How many battle scars can my bike get?
Today is the worst day since the beginning of my trip ( which is now almost 2 months on the road)
I have been in the Netherlands for a few days now and although I havent been expecting much ( I am more of just passing through, more looking forward to seeing France ), these few days have actually been very pleasant, and yesterday I was at a host in town of Deventer who took me at open film festival, but today misfortune and human misbehavior completely ruined it for me.
I left my bike leaned onto some flower stand next to the store I wanted to go in ( in a lack of a better place). When I finally got out of the store I saw my bike tipped over and flower stand missing, I was gutted.
When you see a bike like that it's never a pleasant feeling ( especially if its loaded with luggage) but to my worst surprise when I went to pick it up, first I saw that the rear shifter handle is completely broken.
I admit its my fault partially for leaving the bike leaned over this flower stand, but this doesnt change the fact that the woman completely lied and denied for what happened ever after I have asked several times who moved the flower stand and why did my bike fall over, only kept repeating its my fault for what has happened ( and I was in the store next by all the time).
I would at least expect from a grown up person to come to me, say what happened and can I help in some way, not trying to play cluelles and make an idiot of me.
I told her several times that she could just have waited several minutes maybe or ask anybody on the street ( and a lot of people were passing ) to help her move my bike anywhere. I dont even know if she just threw the bike so she can bring her flower stand back into the store or she tried to move it and fell in the process and I dont even want to know.
With all the people on the street it was quite a scene.
I even got a "Welcome to Nederlands" from a passer by ( he was trying to be sympatetic which didnt helped nor made me smile of course).
These kind of events sometimes make me want to quit everything I am doing, because if all humans were to behave in such rotten way, what are we left with?
My right Tiagra shifter was broken, and even part of the fenders were cracked ( they are old fenders but still cost money).
Luckily when I later tried to put it back in place ( except for the few broken plastic bits that fell out) , the shifter was miraculously still in the working state and I managed to add one zip tie to the bottom of it to keep everything in one place. That's the only place where I could add a zip tie, because the top of the shifter is a moving part for the brake.
How many battle scars can my bike have?
I had this for 3 years now, it travelled 20000 km only counting touring with luggage with anything from 10 kg (for short trips) to 30+ kg of luggage for longest ones.
It had fell over a lot of times over these years, mostly being leaned over somewhere and the wind simply managed to knock it over, no matter how much I tried to lean it opposite of wind direction to prevent this from happening in the first place.
I had one of two crashes in this period ( from what I remember) where I managed to fly over the bars.
I use it, and abuse it because luggage + my weight make it way over the manufacturers weight limit as it is.
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