Biking to the Arctic Circle | Ep. 2

Now that we are in Lithuania on the bike, it seems that my limited preparidness for the rain is being tests. From flooded city streets, to foot-deep dirt roads… we soldier on.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is episode two of our journey to the Arctic Circle on an ebike. We’ve gone 284 miles already. That means that we are over 10% of the way there. But the farther north we go, the harder it’s going to be to find cities like this. It’s going to be basically barren landscape. And I can already tell that it’s getting colder. There’s clouds in the sky basically all the time. And I’m wearing my jacket everywhere we go. It is good that we’re trying this in the summer rather than the winter because this would not be possible if it was snowing. I am changing the route a little bit. Originally, when I planned this route, I planned it for the least distance possible so we could get there as fast as we could. But instead of doing that, I’m going based on cheap hotel prices. [Music] Where is this thing taking me? God damn it. [Music] This feels like a [ __ ] company’s [ __ ] parking lot. [Music] And it’s closed off on that end. Are you [ __ ] kidding me? Why are you sending me this way? Like, what the [ __ ] I’m going to waste 25% of this trip just rerouting. Heat. Heat. Look at this park. Follow this way for 850. God, I would had so much fun at this place if I was a kid. Okay, I got to stop. It is colder than I thought it would be. Damn it. And my gloves are soaking wet. [ __ ] Like, it’s just dawning on me how silly it is to be doing this when I don’t have any winter clothes. I have a red scarf. I have a pair of long socks. And I have thermals. I can put the I can put the thermal shirt on. Okay, this will probably keep the top half of me warm, but when you’ve got your hands on the handlebars and you’re going really fast, your fingers just freeze. I’m pissed that my gloves are soaking wet. [ __ ] rain. [Music] God damn it. The drone fell again. If I had to guess, I would say it probably crashed into this tree somewhere. And I hope it didn’t crash very high because I’m not tall and I can’t reach up there. Ah, nope. Here it is. Oh [ __ ] That thing crashed hard. Holy [ __ ] It broke the [ __ ] propeller. Look at that. Holy [ __ ] [ __ ] The gimbal came off. Goodbye Pepper. You guess people on YouTube yesterday they uh they named the drone pepper. That that was the name for this drone and now it’s [ __ ] dead. What in the [ __ ] did it crash into that could cause so much [ __ ] damage? This is with the propeller guard. This is This is wearing the propeller guards and the whole thing is still [ __ ] cracked in half. Jesus Christ. Wait a minute. Did it get hit by a [ __ ] car? Is it possible that a truck came by and slammed into it? That is the only thing that I can think of because there is no way that this thing flies fast enough to do that much damage. Good god, I [ __ ] hit a car with my drone. Normally I don’t look at the footage until like I’m back editing, but I need to see this. I need to see how this thing crashed. Yep, I hit a [ __ ] car. Okay, so um everybody that predicted on Reddit that I would crash the drone, you guys were right. That is $200 gone. I hope I didn’t do any damage to their truck. It’s a plastic thing. It probably didn’t. Probably. I’m trying to decide if I should get another drone so I can get shots when I’m on muddy roads or if it’s not worth the risk and I’ll just end up blowing through another one. See, like roads like this are begging to be shot with a drone. Are you [ __ ] kidding me? This road is closed. I’ve been on this path for like three miles. Uggh. Turning this bike around is not easy. Takes some work. Yeah. So, like I said, I feel like half of my range is absorbed by just rerouting. [Music] We are entering a pretty major city in Lithuania called Connis. Okay, I believe this is where we’ll be staying. Okay, now let me see if there’s a DJI store nearby so I can just get another one. Actually, I’m glad I kept the body from that. That means I can use this for spare parts. If the second one I buy has problems, I can just move them over. There’s a lot of like electronic stores that might sell it, but uh I don’t know, photo fabricas, photo store, big box. I think going to a mall gives us our best shot at finding something rather than going to like a dedicated electronic store. I should probably decide if I want to get the same drone again or if I want to get a different drone that’s got like more specs and more features and like distance collision detection stuff so that if it sees a truck, it won’t run into it. Well, this would be where we’re staying if they would let us in. We’ve been here for like 15 minutes now and nobody’s even responded. I wonder how hard it would be to set up a scam listing on Booking.com. Like assuming you don’t own the property or you just go on like Zillow and you get pictures of the place and you get pictures of the inside and you post them on Booking.com. You make the listing, you get paid, and then customers, they would show up there, and some of them would complain, I’m