We went for a ride over the weekend, even though the temperature outside wasn’t exactly inviting—about 4–6 degrees, actually. At least the sun was shining; that was the only thing that saved us. Wagon tongue. (Off topic, but funny because it also ends in an O.)
I rode around Daugavpils with a fake punk and anarchist, and he is completely unsuited to physical exertion. I have two more like him at work, so I keep suggesting that they start a disabled people’s club. Though lately the joke has stopped being politically correct—because people really have started getting brutally ill, worse than me with my shoulder and everything else.
We covered 33 km in five hours—a peculiar anti-record, if you ask me. The photos were NOT taken with an iPhone, just so you know.
While we were pumping up the tires at our departure point, a guy rolled up to us on a completely trashed Trek, breathed booze fumes at us, declared that he was the champion of all Latvia in every cycling discipline, including triathlon and biathlon (that is literally what he said), and started teaching me how to pump up tires. He said the valve should be at the top, not at the bottom like I had it. He also said I was pumping them up too hard. I didn’t answer him, but out of curiosity I followed his first piece of advice. It wasn’t bad, in principle, but having it at the bottom had worked fine for me too.
The iPhone sat in the GPS mount and, as I’ve already written, worked so-so. It did an excellent job of draining the battery, though.
Culture everywhere.
The milestone is positioned rather inelegantly, to put it mildly—it blocks the sign. One gets the feeling that in real Europe they would have found a better solution. On the other hand, the only cycle path I know of in the city ends nearby. Why on earth a cycle path is needed on the very outskirts, where there’s a good highway to boot, is unclear. But thanks for trying.
