here, I called to Bike and Roll, a bicycle rental outlet located near my hotel in Fisherman’s Wharf. 

For a reasonable price they had a Trek Madone 4.5 for rent. While not the highest end of the Trek racing bikes, it was certainly a nice bicycle and proved to be a lovely ride. In fact, the geometry and responsiveness of this rental bike has caused me to question whether my current fame, a Griffen Kompressor, is really the best bicycle for me considering my weight, strength and the quality of my components (Shimano DuraAce 7900 with a 7950 compact crank and Di2 electronic shifters). I also loved the Bontrager seat, which seemed to fit me better than my current Selle Flight.

Renting the bike at Ride and Roll was really easy. They put my own pedals on to the bike, adjusted the seat to my required height, made sure that the derailleur was adjusted, pumped the tires to 120 psi and were friendly, helpful and knowledgeable about local cycling routes. This is a full range rental shop, which rents mostly indestructible cruisers to tourists, but can certainly handle the high-end customer needing a better than average ride.

Yesterday, Saturday, after renting the bike, I took the ferry from San Francisco to Sausalito and rode over the mountains to Muir Beach and up through Muir Woods and them back over the mountains to Larkspur for a ferry boat ride back to San Francisco after dark. Here is the link to the ride: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/21546547 

After pounding through the highlands towards the ferry in Larkspur, my GPS somehow routed me on a shorter route as I was trying to catch the late afternoon departure for San Francisco. The stupid GPS took me on a back road that might have been shorter but gained 150 meters in altitude and made me miss the boat by ten minutes. The upside was that I rode into Larkspur and found the Wipeout Bar & Grill for a nice late lunch and some really tasty Kona Porter on draft. After a lovely meal I rode to the ferry for the 5:45 pm departure and was back at the hotel after dark at about 7:15 pm… long day.

This morning I rode out from Fisherman’s Wharf and over the Golden Gate Bridge to the Marin Headlands. This photo below is from Fort Mason looking out towards the Golden Gate and the Headlands beyond the span.

Today’s wind was rather unusual for the bay, coming out of the North rather than the usual West, which meant that it was a long, hard slough into the wind going across the Golden Gate bridge. But, it also meant that the ride through the cliffs above the entrance to San Francisco Bay just to the northwest of the bridge was somewhat protected. This shot, below, is from the lovely cycling roads that snake up into the mountains above the bridge.

After riding out to the top of the headlands (below) , it was a steep drop down to the Bonita Point Lighthouse  and then a climb up over the hills to a tunnel that lead into the Sausalito area.

Below is the shot on the descent towards Bonita Point lighthouse

When I was a kid, I remember asking who had painted the rocks white. Here is a picture of Bird Island, a rocky crag out past Bonita Point and heading north along the coast line towards Muir Beach beyond.

Here is a map of the entire ride today, which can be found at the GarminConnect site at http://connect.garmin.com/activity/21627179 

After arriving in Sausalito, I was joined by Chris Spence, my IISD Reporting Services Deputy and his parents who were visiting from New Zealand. We had lunch at Poggio’s and I traveled back into San Francisco on the ferry.

 

I returned the Trek Madone to Rock and Ride to settle in for a long afternoon watching football and rooting for my NY Jets against the Cincinnati Bengals (and drafting up this blog post). Looks now like we’ll see the Bengals again next week in the first round of the playoffs.

So, bottom line is that it may be that United Airlines has both lost me as a customer and accelerated my shift to a new bicycle frame. If United can’t tell me that they will not charge me a handling fee for my 25.5 lb. bicycle bag on upcoming trips, I will move my business to Continental Airlines and shift over to a carbon fiber frame as a result of my experience on the Rock and Ride Trek Madone. Great weekend in San Francisco.

Banning to Idyllwild Through San Bernardino Mountains

By coincidence, this was almost the same route that I rode last year on the last day of the year, coming up from Hemet and riding into Palm Springs. And, just like last year, I’m guessing that I won’t make it see midnight and New Year’s Eve this year as well. Nothing like six hours on a bike to make for an early evening.

