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Figueira da Foz, springtime is coming 👌
I changed the oil of the Pinion gearbox of the OnTheRoad 4.0 🖱️. It is the only maintenance this gearbox needs, actually it doesn't even need new oil at all 🥇. But having an invoice for new oil once per year is mandatory for making any claim during it's five year guarantee.
This Pinion P1.18 gearbox 🖱️ is guaranteed to be able to withstand a continuous maximum torque of 250 Newtonmeter. Since I weigh 85kgs and the cranks are 175 millimeters long I can put a maximum torque on a cranck of 85kgs x 9,81N x 0.175mts which is 146 Newtonmeter. So that is the maximum if I stand on a cranck, while seated it will be a lot less anyway. So all in all I am able to load the gearbox only up to 60% of the maximum.
I don't know the maximum force the Gates CDX beltdrive system 🖱️ can handle. But I can say that there is no sign of any wear 🖱️ on it at all after 3+ years (update : 5 years) of cycling with it in total. Were all these years except for the first one were in the 67kgs setup 🖱️ in hilly and mountanious circumstances.
I also installed the new Pinion version 2 shifter which finally should offer decent grip when wet. Then my hands are always wet since I only cycle when it is Hot. In 2 years of YesTrip I only cycled one half day while raining and that happened when I was on my way from Mons la Trivalle to Bize-Minervois 🖱️ in France in 2018.
The original shifter does not offer any grip at all (not even with cyclinggloves !)
which made it a hassle to use.
My only problem with this new version 2 shifter is that it's engineered and produced
by the Ergon company.
Those
And I installed the Zefal Espion Z56 mirror 🖱️, which is my third mirror already. This one does not have the critical aspect concerning decent fixing the others had. It is also not mounted at the end of the handlebar but at the inside of the grip. Which means I will not touch it so often anymore. This might also be an advantage at times I have to push. But the glass (and also the mountingpoint of it) is asymmetrical and they engineered the wider part to the inside 😕. I will just have to find out in practice whether this is no problem and is not annoying. So with this mirror I hope to finally have a decent "look into the future" by being able to see what's coming up from behind.
And as predicted my new Truvativ Hussefelt freeride pedals did not offer any decent grip 👎. Something I was already in doubt about when I bought them in Estremoz. Slipping of a pedal on a bicycle at full force is one of the most 💣 dangerous events that can happen to you.
So I uninstalled them and visited a cargarage where I explained a man what I would like him to do. That was to grind away the rounded ends of all the pins so that they would have (very) sharp edges. I payed him €5 knowing that the pedals now would perform the way they should. And knowing his boss was not in (since he was the only one there, however he might have been the boss 😁).
I had an awfull lot of pictures to process. And create a lot of blogs, plus several articles about all kind of subjects like musea 🖱️, equipment 🖱️ and nature 🖱️. I like that kind of (cre-) activity, my brain just cannot run idle so I spend much time on this.
And everyday the sun was sinking in the sea clouds.
My Exped Synmat airmatrass leaked a very micro tiny little bit of air which however was enough to wake me up every night at around 04h00. By that time I was hitting the ground which is so very hard and cold 👎. Now I had the opportunity to flush it in the shower in an attempt to find a microleak but I didn't succeed.
The next day I inflated it once more but one hour later I heard a 💥 plop. An inside seam of a vertical wall had loosened, resulting in a bubble which ofcourse made the matrass useless.
My "luck" was that I was about to order a new flysheet for my
When the trackinginfo showed me the flysheet and matrass had arrived at the pickup point I walked over there. I showed the ticket on my phone and the man started searching. "No, we have no parcel for you" he then said. "Too bad" I responded, "according this email someone with your name has signed for receival in this shop" 😭. After another 10 minutes my parcel turned up and I walked home relieved. However I did stop to have a nice imperial 😋 (google that). I inflated the matrass right away 💦 when I arrived home and it was oké.
