Biking to the Arctic Circle | Ep. 3

More riding. We get from Lithuania into the top of Latvia, but regretfully Pepper might not be replaced any time soon

Good morning everybody. Welcome to episode three of our journey to the Arctic Circle. We still have like 1600 miles left and the hotel that we’re staying at does have free breakfast. Today we are crossing from Lithuania into Latvia. Thank you so much. Thank you. I always love a hotel that gives free food. It is actually staggering how much of my [ __ ] has broken in the past like 3 days. I lost my drone. I lost my spare phone because of the rain. I lost my headphones because of the rain. My headphones are supposed to be waterproof, but I had them in my pocket. I pulled them out of my pocket. They were like dripping wet and one of them just stopped working. So, I had a spare battery here that I keep that I used to charge up my phone for navigation. That failed. So, now I’m using this other battery. I have lost so much [ __ ] But, it’s not like we have the choice to just not ride in the rain because I’m pretty sure it’s going to be basically always raining. Today should be our last day in Lithuania as we go into Latvia. Then after that we’ve got Estonia and then Finland and then a little bit of Norway. Your route is being adjusted. [Music] Now that I’m off the main road, I just want to let you guys know that I do not blame the drone for crashing. Those trucks when they drive by, they create such a strong draft that it’s able to move me. And I’m literally attached to the ground. So, the drone stood no chance. I don’t think there’s a drone out there that could have survived that. God damn it. It’s starting to rain again. I believe the Latvian border is just up ahead. I do. I do believe this is the border. So, welcome to Latvia, everyone. The craziest thing just happened. So, there’s lots of bugs flying around right now. I’m going at like 28 miles an hour. That is actually fast enough for them to splat against my glasses like a windshield. I have bug juice on my glasses. First thing that we do when we get to a new country is we check out what the prices look like. I imagine they are functionally identical to Lithuania. Yes, I’m taking a whole parking spot. [Applause] Circle K is obviously like a more expensive place to shop than a grocery store. Oh my god. It’s like $2.30 for a Coke. This is like probably more expensive than America. You can get the cans for like $1.30 each if you buy two of them. Actually, no. I’m going to try some of their uh store branded coffee. Let’s see what they got for food. Uh they got a lot of Circle K branded sandwiches. Um, and I cannot read a [ __ ] thing. Oh, it looks like they have a little deli section. That looks like ham and cheese. I can see ham and I can see cheese. I’m not sure if I order them here or if I order them Hello. Can I get one of these ham and cheese sandwiches? Sub submarini. Yes. Yes. They’re heating it up in the microwave for me. Oh, check it out. They got a little little uh eating stand. They’ve got outlets here. Look at this. I think I could probably sit here and charge the batteries for a little bit. This is not a microwave. This is like an oven. Microwaves make bread soft. This is hard. Really good though. Okay. Circle K branded iced coffee. Oh, way too much sugar. Holy [ __ ] The Wi-Fi here is so fast. I’ve got to remember this. If we can charge up our batteries in like little gas stations like this, we don’t need to stay at a hotel every night. Like, I’ve never thought of Circle K as a place to sit and charge my batteries before, but this has changed my mind. I am genuinely annoyed with myself. If I would have known how good this gas station was before I left this morning, I wouldn’t have booked a place. We’d be charging the batteries in that cafe and we’d be sleeping in a tent tonight. I did get a new type of sour candy. So, we’re going to try that. [Applause] Um, they’re not sour at all. It’s basically just sugar. Yeah, I’m throwing it away. Not very good. Like not even sour. A little bit. [Applause] Continue on. Continue [Applause] for half a mile. Turn right. Then you will arrive at your destination. [Music] Is this the spot? Musa Paradise Spa and Hotel. This place was $61. [Music] I never know what to film when I’m staying in hotels like this. Like, I’m not sure what it is that I’m supposed to show you guys on camera. Like, you all have seen hotels before. You know that you go in there, you take your shower, you eat food, maybe you sleep, and then you wake up. I’m not sure how to include these in videos. I’ve honestly lost track of how far we are, how far we have to go. I know that we need to be in the city for the drone in like 2 days. Um, I’m not even sure how far away that is. Uh, I’m not sure if I’m just like lazy or if my alarm didn’t go off, but it is 9:00 in the morning right now. I wanted to be up at like 4:00. Yeah, a little bit later than I wanted it to be. God, I feel like this bag is going to fall down. [Applause] We’re going to get some breakfast at a local grocery store called Remy Mini. See, this is where we’re getting the drone from later. It’s a an Omniva lock box. Not that one in particular, but a system like that. Get some local fresh bread. We will get some meat and some cheese. Oh, the cheese has some jalapenos in it. Some jalapenos. And then we’ll get our Oh, it is so much cheaper at a grocery store than it was at the Circle K yesterday. This is $8.30. Actually, more expensive than I thought it would be. Like, I heard that Latvia is a cheap country, but I’m honestly not finding it to be that cheap. And it’s only going to get more expensive as we go up into the Nordic countries. Bread. The bread looks like an S. Jalapeno cheese. The jalapeno cheese was pretty good. Take the next right, then turn left. Now turn right. Follow this way for 1.17 miles. Take the next [Applause] Okay, this is not working. See if I can find another route. Damn it. And this bag is coming loose. [ __ ] hell. The bag on this side is perfectly fine. No problems at all. The bag on this side is just not doing good. I don’t have any good solutions, though. And the road we’re currently on has absolutely zero shoulder unless I’m driving on like the gravel on the side. Nope. This is the only route. [ __ ] hell. It’s super nerve-wracking because if I slip on this gravel, there are fast [ __ ] semis right to the side of me that’ll run me down. Okay. Nope. I actually do have an idea. I have zip ties and this is basically a loop. I think I can zip tie this to the top so that it doesn’t like fall down. Okay. Okay, I got to loop a zip tie right here. And then I will clip this into the zip tie. Now, when I strap it down, that will be just to hold it for the bike. There we go. Now, I don’t need to worry about it falling down and like scraping the ground because this will hold it. [Music] [Music] I wonder if this one will be as good as the last one. If it is, I’m going to charge the batteries here. Um, it looks smaller and less new. Yeah, I think the other one that we saw yesterday was an exception to the rule because this one is not as nice. Yeah, definitely not able to charge in there. Luckily, we’re only about 10 miles away from the capital city, Ria. And so, we can just stop at a McDonald’s there. We’ve probably only got like five or six more major cities left for the entire trip. Once we get to Finland and Norway, we’re not going to have major cities to rely on. Look at this. They made a bridge specifically for bike people. Whoa. Slow down. Slow down. Slow down. Hello, Ria. Then take a sharp right and continue on South Kella. I remember once upon a time I used to hate riding on streets like these. All the bumps, all the shakiness. Not as much of a big deal anymore. This definitely feels like the kind of place you don’t want to leave your bike unattended. Oh, but I did find a candy store. So, I’m going to leave my bike unattended. Let’s see what kind of sour candy we can find in here. Oh [ __ ] they got a classic. Okay, I’m starting to think that instead of being a candy shop, this is just like an American import shop. Look at this. They got Arizona iced tea. [Applause] They are about three times as expensive here as they are in America, but I guess that makes sense because they’ve got to import them. It’s a pretty good day. Okay, there is no way that we are going to be able to follow. Okay, there is no way we’re going to be able to completely charge them up, but I’m hoping I can get another like 30 or 40 miles out of it. Why is McDonald’s so popular out here? I promise it’s not this popular in America. Okay. So, I take back what I said. We are not getting the drone today. We’ll get it tomorrow because I’m not dealing with this. And the bike is dead. In 250 ft, turn left onto Austin. Come on. Just a little bit farther. Come on. Come on. Follow this way for 0.42 miles. Okay. I see a building. So, I think this place is actually real. Now turn left, then turn right. And she’s dead. I’m getting really good at estimating how far my bike is able to go. Like, we went 62.7 miles today, but my bike died with less than half a mile left to go. That is precise. We can’t check in yet, so we might as well uh get something to eat. I think the most surprising thing about being here is that it is not as cheap as I thought it would be. I really thought that Latia and Lithuania were like cheap places. Yeah, I’m pretty sure this is like $22. Now, don’t get me wrong. I understand that uh the later parts of this trip will be expensive. I’ve been to Norway. I know how expensive Norway is. I just thought that Latvia and Lithuania would be like the cheaper part of the trip. They might still be, but I thought they would be cheaper cheaper. So, I’ve decided that I’m going to start reading a book. It’s called Dungeon Crawler Carl. I don’t know what it’s about. I heard that it’s like Dungeons and Dragons or something. I wasn’t going to read it, but apparently it’s blowing up right now, and I’ve had three people recommend that I check it out. So, we’re going to read this book, and I will let you guys know what I think as the journey progresses. I finally realized why I’m having such a hard time getting up early, and that’s because it’s really hard to go to bed at a proper time. You remember how I started this? I wanted to see the sun that never sets. I’m starting to see a sun that never sets. It is 9:30 and it is still very bright outside. Like, this is when I would be thinking about going to bed normally during like the spring or whatever, like normal times. But now it feels like I need to be up for another like 4 or 5 hours. This is absolutely [ __ ] up my sleep schedule. Just a sec. I want to show you guys. It is almost 10:00 p.m. right now. Holy [ __ ] You know, I’m realizing it is very flat in this country. I haven’t seen any mount like you just get hills like that. It is very flat. Yeah. So, I’m just going to have to start forcing myself to go to sleep even when it’s still bright outside. Okay, that’s the end of our exploration. The mosquitoes are out. [ __ ] go away. There is a program in South America where they uh bring genetically modified Lazarus flies and they just like dump them over the Amazon rainforest. And they’re genetically modified in a way that they will have eggs with the females that are infertile where they can’t keep reproducing. And they just dump millions and millions of these genetically modified flies on South America every year. Why aren’t we doing that with mosquitoes? Who likes mosquitoes? God, [ __ ] go away. Yeah, [ __ ] you. Okay, at least it is dark enough in my room that I can probably go to sleep without feeling like it’s daytime. I did it. It is 6:00 in the morning and I am awake. That means we will have a lot more time to ride the bike today. I’m not sure if just nobody else is in the hotel or if I’m the only one awake. It looks like there is breakfast that was made specifically for me. Um, it looks like a potato salad. So, the plan for today, because we woke up really early, if we ride, we can probably kill the batteries by like 8:00 a.m. And then if we charge from 8:00 a.m. until like 1:00 p.m., that means that we can go for another 2 hours. We could probably go something in the neighborhood of 150 to 200 miles today, maybe. Assuming we can find a place to charge for 5 hours. Okay, let’s give this potato salad looking stuff. No, I’m I’m really sure this is just potato salad, but I’ve never had potato salad for breakfast before. Also never been fond of potato salad. I’m also going to take one of these uh granola bars for the road. It’s a little chilly outside. Okay, so we are headed to a town called Salang Greva to be able to pick up our drone. In 17 [Applause] Okay. Problem. This is the road it wants us to go down. And there is not a shoulder on this road. [Applause] And I get the feeling I’m not going to be able to reroute around this. Okay, I can reroute around it, but it means I need to go back quite a bit. Okay, I think I need to cross the road here and then come on. We just like snake through here. Then we need to jump this railroad right here. Let’s see how well this bike can do that. Another great situation for a drone. I need both hands on the steering wheel for this. So, you guys have to sit right there. Okay, now I got to lift up the whole back half of the bike. Hopefully, there’s no train coming right now cuz would not be good. Get back up here. My app is freaking out at me. It’s like you’re no longer on the route. Yeah, because you gave me a [ __ ] shitty route. Holy [ __ ] There’s the [ __ ] train. I was probably 45 seconds ahead of that thing. [Applause] Holy [ __ ] Okay, I got to breathe. That was so [ __ ] close. Uh, okay. Just breathe. Ah. Okay. God [ __ ] damn it. How in the [ __ ] am I supposed to get here if all of the roads are closed? I don’t think there’s a way through this. Even if I tried to go around this fence and go through this guy’s property, it looks like there is a river that’s cutting across here. And I don’t think he has just like a bridge to go to the neighbor’s property. I think I need to go back on that fast highway. I found that just up the street there’s like an actual bicycle crossing place for this uh train track. Should have used this the first time. I didn’t know about it the first time, but that was a very long and fruitless detour. [Music] Now turn right. I saw another one of those grocery stores, the Remy Minis. I want something to drink. Take a look at their bread section. Nothing seems interesting. Well, this is interesting. They don’t sell Coca-Cola. They sell Pepsi and they sell off-brand Coke, but they don’t sell regular Coke. Okay, well, I take it back. They just don’t sell it cold. 139. Oh, that’s expensive. Here we go. 65 cents. That’s better. I noticed on the ride over here that my other bag is starting to fall down now. And that’s because this piece right here broke. Both of my fork handlebar baskets have broke off already. If you’re going to get something like this, I don’t think you should get plastic ones. I can probably still make it work. It’s just disappointing. The bags do have these hoops on the front of them. So, if you weave the bands through them, they shouldn’t fall down. There we go. Super tight. [Applause] Okay. Hey, I just checked my emails. Apparently DJI is having problems sending the drone to the locker box. They It says, “Can you send us the complete address so we can check this issue? Let us hear from you soon.” Apparently, they did not think that the locker box was a valid address. So, the drone is not even there