sure. But I wonder how long you can keep that going before your listing gets taken down. Uh uh this is uh Booking.com. I have Yes, I have a reservation. I don’t think you speak English, do you? Uh booking.com. [Music] I do not understand you. I’m sorry. I will let you go. Room. Okay. Room. Okay. Yes. Room. Okay. Yes. Actually, based on that, we might not have the place to herself. We might have like a roommate who’s like 60 and just like subleting her spare bedroom. That might be why this was less than $50. But, uh, she’s not responding to my messages, so I’m going to do something wild. I’m going to ring the doorbell. Hello. Yes. Um, uh, you know, speaking. Uh, booking.com. Um, yeah. My son son. Mhm. He’s coming. Oh. Oh, cool. I assume this is probably her son who I’m actually supposed to be dealing with. Hello. I have a reservation. Um, is there a place for me to Oh, perfect. Cool. I appreciate that. Cool. Yes. So, it’s just the room that is being rented out, but that’s okay. This uh room has one outlet and it is an extension cable. So, I’m not optimistic that we will have Wi-Fi. This looks exactly like my grandma’s house, actually. Okay, batteries are charging, but they locked the bike up in that shed, so I don’t think I have access to it until tomorrow. I am sure they would let me take it out if they wanted to, but um they don’t speak English, and I don’t want to deal with that. Okay, there’s a mall like 1.5 miles away. We’re going to go walk to the mall and see if we can’t get another drone. It’s starting to rain. Here we go. Arcropolis. [Music] I wasn’t originally planning on eating here, but somebody in the comments said I need to try this place, Hezburg. Apparently, that’s like a local uh burger chain, but that one is super busy, and I don’t want to deal with that. If I had to guess, I would say that this is our best shot at finding a drone. Rather than going up there and asking them if they have the drone, we’re just going to look around. We’re we’re going to see if we can find it oursel. Okay, they have a couple of drones. Like, this is the same drone that I was flying before, but this comes with a bunch of stuff I don’t need, like goggles and a controller and all kinds of stuff. €520. This drone is just the drone. It’s a good It’s comparable to what I need, but it’s way overpriced. They’re selling that for 780. If I were to buy it right now on their website, on the DJI’s website, it’s 430. So, it’s almost twice the price. I cannot justify that. Like, I like the drone, but it’s not worth 800. That’s That’s almost $1,000. It’s not worth $1,000. It seems like the next best option is to just purchase the drone online and then have it delivered here. I’m sure I can have it rushed delivered in like one or two days. That’s disappointing. Let’s go check out this burger place. Okay, problem. I don’t speak Latapian and they only have cashiers. I don’t even think I could order from them. I wouldn’t even be able to say hamburger. So, I’m going to go to Burger King because they’ve got the little kiosk that I can push the buttons on. Yeah. Literally, Burger King is getting my money because they’ve got this English option. Sorry, Hezburg. If it was less busy and I was more confident trying to communicate with somebody that doesn’t speak English, I would have tried you. But for now, we’re just going with English. They do give free refills on drinks, though. I doubt Hezburg does that. Cool. We learned our lesson. Just buy it online. I love European cities. Okay, I just need to let you guys know how awkward it is to stay here. The old lady, I feel like she has dementia because she keeps forgetting that she has a guest staying at her house. I went out there to take a picture of the Wi-Fi so I could log in and she had like a heart attack. thinking that I’m an intruder in her house. I’m pretty sure that this was not her idea. She had a house and she was like running out of money. So, her son decided that she should rent out one of her rooms and so he’s in charge of like the booking.com and she’s just like living here freaking out every time they’ve got a guest. I feel like I’m going to have the cops call on me before I check out of here tomorrow. If you are in a situation where your elderly grandparents have dementia, it’s probably not a good idea to be renting out their rooms to strangers. I won’t lie though. This definitely reminds me of my grandma’s house. It’s got all kinds of like little little things. I did actually order the drone online, but I don’t need to wait here for it to get delivered because I know generally where my route is. So, I just had it delivered to one of the places that we’re going. It says that it’ll get here on July 4th. So, that gives us about 5 days to ride ahead before we actually get to the place where it’s supposed to be dropped off. Uh yeah. So, I want to get out of here as soon as I can because I don’t want to be here when that old lady wakes up and forgets that I exist. Oh, fun, fun, fun. One thing I did remember to do is get a plastic bag so I can wrap my laptop up in it and keep it dry. Ah, there we go. I am okay. Back it out gently. God, it’s raining so