What a wonderful way to end a year of great cycling! After starting 2009 by cycling here in Rancho Mirage in early January, I rode in Thailand, South Africa and up in the Hudson River area, Upstate New York (Finger Lakes and Lake Champlain), rode the gaps in Vermont, did the rainy ride to Montauk with Clarence and finally two and a half weeks riding in Copenhagen before coming here for the end of the year. This may have been one of the best rides, but certainly the last of the year.

Here is the ride, up through the San Bernardino Mountains from Banning, across the high pine forests through Idyllwild and then down into the Palm Springs area:

Pam drove me up to Banning, through the fields of huge wind turbines. Here is a shot of Pam at the wheel and the mountains that you can see in the Google Earth snap just to the south (above) the Interstate 10 sign:

Kai helped me set up my bike in the parking lot of a liquor store just outside of Banning. My plan was to start riding at 9:00 am and I was off on time.

It was perfect riding weather, particularly considering it was the last day of December. The temperature started at 10 degrees and as I climbed, so did the temperature at the higher elevations.. so it pretty much stayed at 10 degrees all day.

Here is a shot looking back down towards Banning and you can see the winding road, climbing out of the high desert.

Here is the Garmin Connect data on the ride (and you can see the entire ride data on the website at http://connect.garmin.com/activity/21385348.) The climb lasted for about three hours and twenty-minutes. Not fast but slow and steady.

As the road got closer to 2000 meters in elevation, there was a lot of snow by the road and some ice on the pavement. In fact, it was the black ice and gravel on the road that probably caused an accident that happened just behind me. As I was riding on the wide shoulder on the inside of a curve in the shadows, where there was a lot of black ice, I heard the tires of a car crossing into the median and crunching on the gravel between the two lanes and then suddenly a huge crash. My first instinct was to crank hard and steer over towards the edge of the shoulder in order to avoid becoming collateral damage. When the crush of metal and spinning of tires stopped, I turned to see a vehicle still spinning out of control behind me. Obviously the car coming up behind me had swerved wide on the curve and somehow crossed over into the oncoming lane, hitting a car coming down the hill taking the curve too tightly.

This picture was taken less than a minute after the crash and already a green coated park ranger was there to deal with the situation. Since the entire thing had happened behind me and I had not seen anything, I took off to continue my ride. But, you can see how slick the road is and how there is loose gravel between the two lanes, which probably contributed to the accident.

The top of the climb was at 6200 feet, about 3000 meters. Here was the sign before the col.

Yes, that is a snow bank.

On the descent, after dropping about 200 meters in altitude, I was pedaling through Idyllwild, a lovely little town in the mountains, when the airborne advertising hit me. A little restaurant was cooking hamburgers and they smelled so good that I had to pull off and stop to inhale one.

The route flattened out and climbed slightly for about 10 km as it passed through this lovely pine forest valley. I seem to remember that the old TV series, Bonanza, filmed some of its shots of the Ponderosa Ranch up here. Nonetheless, this was a particularly lovely part of the ride.

After riding for about five hours, the big descent began, heading down the Palms to Pines Highway (although I was riding from the pines to the palms.)

There is an expression that cyclists use when the day is so perfect that it doesn’t even feel like work, and today was “chainless.” I give total responsibility to a huge Mexican food dinner that I had last night. When Clarence and I rode the Montauk Century in September, we also did our huge carbo-loading at a Mexican food joint out on Long Island. It was such an easy ride, despite the climbs and hours in the saddle. I can honestly say that I was not tired at all during the 5:38 of riding, even on the steepest of climbs. To steal a line from Murakami Haruki, while there might have been pain, suffering was optional. 

Here’s to a Happy New Year and many more “chainless” rides in 2010.

Cycling in Joshua Tree National Park

Pam, the boys and I left the Westin Mission Hills Resort & Spa early to grab some breakfast carbs at Starbucks and drive up towards the northern entrance to the Joshua Tree National Park. On the way we bought Subway sandwiches and drinks for a planned picnic, since after you enter this park there is a whole lot of nothing but desert and more desert.

