Day 13 Riga, Latvia - Oh what a day😡

Tony's View

We started out with some hills today. Then about 10 miles in of a 54 mile ride, it started to rain. We would see a lot of rain today. We were getting wet and cold, which took away some of the enjoyment. Just when I thought it was challenging, we got on a very busy highway. There were many semi trucks. It was by far the busiest and scariest road I have been on. We took it for 10 miles and it was miserable. 

Just as I thought it was about as challenging it could get, the bike chain broke in half. Too much power from me? I doubt it, probably all the rain and grit we've been getting. We got off and found the chain on the bike path. I have never fixed a chain before. I got it threaded in all the derailleurs, and broke the link in the chain with the chain tool. Then I found a repair link in the tool bag and it was finally fixed. 

This is a picture of the chain link that just ripped in half. We got about another 3 miles and the chain broke again.

So we found a good place to pull over and went through the same routine that takes about 15 minutes. 

Guess what? A few miles down further on a bike path/sidewalk along the road, the chain was acting funny again. So, I got off and found several links compromised/broke. This time the damaged section took a lot longer and I wasn't sure what to do. I found a 6" piece of chain in my tool bag, did some jury rigging and was able to figure it out. While working on the chain in the bike path and sidewalk, I was on my knees down by the chain and Joan was holding the ends of the chain. Someone ran into our bicycle and the next thing, I got hit by a stick. I looked up to say what the heck is going on. It was a blind person feeling around to get by us. So much happening that I even got in the way of a blind person and got hit by his stick. Well, we got it fixed again and were off.

We limped our way into our Airbnb for the next 11 miles thinking every mile that we rode, the less that we had to walk. We made it the whole way through the City of Riga, population 690,000 people. We did it during rush hour around 5:00pm, got in at 5:30pm.

Now we have to find a bicycle shop tomorrow that has a 9 gear chain, which is rare anymore. The shops open at 10:00am.

Oh yeah, we did other things today. We found this old plane along the road.

We stopped at a grocery store for some food and a cappuccino.  We stayed under the mailbox awning for a while hoping for the rain to stop, which it didn't. We later pulled into a gas station along the busy highway for cover during a pouring rain. It didn't stop, but did lighten up.

We got excited that our route took us off the busy highway, just to be able to relax. When we saw what we had to go through, we made a tough decision to go back out onto the busy highway. It was hard to cross the road again to go left, because the traffic was so constant.

Saw this humongous snail and had to get a picture to share.

The highway was so busy. This is how we crossed the road. It was a neat way to do it. 

I have to admit this was one of my most frustrating days that I have ever had on a long distance bike trip. Right now, it looks like a low chance of rain tomorrow, yea. Hope we can find a new chain that will work at one of the four bicycle shops.

Joan's Extras

Definitely took serious effort to stay positive today. I got frustrated after several miles on the busy highway in the rain. When we pulled over under the bus stop to take a brake, I told Tony, "Look. (Breathe out). You can see my breath." 

Seriously, Tony did a great job steering through the many mini lakes, craters and obstacles. He was cold, wet and dirty while I at least stayed somewhat dry with the fairing. I'm saying my prayers of thanks for getting to this Airbnb, and for the bike chain breaking where it did, rather than on the interstate in the rain.