much. Okay, so that was pretty uncomfortable. And it’s actually going to get worse because of how bad the rain here is. This bike does not have mud guards on it to where when I ride over the wet roads, it splashes up water all over me. I end up more wet because of the splash water than I do from the rain itself. And it’s raining pretty hard. So, I’m not even going to ride the bike. I’m just going to walk it because this is the only way to stay dry. I don’t need to charge my batteries or anything. I just don’t want to ride in the rain. Okay, so it is going to rain literally all day long. There is just no end in sight. We’ve been here for 5 hours. The rain gets on my glasses and it makes it to where I can’t see [ __ ] [ __ ] [Music] See, this for example would be a really great time to have a drone showing me try to get through here, but I don’t have that. So ah, yay, ebike. This entire city’s sewers are just overflowing. Oh my god, this car better not [ __ ] do it. Hold the [ __ ] Hold hold hold. Jesus [ __ ] Christ. See, he’s going to go run right through that. [Music] When I booked this place, I did not think it was all the way out here, but apparently there’s supposed to be an apartment complex right where we’re at. Like, literally, Google says that there is an apartment right here. Back to our regularly scheduled programming of rerouting and seeing if we can find another way. I sent the host a message because I think that they just like typed the address wrong on Booking.com or something. Maybe this doesn’t look like an apartment. And my phone died. [ __ ] great. I remember that there’s a small little like settlement up the street up there. We’re going to go there and figure [ __ ] out. They already charged me. Um I’m looking at Booking.com. and it says that it’s new to Booking.com. So, this is a brand new listing and they just put the address in a [ __ ] cornfield. I’ve got less than one bar on the bike left. So, even if I were to book a new place, I’m not sure if I could actually get there. I’m [ __ ] freezing. Every part of me is completely soaked. How do you guys like that view of my apartment? There’s another place 10 miles away. Not sure if the bike will even make it. It is hard for me to put into words how frustrated I am right now. My my bike batteries are dead. And they shouldn’t be. We’ve only gone like 25 miles today, but my bike is dead. I’m going to have to ride this bike for 10 [ __ ] miles in the rain. Maybe her power cut out halfway through the night. My batteries didn’t charge. I don’t [ __ ] know. I should have range and I don’t. So, I’m just going to sit at this bus stop for a second. I’m so frustrated. I can [ __ ] it. I want to throw my phone. It’s dead, but I can’t charge it because there’s like water in the port. Every time I plug it in, it starts screaming at me. I can’t turn it off because it’s got such a low battery. I can’t turn the brightness up, so I can’t even see. The screen is on right now. And just to make the situation a little bit more fun, none of these drivers give a [ __ ] about splashing you. They will go full speed right next to you. I have been soaked from [Applause] My phone is freaking out every time I try to plug it in. So, the only way that I’m going to be able to charge this thing is wirelessly. I have been sitting here trying to get this thing to [ __ ] wirelessly charge for like 30 [ __ ] minutes. I can’t message any of the [ __ ] booking people. I can’t get out. I’m I’m [ __ ] losing it. Okay, I was able to charge my phone to 1% to be able to see that the place that is listed in the cornfield, they’ve never responded. They didn’t even open my texts. I’m pretty sure that’s just a scam place. And the place that I booked ahead, it’s got a a code, so I don’t even need to be there at a particular time. I just push the code into the into the lock box and I can check in. So, even if I need to walk this thing there, I should be able to check in. I did find out that somehow my plastic bag thing did not work and now all of my stuff is just like literally dripping water. Everybody knows that MacBooks are famously waterproof. It’s supposed to be a safety feature that prevents you from like charging your phone when there’s water in the port, but it’s literally leaving me [ __ ] stranded right now. I can’t charge it. Okay, so I have no options here. We’re just going without navigation because none of my devices have power. None of my devices will charge. Everything has failed so spectacularly today. All of my devices are dead. All of the things that were supposed to be waterproof aren’t. The place that I booked ended up being a scam. And I know that Booking.com is not going to give me a refund for that because they’re a trash [ __ ] I’ve had this happen before where I book a spot that doesn’t actually exist and then Booking.com’s like, “Sorry, we’re just a third party website. We can’t get your money back.” So that $60 just poof, gone. Which means what I’m going to need to do is I’m going to need to go to my credit card company and I’m going to need to dispute the charge and then Booking.com is going to get mad and they’re possibly going to cancel