Day -1 - Building the Bike
Today’s job was to turn the contents of a suitcase and a duffle bag into a rideable tandem.
We gathered energy with a great breakfast in the hotel, and spoke with the hotel staff about where best to do the work. They showed us into a ground-floor storeroom that was perfect! Lots of space and even shelves that we could use to organize our tools.
We’re not quite a well-oiled machine but we work together pretty well. There was no damage to the bike and it went together with a minimum of fuss. I set a stopwatch, so I can confidently say that it took us 1 hour 22 minutes and 37 seconds to build the bike.
We checked all the critical systems but skipped our normal shakedown ride. There’s one scheduled with the boat cruise tomorrow, it was raining, and we’re both pretty intimidated about riding in downtown Amsterdam. The bike riders here are professional, fast, and take no prisoners! So we’ll tighten anything we missed tomorrow.
We celebrated our success by taking a walk down to where we’re supposed to board the boat tomorrow. It’s not far, and although we got some raindrops on our heads, it was great to get out in the fresh air.
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2 years ago
We stopped in a cafe for a drink on the way back and enjoyed people-watching along the canal. Lots of boat and street activity despite the occasional rain showers.
On our way back to the hotel, we made a slight detour for fritjes. They were just as good as we remembered!
Dinner was an excellent pizza at La Zoccola del Pacioccone. Maybe better than anything we had during our recent stay in Rome! Then back to the hotel bar, where we reminisced about previous travels over a couple glasses of good red.
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2 years ago