Day 14 - Riga, Latvia - Time to Pivot

Joan's View

We both crashed early last night after yesterday's eventful day. After my fit of grumbling yesterday during the ride, Tony woke up this morning with a plan to pivot. Since we have no idea how long it is going to take to find a chain and fix the bike, how about we skip taking the bike route around the western coast and spend a few more days in Riga, then take our time getting to Vilnius? Tony put lots of time into planning that original route and finding the Airbnbs, but it honestly seemed way more fun at this point to pivot. We had a sweet Airbnb in the heart of the old town Riga, but had to be out by noon and there were was no availability tonight. That meant finding another place here in Riga on top of fixing the bike, but at least we'd have all day to do it. After a couple of hours working together, we found another place across the Daugava river. That also meant cancelling about 8 other Airbnbs along the coastal route. Most were sympathetic of our circumstances and gave us a full refund. 

Around noon, we loaded the bike, said a prayer and rode to the Bruklene bike shop. Actually, it's a bike and coffee shop. How perfect is that for Tony! Our hero repairperson, Richard, took time out of his scheduled work to help us. It took several hours of Tony working with Richard, buying new chains and cogs, and Tony drinking some cappuccino, but we were able to ride off......a few hundred feet. Something was now jumping when Tony pushed on his pedals. We got off and Tony walked the bike back. Richard saw us pull up and Tony told him he thought it was the chain ring. Eventually, through more repairs, we headed out to the restaurant, Stock Pot, in which the guys recommended at the bike shop.

The guys from the shop gave me a chair. 
I fielded questions and smiled at passerbys.

Lunch was some delicious soup. We ate next to this couple and their dog. The dog just wanted our food, but the couple was fun to talk to. The guy said that he used to work in the wind turbine business and that the weather around here is so unpredictable that the best way to get a forecast is to just look up in the sky. Radar changes constantly. We also learned on our own that Riga received more rain yesterday than it usually gets in all of August. That couple also said that it is unusually chilly right now compared to previous years. Kind of ironic since it was unusually hot on our last bike trip through Germany. 😲

Leaving there, we tried to stop at St. Peter's Church, but it was closed. We rode to our Airbnb and met our host, Evita. She strongly suggested relaxing on the terrace, so we got food from Rimi and ate on the terrace. This is where I am blogging also, in Marla's favorite chair. The one that she never got growing up. 😅

Tony's Extras

We got to the bicycle shop and went in. They decided to work on it outside than try to get it into the shop. I said I was looking for a rear chain. He looked the bicycle over and we ended up getting two new cogs, front and rear, one for Joan’s gears and one for my gears, and two new chains, Joan's and mine. After the test drive, it was still skipping. Now, they replaced one of my triple chain rings for my gearing, since I predominantly only use the middle chainring. They didn't have the exact chainring size so we went from a 38 tooth to a 34 tooth.  Robert spent 30 minutes adjusting our shifting to try to make it work better. The amount of rain and grit also affected our cables, but decided not to change them.

That grit was murder on the entire drive chain system.  I just changed them about 1,000 miles ago. They usually last up to 2,500 miles. That rain and grit really reduced their lifespan. With all that, they replaced 7 items plus 2 hours of labor, and the bill came to 210 Euros. That included a 30 Euro bottle of chain oil and  free chain cleaner for the new chain after 50 miles. Robert put some of his from the shop into an old coke bottle. He then brought out another cap for the coke bottle with a small hole to be able to squirt on the chain. What a nice guy! We picked the right shop out of 5 in the area. I told Joan it was going to be 500 Euros, so we were happy and left Robert a 30 Euro tip, which he was excited to get. 

We did get to cross this cool bridge from the bicycle shop to our new Airbnb in Riga, Latvia. The steel parapet (guardrail) was so rusted and close to failure. They had to run temporary guardrail along the side of it. This made the bikeway very narrow causing issues when passing pedestrians and bicycles from the other way. I decided to stop most of the time.

Planning is getting started for the major rerouting. I will let you know how that goes tomorrow.