August 19: " Increased anguish and fame "
Because of all the km covered yesterday, our ambitions today are very modest
aiming for Laugaland only about 25 km away. But first a very important shopping
spree: a new tire. What joy to at last find a cycling store very well stocked
with amongst others, a large Finnish tire which I could inflate to 100 PSI!
Once installed, I realised all of a sudden how light hearted I was which led
me to understand how unconsciously anxious I had been over so many kilometers.
Since our arrival in the city, the anxiety was no longer unconscious since
the premises of failure had become flagrant: each turn of the front wheel
was like riding over a rubber hose. I don't think the tire would have held
out any more than an extra 10 kilometers, obviously intent on giving up the
ghost at a nice round figure. (The the lame tire had safely carried us the
full 400 kilometers since Djupivogur!) I install the new tire in front of
the shop where 10 children gather around spontaneously, some of them having
seen our picture in the paper! They asked to try out our helmets with the
rearview mirror which had been mentioned in the newspaper article. They all
escorted us on their bicycles several hundred meters to a big shopping center
where we bought the newspaper whose name the mechanic, who had also read about
us, had given us. Yves smiled blissfully and paraded like the Queen of
England when people looked at him, persuaded that they had all seen our photograph
in the newspaper. And while we were doing our shopping, our rear tire
decides to deflate, reinforcing my conviction of the existence of morbid jealousy
amongst bicycle tires.
The short distance to our goal was covered without difficulties: a delicious
swimming pool with 2 jacuzzis, a toboggan and a swimming pool all for ourselves
during a half hour before the arrival of new customers. The lifeguard permitted
us to pitch our tent on the lawn beside the school (converted into a hotel
during the summer holiday, like many schools in Iceland). We took advantage
of their toilets next morning. We made short work of the tuna fish and rice
dinner hugging together in the shelter of the external stair-well to avoid
the unbeleivable draft. A rather comfortable way to camp in the boondocks,
isn't it?
A (rough?) translation of the newspaper: "SPECIAL BICYCLE. These happy parisians came to the country yesterday with the ferry and in two days have cycled north to Myvatn. They are going to take 4 weeks to cycle around Iceland. Today they went about 60 km and achieved a maximum of 47 km/hour. Their tire was damaged by a flat. But their optimisme overcame all their troubles. Their bicycle is a very special one purchased in Holland. The black spot over the man's eye is the rear view mirror. The man is from Canada and his wife is French and they live in Paris. Their means of transport seems to be the most ecological that one can think of. This is good news for global warming because of the increasing use of power by the people on this planet."
Where the journalist
picked up this information, half of which is false of course, is beyond us.
The 47 km/h is an allusion to the wind speed and not our road speed we had
head winds going towards Myvatn. We have no recollection of having been interviewed,
even informally. The only suspicious incident we could remember was being
passed by a small 4 X 4 and photographed three times in a row by a half naked
photographer on the hill down to Myvatn! Did he talk to us briefly in the
campground? Or did he talk to the people we met? It remains a mystery to us
to this day.
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Terminally
ill tire
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Newspaper
article
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Fame
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Dining room!
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