Exploring New Europe A Bicycle Journey eBook Barry D Wood
Download As PDF : Exploring New Europe A Bicycle Journey eBook Barry D Wood 
Bicycle touring 2,500 miles alone across New Europe is not for the faint of heart, but Barry D. Wood spends several vacations doing just that on his trusty Cannondale hybrid. During an arduous journey--from the shores of the Baltic Sea, across the Polish plain, through Central Europe to the Danube, and over the Carpathian and Balkan mountains to the Adriatic Sea--Barry is repeatedly helped by friendly people who offer shelter and share stories of life under communism and the challenging transition that followed. This is his story of adventure, people, disparate cultures, challenging terrain and historical context.
Exploring New Europe A Bicycle Journey eBook Barry D Wood
Recently I read Exploring New Europe, the story of the author’s trip from Estonia to Albania on bicycle. The trip occurs in several legs, of around a week each, between which the author returned to the United States to live and work. Unsurprisingly the easiest part of the Germany appeared to be on the modern and expansive biketrails created in the old East Germany… the hardest and most dangerous part of the journey was in Bulgaria, the “graveyard of cycling dreams.”Most days the author journeyed between 45 and 50 miles, starting around 10 AM and finishing around 6 PM. This is a leisurely pace, and it’s inspiring to see how much of the world one can travel by bicycle. I personally appreciated the author’s use of almost no reservations in his travel — while AirBNB has changed this somewhat, the greatest adventures are the one’s you can’t find on google before hand.
Plus, the author released a youtube “trailer” for the book, which captures the spirit well and you can view on his blog.
This book was published after the recent elections, yet it feels out of time. It reminds me of the celebrations of globalization I read in the 1990s and 2000s, like Tom Friedman’s The Lexus and the Olive Tree (1999) and The World is Flat (2005). Long ago a called Friedman a genius, but Friedman and his followers have not transitioned to the post-crash world. There’s a breezy attitude toward “risk” that ignores optionality. Beyond “self-confidence” or “vision,” anyone whose experienced an old Empire crumble would be rationally nervous about the future of a new Empire
"I’m sure [he] would have moved ahead if he owned by B&B. He would have gotten the needed permits and bank loans for development. [The actual owner], by contract, was just holding on. He didn’t have self-confidence or vision."
Likewise, the Euro-optimism doesn’t take into effect that the European dream is dying in the west, where Britain is soon leaving the Union, and the cause of dying in the East, and the War in the Donbas drags on
"Some of the countries I crossed — Serbia, Macedonia, Albania — are still knocking on the door, and Kaliningrad as part of Russia is a special case. Make no mistake, the European dream is still alive."
I enjoy bicycling and liked this book of biking adventures. It was breezy to read and balanced discussing the countries with the authors own thoughts and some details on the biking. But it doesn’t match the current concerns of Europe, or even the feel of this period of globalization (if the world is still globalizing).
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Exploring New Europe A Bicycle Journey eBook Barry D Wood Reviews
Barry Wood and I met more than 30 years ago in the rarefied atmospheres of IMF meetings and G7 summits when we both covered international economic affairs. Barry, at that time, and for many years thereafter, a correspondent for Voice of America, impressed me from the very beginning by his never-resting inquisitiveness, his ability to look through the glossy rhetoric delivered by high-ranking officials, and his habit to quickly make friends with people in all strata of society. These treats served him well in writing “Exploring New Europe A Bicycle Journey,” which collects impressions from rides made between 2001 and 2005 through a baker’s dozen of former communist countries.
While I was surprised that Barry would subject himself to the hardship of a 2,500-mile bicycle journey from the Baltic Sea to the Adriatic (and we get it all, from the demoralizing detours due to incomplete cartography, the misery of riding through relentless downpours, to the near-death experience in the mountains of Macedonia), I was not surprised to read that he would use the trip to meet with locals along the route. His goal was to report from the bottom-up, to find out how the proverbial commoner had experienced the transition from communism to what’s typically (but not necessarily accurately) termed a free market economy. That is a most interesting angle and well justified in light of the fact that what must have been – and continues to be – a disruptive socio-economic transition was a mere 10 years old at that time of Barry’s journey.
Riding a bike for 8, 10 and 12 hours a day is a lonely business. Human contact was usually limited to the evening hours when Barry turned in for replenishments and recovery. Although Barry extracted many nuggets from his accidental contacts, this reader would have liked to get more context. As former correspondent in Prague, and having travelled extensively in the countries he would later tour by bike, Barry must have collected a wealth of insights that could have strengthened his observations. There are throw-away lines, such as that Vaclav Havel, the former playwright and first Czech president (1993-2003), “is the most significant leader to have emerged from post-communist Europe.” One would like to hear more about this verdict. What are the salient characteristics that single-out Havel? And what about Vaclav Klaus, Havel’s successor in the presidency (2003-13)? Although abrasive and arrogant, Klaus should be considered as instrumental in the transition from communism to the market economy that significantly improved the well-being of Czech citizens. One would have also liked to read more about why the transformation was so uneven across the countries Barry visited. How come that unemployment rates in East Germany, which benefited from financial largesse provided by West Germany unseen in other transition countries, are as high as in some of the direr regions Barry came across in the Balkans?
Much has happened since Barry visited the “New Europe.” Alas, summary conclusions that were presumably written shortly before publication in 2017, do not jibe well with the turn of events. His point that the transformation to the market economy was a success is contradicted by the view of his own interlocutors in a number of countries who complained about the absence of the rule of law and widespread corruption. And the statement that “freedom triumphed” must surely be revisited in light of the fact that politics in Hungary and Poland, two countries that looked like economic success stories at that time, has taken a turn to a crude anti-democratic populism. This development bodes ill for the future of free market-based societies. That said, Barry’s book is a refreshing read due to his unusual approach and insights he gained from talking to people in otherwise unknown corners of the world.
Barry was a classmate of mine and his enthusiasm for travel, languages and other cultures is enviable. His book is an enjoyable read,
and I highly recommend it.
Barry Wood is a great raconteur and he opened up a new world for me. The fact that he was cycling was incidental, except for the many escapades. The people he met; the food he ate; his analysis of the geography; and also the political opinion at the time were all fascinating. It's a great read if you are an armchair traveler. Alternatively use it as a guide book to supplement the regular travel guides.
The passion embedded in the words of author Barry D. Wood impacted, if not altered my life over 40 years ago when he was my college professor. His words then as they do now carry a fufilling vitality. Barry has a wunderlust, envied by many yet few with the courage to follow. He has always had an insatiable desire to learn. He values the wise words of the scholar as much as the simple truths of the common man/woman. Barry possesses a powerful intensity in personal communication skills. He has the rare ability to really listen. This skill brings out the honest feeling and touching stories told to him by the people he meets riding his bicycle on the back roads.
Few, if any of us have what it takes to ride a bicycle alone across remote parts of Eastern Europe. Without the fearful uncertainies and the physical hardship we can ride along on Barry's adventure. Be prepared to be touched by the people he'll meet along the path and learn from a skilled educator the historic significance of this long hidden region.
Recently I read Exploring New Europe, the story of the author’s trip from Estonia to Albania on bicycle. The trip occurs in several legs, of around a week each, between which the author returned to the United States to live and work. Unsurprisingly the easiest part of the Germany appeared to be on the modern and expansive biketrails created in the old East Germany… the hardest and most dangerous part of the journey was in Bulgaria, the “graveyard of cycling dreams.”
Most days the author journeyed between 45 and 50 miles, starting around 10 AM and finishing around 6 PM. This is a leisurely pace, and it’s inspiring to see how much of the world one can travel by bicycle. I personally appreciated the author’s use of almost no reservations in his travel — while AirBNB has changed this somewhat, the greatest adventures are the one’s you can’t find on google before hand.
Plus, the author released a youtube “trailer” for the book, which captures the spirit well and you can view on his blog.
This book was published after the recent elections, yet it feels out of time. It reminds me of the celebrations of globalization I read in the 1990s and 2000s, like Tom Friedman’s The Lexus and the Olive Tree (1999) and The World is Flat (2005). Long ago a called Friedman a genius, but Friedman and his followers have not transitioned to the post-crash world. There’s a breezy attitude toward “risk” that ignores optionality. Beyond “self-confidence” or “vision,” anyone whose experienced an old Empire crumble would be rationally nervous about the future of a new Empire
"I’m sure [he] would have moved ahead if he owned by B&B. He would have gotten the needed permits and bank loans for development. [The actual owner], by contract, was just holding on. He didn’t have self-confidence or vision."
Likewise, the Euro-optimism doesn’t take into effect that the European dream is dying in the west, where Britain is soon leaving the Union, and the cause of dying in the East, and the War in the Donbas drags on
"Some of the countries I crossed — Serbia, Macedonia, Albania — are still knocking on the door, and Kaliningrad as part of Russia is a special case. Make no mistake, the European dream is still alive."
I enjoy bicycling and liked this book of biking adventures. It was breezy to read and balanced discussing the countries with the authors own thoughts and some details on the biking. But it doesn’t match the current concerns of Europe, or even the feel of this period of globalization (if the world is still globalizing).
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