my account. I still have uh I don’t even know how far I need to walk. I don’t have navigation anymore, but I had I had like nine miles to go when my phone died. So, I’m going to be walking for the next like 6 hours. If I am having this much trouble in a country like Lithuania, how am I going to deal with Norway? I genuinely don’t know why my batteries didn’t get charged up last night. She must have cut the power and I was in such a rush to leave that I didn’t check their charge. I just assume they were full. Then I think I’m supposed to go left here. I’m not 100% sure. I just feel like I’m probably supposed to go that way. Also, just to pile on, my brakes have stopped working. Watch this. I’m going to squeeze the handle all the way. Completely squeezed. And I am still able to move the bike. I can fix it. It just means that the brakes are getting loose. I’ve had this for like what, 3 days now, and I already need to go manually tighten the brakes while I walk the bike up there. I’m trying to charge the phone wirelessly because it still won’t [ __ ] charge with a cable. Hopefully, I can keep the seat stable enough that it’s able to get like 5% so once we get to town, we can actually find the place. Luckily, I was able to get the booking made before my phone died. If I wasn’t able to do that, we would be [ __ ] pitching a tent out here in the middle of nowhere. Actually, I have an idea to make this more effective. Tape. I’m just going to tape the [ __ ] phone to the back of the wireless charger. It’s really slick, so it keeps sliding off of it. There we go. That’ll hold it. I’m really glad I thought to bring that wireless charger. would be a lot more difficult if I had no way to charge it at all. Okay, the town that we are staying in is apparently called Appilanca or maybe it’s called Kadani. Ked an Nai Kadani. [Music] Okay, I’m tapped out. I can’t ride anymore. I think this is where we’re staying. This does not bode well for us because it means that we don’t have a place to lock up our bike and it’s accessible to probably 300 400 people. Okay, if this is right, the door code should work. Um, [Music] we paid $60 for this. It’s actually not bad. it exists. So, that’s cool. First thing I’m doing is I’m taking off all my wet clothes, which is all of them. We’re taking all the wet clothes and we’re putting them in the washing machine. Then, to help dry off my shoes, I’m going to stick a towel inside of them. Okay, there are updates on the hotel situation. First off, I was correct. It doesn’t exist. It’s just a cornfield in the middle of nowhere. Apparently, the person that was setting this up, this is a new listing, they put the wrong address and uh they just never went back and changed it. So, they’ve admitted that there’s nothing there. But Booking.com wants to give me a $20 refund on a $60 hotel room apartment. I’m I’m just out 40 bucks because [ __ ] reasons. So, I’m going to try to escalate this, but Booking.com is notorious for making things wait super super long and then uh after 30 days have passed, they’re just like, “Sorry, it’s too late. You’re [ __ ] Specifically, what they do is they call the person up and the person on the other end doesn’t speak English. So, they’re like, “Oh, sorry. They don’t speak English. I don’t know what to tell you.” Also, uh my spare phone, it got wet and now it just won’t turn on, won’t charge. I took the back off of it. I’m hoping that like it’ll dry out, but it’s possible that my backup phone just got [ __ ] nuked. Today has been rough. Um, yeah, there’s not a dryer here in this apartment, so I’ve got all my clothes laid out and I’m just flipping them like every hour. Hopefully tomorrow is better. Good morning. Really hoping my clothes are dry. Uh, they’re still kind of damp. O, and my shoes are definitely still wet. And guess what that means we get to do? It means we get to wear wet shoes. Actually, speaking of my shoes, I am looking for a way to repair them. The the rubber part is coming off the bottom of this. I need some kind of glue, but I’m not sure if super glue would work, and I want to do that soon before the whole thing falls off. You guys will notice that I just literally parked the bike right there in the parking lot. Uh, I’m pretty sure it’s fine. I would never do that in a major city, but in a small place like this, totally fine. You know, I won’t lie. It is the middle of summer right now. I don’t know why it’s so gloomy. This is the grocery store that’s by the booking. It’s called Icky. 35 for an energy drink. Holy [ __ ] That’s so cheap. Just a sec. Look, Red Bull. It’s like $2, but you can get this for 35. And this is one of those places that actually refrigerates your drinks for you. Okay, I think for breakfast I’m actually going to go with cereal because I know the apartment that we’re staying at has like a bowl and a spoon. This one is probably milk. Hopefully this bag is more waterproof than the last one. $12. Okay. Well, I thought I had a bowl. I’ve got a big salad bowl, but that’s not what I want to eat cereal out of. I just realized that I have leftover cereal and milk and this is going to spoil if I put it on the bike. So, my