I will miss Sicily...
Cycling
Agrigento
We arrived in agrigento yesterday after a tough 100+km bike ride through the rain, and a horrible uphill just to get up to agrigento. Today we took a break from cycling and explored the vallei dei templi, a world heritage site of astounding beauty and historical value. Tomorrow we're heading out westward along the coast, and the day after we'll head inland to get to Palermo in time to catch our flight home. A tough couple of days lie ahead..
Arrived in Sicily!
Catania is such a rathole! I am amazed by the third-world countriness of it all. Despite that I am very impressed by the architecture and the general oldness of everything in the city. The cycle ride from airport to city center took us through a very slummy area that looked like a dodgy place in Africa.
Disclaimer: kamil says that everything in this post is a total exaggeration.
More later!
Pain is great
Ah, there it is again. That familiar pain in the legs I can only get after cycling for at least a couple of hours at a decent speed. It's very faint and not really painful at all, it just serves as a reminder that I already cycled a lot and that I'm still cycling. The pain almost never gets worse than a certain threshold, and then remains constants. Well, unless I cycle up a 10% incline, that is. This pain is a very important part of cycling to me. Without it there would be no satisfaction in climbing a slope, no relaxation in going down a hill. I enjoy it.
Leaving for Sicily on Friday. I'm still in extremely poor shape, but I regained my confidence. I'll get tired as hell but my physical condition improved enough to endure it. Now I can truly look forward to it.
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Cycling
Cycling in the UK
In preparation for the Sicily trip we cycled 30km to Watford (and 30 back). The road lead us alongside a canal all the way, and was at times a bit too rocky and bumpy for touring bicycles. That fact was effectively proven by Kamil getting a flat tire on the way back.
Although we have the same bicycle, Kamil hasn't used his for years, so there's quite a few differences now. He still has the original tires, which are thinner in width and slightly less meaty compared to mine. In my case almost everything except the frame has been replaced. The thing that is the most broken on my bike is also the thing I missed most today: the suspension. My arms are still shaking...
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もう１年間経ったよ。。
去年４月は日本にいた。仕事を止めてから２週間ぐらい休んで、そして自転車の旅が始まった。今年はオランダにいる。両親と一緒に住んでる。両親のうちは田舎でとてもしずか。毎日は何も起こらない。
でも！ようやく新しい旅の始まりがきた！木曜日はイギリスのいて、友達と一緒にだらだらする。それからはイタリアに行ってシチリア島で自転車旅にぐるぐる回る！太くなった私は体力無しでたぶん死んじゃうんだろう。死ぬこともそれなりに新しい経験だ。とにかく、面白くなる。
無理を通して道理を蹴っ飛ばす！
（７月は日本語能力試験２級に参加する。大丈夫かな。。。）
Broken Bicycle Addendum
The previous post speaks of how happy I was that the Dutch bike shop fixed everything that was ever wrong with my bicycle. I'm still happy with that, but today I found out that the one thing they were supposed to fix, they didn't. The rear tire still goes flat after a day or two. How did the mechanic miss this?
Interesting detail: the tire did not deflate immediately. It's fine for a couple of hours until it starts to seriously deflate. When I brought my bicycle to the shop there was an old gentleman picking up his bicycle, and that same mechanic that fixed my bicycle went to great lengths in explaining to the gentleman that they had to replace his rear inner tube because it was porous and slowly (although not measurably in short-term) deflating. Exactly what was wrong with my tire. I did point that out to the mechanic, but when I went to pick it up he said that the valve was just a little loose and that they'd fixed it. Very much not so.
Anyway, lesson learned, again. The golden rule of life once again proven true.
If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.
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Cycling