Kościuszko goes to Poland

We are spoiled by modern air travel. We go to the airport, do the security thing, get on the plane and after some period of time find ourselves at a distant destination. It's amazing! We arrive so quickly by comparison to walking, driving, cycling and all other means of transport.

However for the bike, it is not quite so simple. There were a variety of possible shipping options, but ultimately, for this particular trip, it readily became apparent that the most cost-effective approach would be to disassemble Kościuszko, put him in a hard case and stow him in the baggage hold of the plane.

For the hard case I chose the Thule RoundTrip Transistion. It is a marvelous case; very intuitively engineered. The install instructions are geared toward an international crowd: no words, only pictures, but done clearly enough to be idiot proof (I think).

Unpacking the Thule Transition.

However, to properly pack the bike, the wheels, handlebars, pedals, saddle and post must all come off and be carefully stowed in the case. Lacking a certain mechanical confidence, I called Andrew at Cascade Bicycle Studio and he graciously consented to help me.

The whole process took about 90 minutes. It would likely have taken much less time, but Andrew patiently taught me how to do this (and made me practice) so that I could manage it quickly and safely on the return trip. Personally, I ended up having some fun in the process. In the end it was not at all difficult and I learned a lot about packing, bicycle assembly, and my own paranoid concerns that bikes are far too fragile to fly.

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This blog, of course, is about my adventures in Poland and it is therefore important to connect this post to something about Poland. I didn't have to search too far to find it, since Andrew provided the stimulus. When talking about the name of my bike, Andrew mentioned Chicago's local hero, Casimir Pulaski (1745-1779). For the uninitiated, Kazimierz Pułaski--that's his Polish name--was also an American Revolutionary War hero, like Kościuszko. I'm particularly fond of Pułaski because of his moniker "the Father of American Cavalry". I am quite fond of horses and have spent considerable time with them. My interest in cavalry, then, is understandable--and who could not make the case that a bicycle is but an inanimate steed? In any case, we will no doubt cross paths with Pułaski again in a future post!

Incidentally, as a linguistic aside, the name Pulaski in English comes from the Polish "Pułaski". Note the different appearance of the Polish letter "l". This subtle difference was, no doubt, lost at Ellis island, but in Polish that "ł" sounds more like and English "w", making Pulaski more like Puwaski in actual Polish pronunciation.

The Pulaski. Source.

Andrew was also kind enough to mention Ed Pulaski (1866-1931), who was a collateral descendent of Kazimierz (Kazimierz died without child). Ed Pulaski was an American Forest Service ranger (working primarily out of the Idaho area) and is credited as the inventor of a famous fire fighting tool, the Pulaski, an axe-adze combination (see photo at left). I don't know if many Americans or Poles know about Ed Pulaski and the Pulaski, but forest rangers and fire fighters do, and now you do, too!