phone is still completely non-responsive. I’m going to keep it. I might try to like work on it later. But, it looks like that rainstorm yesterday destroyed one of my phones. I’ve actually replaced the battery in it once. That’s why it was susceptible to the rain because when I pulled the back off of it to change the battery, it lost its waterproofing. And I guess that uh ended up sealing its fate. Before we hit the road today, there’s a lot of stuff we need to do on the bike. I just realized a lot of my previous shots were like super zoomed in and I don’t know why. Sorry about that. I can’t go back and change it because I zoomed it out on camera. I must have like accidentally touched the screen when I was in the store. [Music] I’m noticing that another part of my bike broke. The flat part of this. There’s supposed to be like a shelf right here that this sits on and then I strap it down, but the shelf completely broke off. So now it’s just like being held to the bike fork with friction. Like I’m pretty sure it’ll still hold. Friction is a perfectly fine way to do this. I just need to make sure that these are absolutely tied down tight. Okay, the first thing that we’re going to do to fix the bike is we’re going to fix this. You see how the seat is coming off? That is because the paneer rack right here is basically pushing up on it. This did not come with the bike. This is something I added myself and I need to fix it. I’m going to insert the clips here so you can see everything that I did. Good morning, everybody. The last you guys saw, we got the bike, we got it out of the box, we got it sort of assembled, but there was still a lot of work we had to do to get it ready for a long bike packing trip. That is what we’re doing today. We’re getting everything onto the bike and assembled. The first thing we added to the bike is extra storage. These are called fork bags. Basically, they just attach to your bike via zip ties. And you’ve got extra bags that are on the front of your bike. Then we added a phone holder right here. We added a GoPro holder so I can film myself. And the last thing that I added off camera was this. This is a makeshift paneer rack. Ideally, I want to be able to put my backpack on this and uh have my backpack stay there, but we’re going to have to figure out how to make that work properly. Our primary goal today is to attach a second battery to this bike. So, we’re not running on one battery. We’re running on two. This is how I’ve been getting packages delivered in Poland. They have a cool locker box network. So, this package right here. This package right here. This one’s heavy. This is the extra battery. Now, we need to go to like a hardware store like Home Depot so we can actually get all the tools we need to install this. This right here is the second battery. I mean, they definitely packaged it well. Okay. I’m carrying all of the supplies in my backpack, including the extra battery. It’s really heavy. So, uh hopefully this works. [Applause] Okay, here we are. This place is called Obi. Apparently, this is like a European Home Depot. This looks as good a spot as I need to do all of the work that we need to do. The first thing we need to do is we need to take this seat off so we can see what kind of like mounting options we have, holes, whatever. And I feel like seat is a very generous term because this thing is uncomfortable as [ __ ] And it’s like super like like I don’t understand what this is for. It’s aesthetic. They they made it look like this so they could market it. It’s not comfortable to sit on. It’s just a couple of bolts underneath holding it on. I learned from the engine rebuild that it is very important to keep all of your nuts and bolts uh in order. Okay, let’s take a look at what kind of options we have. Not a lot. I was hoping that there would be more like holes or something here so I could put a piece of metal off to the side. In my head, the way that I wanted to mount the second battery was like right here, but I’m not sure how I’m going to attach it because there’s no holes inside the metal. Okay, I’m going to lock the bike wheel so that nobody can take this. Let’s go into the store and see what kind of options we have in terms of materials. The signs aren’t in English. So, I basically got to walk down every aisle until I see something that I want. Oh, but I think this is the right section. Okay, this is my first idea. It’s a little bit uh crude and rudimentary, but we got some sticks and we got some clamps. And we’re just going to see if we can make a shelf on the back of the bike. What we’re doing right now is mostly just a test because I think it might have promise. The idea goes something like this. We put these things on and then we’ve got a shelf right here that we can install the next battery. And we’ll just install a couple of them. We need to make sure that we don’t put these too far forward so that when we’re rowing the bike, our back heel doesn’t come up and try to hit the battery. So, we need to install them a little bit farther behind. Now, the reason why I think that this will work is we can clamp these onto the actual bar of