The one thing that Pam and I had forgotten to do was to adequately plan on exactly where and when we were going to meet up as I rode my bike and she followed with the boys in the car. The only thing we agreed was that we would meet up at the Keys View turnaround and that the end of my ride would be at the Cholla Cactus Garden, about 70 km from the start.

The problem is that those who don’t ride have a hard time in estimating how fast a cyclist can move. I arrived at the first stop, up at the top of the overlook, in about an hour. Pam and the boys figured it would take a lot longer and so after waiting for twenty minutes (and getting chilled in the wind), I took off back down the road thinking that I would run into them on the way up. I figured that they had gone on ahead and continued riding. They showed up at the overlook a half hour later and waited for me for an hour. Since there was no mobile phone access in the National Park, so our usual communication channels were disrupted.

So, I rode all the way to Cholla Garden and after waiting another half hour, I rode from there back up the hill thinking that maybe something had happened to the rest of the family. However, we finally met up as Pam was driving south and I was riding back north. We were all relieved to find each other and I ended up getting in an extra 600 meter climb.

Here is the link to the GarminConnect version of the ride with all the GPS, heart-rate and wattage: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/21260940 

The scenery was phenomenal. Here is a shot of a cactus at the Cholla Garden:

On the way across the divide between the Mohave and the Colorado deserts, here is a shot of a short stop beside the road:

Palms to Pines Ride

These last three months, from my last blog post until now, have been a hectic period dominated by my efforts to keep our organization from becoming road-kill during the economic crisis and punctuated by long trips to a series of generally disappointing climate change negotiations. One of the casualties of this period, due to my personal workload, has been my blog postings. (And for those of you reading this in Facebook,, which is linked into my blog at www.kimogoree.com, this posting originally was put up on the blog site.) Hopefully over this next week in the Coachella Valley, part of the Colorado Desert and south of the Mojave Desert, I’ll be able to catch up with some posts on some rides in September and October, travels to Bangkok, Bali, Barcelona and my time at the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit.

Pam, Sam, Kai and I left NYC on Christmas morning and flew into LAX. What was supposed to be a fairly low stress jump across the US turned into a really awful experience, worthy of its own blog posting. However, before writing it up, I’m waiting to hear back from United Airlines to see if they are going to resolve the situation. In short, although I was flying on a Business Class ticket and using miles to upgrade to First Class, and traveling as a Global Services (top tier) traveler with United, the check-in counter staff insisted on charging me US$175 for my 25.5 pound bicycle and case. In my hundreds of thousands of miles and hundreds of flights with United flying with my bicycle, this was the first time that they have charged me. United has recognized that this was an error and noted in my file that I shouldn’t be charged for my lightweight bike bag but I am waiting for an email from the Supervisor of United Airlines at JFK to say that this has been resolved. If not, look to this space for a scathing post on how United Airlines has lost my business.

But, back to the holiday and the focus of this post… my ride into the San Jacinto mountains.

This is one of the classic climbs in the US and about as good a climb as you are going to find at the end of December in the United States. Almost anywhere else in the US where you climb more than a thousand meters, you are going to run into some pretty cold temperatures and probably snow and ice. But, here in the desert southwest, I was able to climb in shorts and without sleeves on 26 December, where the temps were 14-18 degrees. My kind of weather for cycling.

Here is the link to the ride http://connect.garmin.com/activity/21038853 on Garmin Connect. The profile is:

Nothing fancy about this climb, as it was flat out to the base of the mountain and then a two hour climb holding 200 watts and then a lovely technical descent back into Palm Springs.

Rocky, dry landscape with about an 8-10% grade climbing up the Palms to Pines Highway. Here is the look down from a vista point about half-way up the climb:

The boys are spending these days swimming in the multiple pools at the Westin Mission Hills Resort & Spa and Pam is soaking up sun. Tomorrow we are off to explore the Joshua Tree National Park, where I’ll probably get in a good ride. Pam’s brother and his wife, Dan and Andrea, are here with their two boys as well. So, it is a boy fest with all the cousins on the water slides. This morning Andrea and I got in a 8.5 km run at dawn http://connect.garmin.com/activity/21092590 

More catch-up posts to come!