To be honest the comparison with Trump is bit harsh.

Because of how fucked up are American politics all the populists and right wing parties are compared to him.

In fact he has closer ties to democrats in USA than to republicans. But that doesn’t mean that he isn’t populist, political chameleon and sometimes in his retorics gets bit to the extreme to catch most possible votes.

I wasn’t expecting that, only the paint. When you look at the picture with the fork, you can get the idea of how gunked up was the lower bearing. It is only wiped with damp rug and you can still see some mud and deeper scratches on it.

Yes, it was too short and routed bit improperly (too sharp bends and routed from wrong side) so it was rubbing the frame.

So it damaged the paint job (which I don’t mind that much)…

… and wore hole in the headset bearing cups

Yeah, but worse problem was improperly sized cable housings, scratched frame and fork around headset and chewed through bearings cups of headset.

To be honest after visiting in winter some places (Spain, Portugal and southern France) are bit no go for me in summer. Too hot for me, I talked to some guy in Valencia and he just doesn’t understand why so much people are visiting in August.

Yes it was the plan but at the end of June not on the beginning ;-)

But I will probably go for another month July/August. After I deal with the bike, I was bit surprised by some things the wear on some parts that I didn’t expected, water and mud got to headset bearings…

It looks beautiful, my bike isn’t right now in ridable condition so I won’t be touring for another month or so (life happened so I decided to do maintenance in meantime).

If you look at it from the political side that this is the basic idea of liberal democracy.

Everyone votes in their best interest and especially in proportional representation you get some compromise of the interests.

Right now at least in politics people act less in their own interest but more of what they emotionally feel like their interest.

…

I have no more Fuchs to give

My Fuchs have runeth dry

I’ve tried to go Fuchs shopping

But there’s no more Fuchs to buy

…

“Does it matter if I bring it back tomorrow?”

That’s also classic answer to this question at daycare.

Sorry dangling from the outside of my bike panniers…

I don’t know if they still make the pins but TLDR news made them.

It’s not my bike, but yeah I am surprised too that it can hold it. I had to help her readjust it few times when it fall down.

We switched bikes for a bit few days ago and hers bike rides like a tank.

I had to did a bit of workaround so I hope it isn’t that pixelated…

Mine is on the left, taken just now.

Btw this can be found by just using iodine solution to test it. I think that it can be found at pharmacy. Your wort is quite dark but it is doable to test it.

Put few drops of wort on plate, on side the iodine and look for colour change on the border where it mixes.

Yeah that’s the issue right now the pictures are massive for this server and my old phone that could downsize them died…

Maybe through catbox or something I may post. If you want to see some pictures I post more on mastodon https://f.cz/@plactagonic

In the end I didn’t take it but I wanted to ride Santiago de Compostela to Irun, it is possible that on other lines they have cars with racks and stuff but don’t expect it everywhere. And don’t trust that label “bike transport possible” it usually means the disassembled bike.

In the end I took 2 trains in Spain one on the Madrid network and one on the San Sebastian network, it really doesn’t matter which lines (I don’t remember exact details, would have to look it up) they run pretty much same cars on the network. The Madrid one had bit more space but the train was bit ugly and sterile looking.

Only thing in France is that you need reservation for some trains. I didn’t wrote it in my posts.

Right now I have it locked in the case I fall asleep, but mainly because I had to buy U-lock in Paris and found out that it is just quick and convenient. Still there are bags on it, only camping gear so nothing with big resale value. As said earlier in the other trains I had to be with it.

In the case of helpful staff yesterday I was on Brussels-Midi asking about today ride and got the answer “Today is a strike so I don’t give much F about it” in really nice tone but today it was much better.

Generally the Spain is horrible for that - you can’t take your bike assembled even on the slow long trains. The regional lines are ok but no bike racks so you just somehow put it on the spot for disabled people. Still the regional lines are only few hubs and not an network.

Portugal is better in this I didn’t personally needed the train but met few people who used it. Still it depends, most trains take the bikes but you can’t find much info about the ones that don’t take them.

In France it is really ok on shorter routes in regional trains, on the long routes you still have to disassemble the bike.

I haven’t been that long in Belgium but I think that it is really ok, I am now taking the DB trains through Germany and as I knew no issue there.

So more north-east you get the better the service.

After my bikepacking trip I will pitch the interrail to my parents. They are so excited about the places I visited but don’t know how or if they will be able to get there. They (me too) don’t like flying and by car it is just too stressful.

Really nice experience - 9 completely different beers, it was more local so I was bit of curiosity but I had really good chat with few people there.

Yes some stout with bourbon, beer brewed with spruce, tripels and more. Every beer just tasted completely different.