Digital Wanderer

At last, I'll be done with this series of posts.

So, after the finish line, girls hung medals around our necks, and then we could go grab our rightful porridge and jam. I'll name the brands, since they're involved in such a good cause as sponsorship - Axa and Pure. The latter has really been turning heads lately, as one of the few companies succeeding in exports with volumes growing every year. Nothing much to say about Axa - porridge out of packets isn't very tasty, but whose ever is?

You could also get a diploma, but for that you had to crowd around and wait for them to print the time onto it. We were rushing to catch the train to Riga, because we needed to arrive before the train to Daugavpils departed. Therefore, I didn't even stay to listen to who won in the various categories and lottery, especially since it was hard to hear and in Latvian, which combined with bad sound is totally tough for me. I just rested a bit, took two bottles of water simultaneously from the girls distributing them (with both hands at once, they were stunned), and we hurried to the train. On the way, we also spotted bicycle wash stations ("Karchers"), but didn't have time to use them. The Punk had scoped out the station location beforehand (albeit poorly), so we actually arrived a bit early instead of our usual just-in-time.

In the electric train from Sigulda to Riga, the conductor and all passengers walked around with slightly surprised faces, because every vacant and occupied space in the train was filled with bicycles and people in sports gear; it was even hard to walk through.

While riding, we discussed everything, with me still full of excitement and joyful. A girl who participated in the MTB ride listened in on us, but didn't say anything (either out of modesty or because she's Latvian).

In Riga, we bought a bite to eat at Origo and settled into the train to Dep, where we ran into another participant - he had already hung his bike on the rack (in diesel trains there are special racks for bikes). With our bikes, the wheels didn't fit into the mounts, so we tried to just stand them down below in a row, right by his hanging bike, to which the guy began objecting. I muttered "what", to which he asked "english?", and I boldly replied: "Russian or English". Then the guy grabbed my bike and forcefully shoved it into the rack hangers. And that's how we met.

The guy's name was Mārtiņš; he's originally from Skrīveri, but works as a cook in Riga. He told us all sorts of interesting things, while not knowing many Russian words at all and inserting Latvian ones. He spoke fast, so sometimes I asked what this or that word meant, but overall we didn't have much trouble communicating. It's better this way, because if he spoke entirely in Latvian, I wouldn't have understood half of it.

Mārtiņš finished a bit faster than me, even though he started even further back. He talked about how everywhere, in order to make money, you have to "hustle". What that means in relation to a cook, I don't even want to think about. He also heavily emphasized bike weight - he lightened everything he possibly could on his.

An elderly participant was also traveling on the same train; I asked him where he was from, and it turned out to be Vabole. As you might remember, I visited there once.

I don't recall anything else interesting. Finally, here are some slightly clumsy statistics that I nevertheless managed to stuff into Excel. My magical Excel skills leave much to be desired, but I finally learned how to group things (pivot tables in their obscure terminology). Excel is, of course, wildly convenient and intuitive after all.

In closing, all that remains to say is that I really enjoyed the ride, and I will definitely participate again next year. In fact, I'll go to various marathons, because it's lots of fun and very interesting.

Of course, I invite everyone to ride with me. Don't forget that I'm pretty much the only absolute workhorse here, while the Punk and others ride at a leisurely pace, so if you don't want to race for speed, no problem.

Number of bikes by brand and average time by brand:

Время по командам: