August 19: Week 7 wrapup
Time for a short but not brief explanation.
I've been looking for some new shorts. The pair I wore for the European Divide were great! But they got ripped in Sweden and there's been a few rounds of repairs and repeat ripping. Also the padding has now had nearly 10,000km of use. So it's time to find a replacement.
Unfortunately, this has been more complicated than it should be.
I started off by trying to order another pair just the same. What were they? The brand name (Altura) is clear, but none of the tags identify the line. Did I get it online and have a receipt in my email? No. Maybe it's on the company website? I check all their biking options but can't find anything like it. Presumably it's been discontinued? But I'm starting to wonder if perhaps they never existed...
So I went Googling for cycling shorts with pockets.
After an awful lot of fruitless clicking around it's clear that shorts with integrated padding aren't an option. There's lots of padded cycling shorts with pockets out there, but when you click through it turns out they have a "removable padded liner". That means tight-fitting lycra cycling pants with padding, to be worn inside a pair of lightweight baggy shorts with pockets. I don't want this, because it's 50% more clothing to wash out and dry each night. I'd also like ventilation over sweat-wicking technology please: sweat evaporation sounds better than sweat immersion.
The lack of options is so complete I feel a bit like I'm being gaslit.
I ended up buying some shorts from a reputable brand that looked like they had integrated padding. But the description was bad, it turned out to have a removable padded liner.
And so that's how I chose the shorts I'm going to be wearing this trip.
I'm not actually kidding - I have taken them out on a few long rides already, they fit well, do their job and I have no complaints. Since I'm planning to take them, I'll be wearing them for all of the rides from now on.
Speaking of which, I've started gathering up the maintenance gear and raingear and warm clothing and other things I'll be taking, and I'm keeping it all packed up in the panniers. It's to start going through the motions of the proper trip, partly to get in the habit and find problems early. But also partly because I'm lazy and this is the easiest way to do it: far fewer things to check each time!
Training continues, and there's something in the schedule every day except Wednesday and Friday.
From left to right: might be the last proper summer day. Selfie, if I’d realized the sunglasses were this dark I’d have taken them off. Warning signs, I don’t want to know the real meaning - it can’t be as good as what I’m imagining. The construction site exit, definitely no bike tracks visible. Almere - it doesn’t have a great reputation but the cycleroutes are amazing. The Holysloot ferry dock, still without a ferry.
The weekend rides are 7 hours on Saturday, 2 on Sunday. I think maybe I didn't drink enough on the big ride because I felt like I had a hangover on Sunday morning. Couldn't think of anything else to do so I went out for the ride; since it was short I didn't even bother to plan a route, just went YOLOing north up the coast and fell into some intense deja vu. The route along the coast was blocked by construction, but there was a well-worn path past the barriers so I took it. Familiar. The route led on to ... Holysloot! This is not a happy place, last year I hit a deadend here because the ferry was not working. And while it's a lot more welcoming in summer, there is still no ferry. And still no other way onwards. Might be the warm sun but I wasn't so annoyed about having to go back this time.