the bike itself and we can install this onto the clamp. Okay, quick length test. I think they might be a little bit too long for what I need. Uh, they stick out a little bit, but we’ll work with it right now. And if we need to find shorter ones in the future, we can. Now, this guy should mount something like that. Okay, as a proof of concept, I think this works. And then this, we will snake this down into the controller so we can connect this. That’s a future thing. Right now, I think we just need to get some shorter metal rod, guys. Okay, there we go. I got some shorter ones. This looks a little bit more like the final product. Then you take the battery when you want to put it on. Make sure the seat still fits. Look at that. That looks pretty good. That looks like it came kind of stock. Aside from the little flange thing sticking down, that looks pretty solid. Okay, I’m actually pretty happy with that. Next thing that we need to do is we need to figure out how to install this uh motorcycle rack. This is meant for motorcycles to be able to put on the back of them. It’s not meant for an ebike. It’s got one little hole right there. I need to figure out how to make this work so we can have the rack on the back of the bike like that. How to do it, I’m not sure, but we’ll figure it out. Let’s see what this looks like from underneath. If we put it like that. Actually, that’s not bad. That could possibly work. When I was planning this, I was planning like a super overengineered thing, but I might be able to use these same things on this and just like stick it to the [ __ ] frame like that. That is possible. Let me Let me go get a couple more of those. That’s possibly the solution. There we go. After a whole bunch of hose clamps later, we have a pretty solid bike rack. I’m not sure how much weight it can take. I’m just going to not like lean on it. And this is what she looks like. Okay, we got the spare battery here. We got the pier pack there. I’ll sit here and hopefully none of this stuff will get in my way. One thing that I know that I need to do is I need to file down some of this metal. There’s a lot of like sharp pieces here and I don’t want to cut anything on accident. Here we go. For the time being, I think this is how I want the bike to work. We’ve got two packs up in the front. We’ve got all my stuff there. This is the backpack mount. It’s basically just hung on with bungee cables. We’ve got the pine rack. We’ve got my tent on bungee cables right here. We’ve got the extra battery right there. Okay, going for a test ride. I can feel that there is a lot of weight. It’s a very heavy bike. Now, update. I changed my mind and I decided to use this extra space right here to hold the tent. It’s on with just bungee cables. I might need to find a better way to do this in the future, but I’ll test this because there’s a bunch of extra space here and I want to use it. I’m going to move my workstation into the shade because it’s hot. The last thing we need to do is we actually need to connect the second battery to the system. Right now, it’s just dangling off. If I wanted to, when this one dies, I could just swap the two, but it would be really cool if I can just connect these because uh cable already basically reaches here. So, we break out our multi-tool and we start disconnecting the bike controller. This is going to require us to cut some wires. This is the wire from the existing battery. This is the output that it needs to go to. We need to make this connector look the same as uh this connector. So, I got to go buy some wire cutters and possibly a soldering iron. Update. After walking to the store, I realized that they did not have a battery powered soldering iron. So, I can’t solder any of this stuff. My next best thing is to use these crimping tools and try to crimp the wires together. So, I better get to cutting this tool. also comes with a little wire stripper. So, that’s convenient. You guys have seen me do wiring like this before. You just put the red on the red and the black on the black. Okay, there we go. If I did this right, um, both of these should be able to power the bike. Now, the way to test that is uh to try to power it on. This battery is not in here. So, if it powers on, then the other battery is working. Hey, it’s getting power. Fantastic. Let’s go ahead and swap the batteries. And she still has power. We have a dual battery bike, guys. And now you can see that that piece is actually still coming up. You guys can see here that there is a a screw that doesn’t have a bolt in it. We need to push this down and we need to bolt that in so that this can’t come up anymore. Okay. A little bit of work with the wrench later. And we have this secured. And now this thing is not going to fall down. Okay. I think that we’re good to go now. Oh, wait. No. I still need to tighten the brakes because yeah, this brake is not even doing anything. Tightening your brakes is pretty easy. There is a screw on this side right here. Let me see if I can get it on camera. There’s a big screw right there. You just tighten that and it’ll bring the brake calipers closer together. And now to test it. Much