The next day I unpacked my tent at the roofterrass and uninstalled the old flysheet. Then I installed the new one and moved over all the small parts, like the lines. How much time does it take to un- and then reinstall all lines while this tent doesn't need lines anyway 😁 ? The correct answer is about one hour (if you have practiced earlier !). This new regular version of flysheet is some 500 grams less "ultralight" but I just hope it will prevent that enormous condensation (and even fungus 😡 !) the ultralight version causes every night.
All that time I was quiet nervous since I could not secure the tent to anything. I was at the open terrass at the tenth floor and a sudden wind could easily blow the tent over the railing 😬. Later that evening I realised I have a long line to dry my cloths and I should have used it to secure the tent. This once more shows why I like to have a whisky in the evenings. Then everytime after I have one I get the next nice idea 😁.
To celebrate all these successes I cooked myself several nice diners the days after (so hundreds 😋). Unfortunately the supermercados stopped selling fresh seafood when covid arrived. Later on the fish returned but the mussels did not.
In the evenings I watched tv, that is, I had a mere 5 channels for free 👏. There was some usb-hdmi Google tv-dongle available but that runs on the internet, you must install an app to operate it and it forces you to turn on your location at your mobile. I uninstalled it right away. Google has already collected some average 7000 (!) data of every worldcitizen using it. I think they don't need to add my location 🙈.
And that helpes. Despite being a heavy internet user (and creator) and websites-owner for 15+ years my name is not to be found at google and my (their) location timeline is empty. How "dummies" can people be stating they have "nothing to hide" ...
And I can assure you that the national Portugese tv-company RTP (channels 1, 2 and 3) has a "programm" that consists of at least some 90% retransmissions. If you watch the news you simply see exactly the same items even three days later, only the presenter might be another. The only programs I watched were a nature documentary, some scandinavian policeseries, the Portugese version of "Boer 🎅 zoekt 🤶 vrouw" 😁 and Kitchen makeover (?). Where the latter is presented by a very friendly Yougoslavian chef haha.
It was obvious that only free or really cheap (old) programms are broadcasted. However, since I don't understand almost any word of the portugese language that makes for a special situation. And if I frooze the tv screen to use Google Translate at my phone (per camera) the results were rather hilarious. I then had two more (commercial) channels that are of the same "level". One of them broadcasted there own national Big Brother series every day for some 6 hours. The other one broadcasted (very old) english spoken films at the saturday afternoons (only).
So I watched ie Indiana Jones, Blue Lagoon and Montalbano 😉. I could not block the portugese subtitles but it was nice to hear english for some time. Then at least 95% of all the portugese people do not speak any letter of any foreign language. I even read online that 50% of the 25 to 50 years generation did not even finish there middleschool education 💥. Which means I did not manage to have contact to anyone 🙃. WTF says we are part of any European Union ??? Brussels says !!! Oh, I didn't know that, then that must be so ...
I visited the exhibition about Leonardo da Vinci 🖱️ in the Casa do Paco. I was there three times but the Casa was closed, despite it should have been open according the local timeschedule. But the fourth time I was lucky, or were they ? I created a special article about this exhibition that you find here 🖱️ or by clicking the picture. I also created a special blog about the marbleproductionsite in Estremoz 🖱️ that I visited. A "heavyweight" site like this shows exactly what Leonardo da Vinci invented 500 years ago.
Last but not least I once more noticed the wastewater of the town is dumped into the sea 💣. I think not one town along the coast in Spain, Portugal, France, Italy and so on has a decent wastewater treatment plant. I have helped quite some times to engineer them and know how they look like. They are just non-existing over here, and in many other regions all over the world ... Saving the Planet ? Yes You can !
So I managed to arrange several things without problem. The motto in this is "all by myself". Is that where winterstops are for ? But in the meantime corona was showing up at the horizon. From one day to the next only the major supermercados were open, all the rest was closed. All campings were also closed and ofcourse the bombeiros (firefighters) would not host me now.
Thus my planned 2020 YesTrip start per the first of april was suddenly very doubtfull. And I could not even visit my favorite café to adapt myself to that fact 😄. What to do, and how to judge ???