I hope this is the right bit of Canada

AFAIK you can host without paying, you just need an account? If not I can send you a screenshot of a city if you say which one?

I think this might be what they are talking about. Brilliant video, the story just builds and builds and builds. https://youtu.be/K4yCXIZ32lk

Are there other gasses that could be used. E.g some of the noble gasses like argon or neon?

A few years ago the same thing happened to me. There was someone who wasn’t doing to good, on top of the station building on the next stop along throwing tiles and other things off. The operator got some replacement busses, that I couldn’t get as I had my bike. So I just sat there with someone else who could get on as they had their dog. For about 4-5 hours. Sucked allot as I was tired, the dog was cute though.

We tried to always carry a spare meal for the evening, even if we didn’t plan to eat it. Mostly used pre cooked curry’s that were in bags which we could just heat up, saved us on more than one night.

I think we share the same regret as you, not having planned in enough time to see the things we didn’t know about, like small town you pass through or castles you didn’t know existed.

I think the next trip will be north, round the Highlands a bit and up to Thurso. Planning it for a much slower pace so we can take time to see things and because of the hills.

My gears were making some weird noises for about 10 miles before. They were cheap metal ones, some better plastic ones with bushings rather than bearings would be more reliable. I ended up replacing the jockey wheels on the hardrock aswell as they were so worn the chan was rubbing on the cage. No sure I would bother carrying some though. They are basically standard across all rear mechs for the last 30 years so every bike shop will have the right ones. You can also bodge them easily if they break.

As for Scotland, the weather can sometimes be brilliant, it can also be terrible and is very hard to predict. You just have to plan in the extra time if it’s too bad to ride that day and always have a backup/escape route if things go south. The miggies can be a problem although some good quality bug spray, combined with avoiding dusk and dawn outside, some long sleeved clothes and a net for if it’s really bad, it won’t be an issue

I think you can host on warm showers for free without paying the membership.

I was happy with the bikes, only issue we had was my gears had 2 major failures throughout the trip, one just as we were leaving Edinburgh, towards Dunbar and another next to a canal in Belgium. First one was where my chain got caught on my front chain rings as I was changing gear, this pulled the tensioner all the way forward and broke a bit off of it, it still worked but was never quite the same.

The second time the bearings in my jockey wheels fell apart and locked it up solid, had to take them apart and use tape to fill the gap until we could get to a bike shop. First picture is how it looked when I took the jockey wheel off the bike. Second is what was left of the tape after 15 miles of cycling with it.

As for the bags I think I will re make them at some point to include some of the things I wish they had (bigger opening, slightly thinner etc). I liked the roll top and how they were attached to the frame, also having a small hole for a charging cable was really useful.

As for future rides, a tour around Scotland is definitely going to happen at some point. I would also like to do northen Europe again, maybe following more bike routes and at a slower pace so we cam see more things. One reason we tried to stay off th main routes is to increase our chances of warm showers hosts however that didn’t work as we got none anyway.

Thanks for taking the time to read it, it was a hell of a ride. We really jumped in at the deep end for our first tour

Made a new post here: https://feddit.uk/post/16250811

Wrote some more here: https://feddit.uk/post/16250811

Started in the north West of Scotland (trying to not doxx myself too hard) went to see a friend near Edinburgh and stayed for a few days, then to York, via a town between Birmingham and London to visit my girlfriends parents (she was riding the red bike (a Specialised Hardrock)) then through London to Kent to see my parents. Then after a stay in the most run down hostel I have ever seen we crossed at Dover to Calais and then cycled up the coast to Brugge, then to Amsterdam, then to Hamburg and finally Szczecin. We had planned to go all the way to Warsaw but we have run out of time, wanted to get the train but they are all fully booked so are taking the flixbus instead.

Writing all this out makes me think about making a better post about our entire journey

We left on the 3rd of June. So about 2 months doing between 35-50 miles a day.

It has my coat (which is black aswell) in the elastic net thingy to the top of it which makes it look bigger than it actually is. It was still quite heavy as it had allot of our food in it, made the bike handle like a cross channel ferry that is taking on water.