better. And lastly, before we head out, it’s a good idea to check the tire pressure. So, I got inflatable. Oh, it’s soaking wet. I didn’t think about this. [ __ ] I really hope my tire pump didn’t just break because of the rain last night. Okay, bike maintenance done. I think that we’re good to go now. Of course, it is starting to rain again. Hopefully, this plastic bag does a better job. It looks like it should be waterproof. I’m not sure why the last one wasn’t. We’re going to try to go 60 m today. Hopefully, the rain doesn’t make us need to stop early. In 250 ft, turn right and continue on. Oh, just a sec. The bag is falling. I really hope that doesn’t become a bigger problem later. Okay, the rain is really starting to come down. I’m going to see if I can’t wait a little bit to see if it like stops. Oh, it’s so freaking cold. Okay, seems like it’s settled down a little bit. Also, I was able to dry off my gloves last night, so they work now. And the reason that I wear this scarf isn’t necessarily because it’s like that much warmer. It adds insulation so that when I’m riding, the wind doesn’t like go down my jacket. It’s just like a like a buffer to keep the wind from blowing through me. I hate this app so [ __ ] much. [Music] So, remember how I said that this bike does not have mud guards? I am completely coated in dirt because of that. I don’t know how deep that puddle is, and I don’t want to risk running through it and having the mud sink in, losing my bike. Well, I wouldn’t lose it, but I don’t want it to tip over. Maybe I can go through that foliage on the side. Let’s start walking. I’m going to walk on the foliage and I will have the bike go through. Oh, yeah. That puddle is deep. bike, move your [ __ ] ass. Let’s go. There are swarms of mosquitoes around me, so I’ve got to keep moving. I can’t just like stay in one place or slow down because they will [ __ ] Okay, cool. We’re out of the forest, so the road should get better. Maybe. Probably. Hopefully. Would be a great time to have a drone. We’re just going to walk until the tires are clean because I do not want that splashing up on me. [ __ ] hell. Back to walking. Nobody destroys public roads quite like farmers do. Luckily, it’s only damaged at the parts that’s like accessible to their fields. Okay, I’ve decided that I’m not using this navigation anymore. I generally know which direction I’m going. I’m going to go on [ __ ] roads. Uh, [ __ ] off. We are sort of on a time limit because Google says it’s going to start. Google says it’s going to start raining in the next like hour. So, we need to get there hopefully before then. Okay, I guess that was a little too optimistic. It started [Applause] cycle ways are nice because they’re outside of traffic, so their chances of getting hit by a car are basically zero, but they’re often far less maintained than the actual roads themselves. So going on cycleways is just a rough time usually. Like I could just go on that road right now and it would be fine. I could go really fast, but I’m pretty sure the law says that if there is a cycle way, you’re required to use it. Like if you want to be a bike and there is a cycle way, you can’t be on the road. But if there is no cycle way, then the road’s yours. I think I know why the plastic bag didn’t work yesterday. When I put that in the basket, it was tied up real nice and tight. But I guess all of the jostling from riding today caused it to loosen itself. And then the water that is splashing from the wheel is splashing up into the bag and getting that whole thing soaked. I need to like actually tie it rather than just like twisting it. The town that we are entering right now is called Panavves. And I’m pretty sure this is the last town that we’re going to be in before we enter Latvia. Girth. What tires rip? I just got [ __ ] ejected from this bike. The tire slipped and I just like flew over the [ __ ] bike handles. I’ll have to do a damage inspection later. I don’t think anything broke. It just slipped and it like fell into the grass. This is us. This is our hotel. This little yellow thing. Yeah. I’m just off using bike locks all together and I just lock my wheels to my Holy [ __ ] [ __ ] This This is not from falling. This is just from riding on dirt roads and not having mud guards. All of the mud just splashes up here and [ __ ] Hello. We check into the hotel here. This place comes with free breakfast tomorrow. I got an omelette. Oh, this is cute. And I’ve got roof windows. Check that out. Oh, if it rains, that’d be bad. It just drip. Okay, so I need it to be like at a slope like that. Roof windows. I’m not tall enough to reach them, so I got to jump. I am seriously so glad I brought this thing. This is a travel router, and it’s great because the router for the hotel, it’s like way over there. I’m trying to connect to it on my phone and I can’t. But this thing has much bigger antennas, so I’m able to have that act as a repeater that connects to it and then broadcasts that out to all my devices. Really glad I brought that thing. Okay, we’ve officially gone about 430 mi, which puts us 20% of the way toward the very top of the continent.