August 12: "Pneumatic letdown"
Beautiful day with many cloud breaks. In spite of 15 km of steady uphill much
of which had to be negotiated on foot in the beginning, we were happy to make
headway between the hills without being neither frozen nor soaked. Then 10
km of pure downhill pleasure, marred only by the fear of our front tire bursting
but this "small" concern would soon be put aside at the repair shop
at Egilsstadir. A small meal stop at the city outskirts was tarnished by a
small rainfall which put Anne into a bad mood. Just at the moment when
I unpack the bread, ham and cheese to prepare the sandwiches: rain! I was
not in a bad mood before! Fortunately it did not last long (rain and bad
mood). But misfortunes detesting loneliness, this first one was followed by
a flat tire 50 meters further on. After repair, off to the store called Skogar
for a new tire. The choice is pitiful: a slick and a knobby, both inflatable
to 50 psi maximum (which is half the pressure allowed for my tire) and VERY
difficult to fit (undoubtedly designed for childrens' bicycles with rims without
a double wall). Using the heal of my shoe and with much prying and prodding,
I nonetheless succeed in installing the new tire. (With each attempt, I
have the impression that the edge of the tire is tearing which of course did
nothing to diminish my anxiety). Handling, turns out to be much more difficult
because of the mushiness of the tire, crushed by my weight just above it.
I even managed to ground the rim passing a little quickly over a speed bump!
Because of the fear of punctures and extremely poor handling characteristics,
I decided to put the old tire back on and keep the new one as a spare.
Next stop, the pharmacy to pick up analgesics for Anne who had to take them several times a day to releive her back and knee pains. (She's really courageous to accompany me on this mad tour.) Rain was on the menu today and in more than generous portions. Upon arrival at the "Apothek", we were already well soaked under our Gortex. This hi-tech clothing is a catastrophe! What a disappointment, they ignore the existence of both the muscle relaxant I take and the pain killer. Back towards the campsite but first a stop at the very large supermarket where we ambled like shipwrecked sailors (or drowned rabbits) pushing our caddy draped with our "rainproof" windbreakers in the hope that the light breeze between the aisles would dry them a little. 2 hours trying to dry our something-tech jackets shuffling up and down the lanes without anything to buy because everything is too heavy: even the small packages of cookies load us down before we eat them! I'm becoming reasonable! Yves doesn't even want chocolate and I'm not going to eat any all by myself?! We spent at least two hours in the shelter and the heat of the store while waiting in vain for the rain to stop. Then at closing time, we hide from the scoldings of nature in the restaurant across the road where we blessed the slowness of the service and much appreciated the taste of the hamburgers while keeping an eye out for a change in the behavior of the cars' windshield wipers. At last, it has stopped raining. No, it's falling again. Ah, finally, no rain and clearing sky.
We nevertheless pass
by at the gas station to buy 100% waterproof overalls and fragile in the same
percentage. (Ripped after only one hour of use!) They will reassure
us when we are on the road. (To finish with, we will use them only once.)
Contrary to the description in our "Guide du Routard", there was
a cooking shelter at the campsite. We succeeded in finding a not overly soaked
bit of lawn and took the hottest shower of all the campsites we had know up
to then and with no time limit. It felt so good that we indulged in another
one the next morning!
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Picnic on
the outskirts of Egilsstadir
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Changing
an inner tube
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