(I am writing this, all packed up, and waiting for breakfast to open. I was up pretty early in anticipation of a long day today.)
When I pulled into my hotel parking lot around 3:30pm last night, I got checked in and set about task number 1: bike maintenance. This is usually just wiping down and re-lubing the chain, plus checking the bolts to see if all of them are still there.
As I am wiping down my chain, being very careful to keep any grease away from my mostly white cycling kit, a car with a German license plate pulls up and two couples get out. One of the women is looking at my bike with all its packs and she first asked me if I was Czech. She pointed at the Bollé logo, since Czech does have lots of extra diacritics in their letters. I explained in my bad German that it was a French company, then told her that I was from America, lived in Germany, and I had ridden 120km today to get here. She was in shock. Her first question? "Where is your pump?"
I have the pump packed in one of the front bags for easy access. Plus I have a canister of pressurized sealant. And I have a few C02 cartridges. And a valve adapter so I can fill up at a gas station. Instead of saying all that, I just pointed to the bag.
Shameless sponsor plug: I brought a big bottle of Squirt Lube with me to keep my chain happy, and it has been super easy to wipe off and reapply at the end of the day. Big thanks to Lisa Roberts, who was my shipping broker and got it to me just in time!
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