right now. So, that means the drone hasn’t even shipped yet. And now I need to decide if I want to wait here for them to figure out their thing on the logistics and then ship it or if I want to cancel the order and then have and then reorder it some future distance up in like Estonia or in Finland somewhere and then pick it up in the future. I [ __ ] hate trying to deal with mail in Europe. I did exactly the same thing for the second drone that I did for the first drone. It worked in Poland the first time, but it’s a problem here now in Latafia. Okay, [ __ ] it. I say we keep riding and we uh figure this out in the future. Apparently, this town right here is called Srrai. I’m pretty sure that’s the Baltic Sea right there. Just a sec. Let’s see if we can get a better view. Holy [ __ ] [Applause] It is a lot colder than you would think it would be. Like you look at this, you think it’s like beach, tropical. No, it’s pretty [ __ ] cold. That’s cool. I’m glad we were able to see that. I’m sure we’ll see it a lot more as we go, but that’s cool. So, just to give you guys some context as to how cold it actually is, it’s not like it’s freezing cold. It’s like it’s autumn. Well, I guess it is August. So, I guess it is turning into autumn. Okay, I have got to stop. It is too [ __ ] cold for this. We are breaking out all of the warm stuff. Now, if you’re wondering if I’m just going to change pants in the middle of the street, yes, I am. Okay, this is all of the winter gear that I currently own. So, if it gets much colder than this, we need to go to like a store and we need to buy like a puffy jacket or some [ __ ] It shouldn’t be snowing. Like, in my head, we’re doing this in the summer, so it wouldn’t be snowy and cold. I thought that because the sun is up basically all the time that everything would be really warm. I seem to be wrong. But again, we can just go to a store and we can get more supplies. Check it out. There’s a little campsite here. Let me see if the rules are in English and see if we can set up a tent. They are not in English. It’s also too early to be camping right now. I will say it’s really only cold during the mornings. Like right now it’s totally fine. This town right here is where we were supposed to pick up the drone from, but they haven’t even shipped it yet. So, I don’t know what we’re going to do. I just remembered I still need to find a way to get from Estonia into Finland. I’m pretty sure they don’t have bridges. So, my options are emailing DJI customer support hoping that maybe they will change the address to something that works for them or canceling the order and trying to send it to like a follower that’s in the area. I could cancel the order and have them send it to a follower that’s like farther up the route like somewhere in Finland. Um, I don’t like that idea though because the people that I would be sending it to I’ve never met before and this is an expensive drone. We can’t get lunch though. We’ve already gone like 65 miles. I think Circle K might become our new standin for McDonald’s. Hello. Can I get this and a submarine? They have Wi-Fi, too. Okay, I take back my praise. Um, none of their outlets work. I think they’ve disconnected them. And I only realized that after I purchased food. It is no longer cold. So, all of this stuff is going back. I think that we’re going to stay at a campground tonight. It’s about to rain and I don’t want to be outside right now. The first thing we need to do is we need to go to an ATM to get cash because campgrounds almost certainly will not accept cards. Here we go. Swede Bank. There we go. 200 in small notes, which is also good because I don’t think campgrounds would be able to break large bills. Heading north. Okay, Google Maps says there’s a campground about 2 miles away. Actually, I’m pretty sure the last time I tried to stay at like an official campground, I got [ __ ] kicked out. Oh, [ __ ] [ __ ] Albania, man. I picked this campsite because in the Google reviews, it mentions having electricity included. Okay, camping. I’m honestly not even sure if they have availability. Let’s see if I can figure out where to register at or just like where the information is. I’m looking at the sites and they doesn’t look like the individual campsites have outlets, which defeats the purpose. We’re not we’re not staying here unless we can charge the batteries. Uh do where do we register? Yes, campsite. Camp. Um where do we uh pay? Where do we sign? Oh, this is the kitchen. Nifty. And there is electricity. Fantastic. Perfect. Okay, so it cost €15, which is like $18, but he says we can put a tent anywhere we want. And the individual spots don’t have electricity, but he says he’s going to bring an extension cable out to us right to our spot. So, we will have electricity for the night. I don’t think they have Wi-Fi. I don’t think he knows exactly why I was so adamant that we needed electricity. Uh, he’s going to find out real soon. This seems like a fine spot to pitch the tent. I’ve never actually used this tent before, so this is going to be my first time setting it up. This has all of my camping equipment. Sleeping bag, tent, mattress, all that fun stuff. Oh no, it’s wet from the rain. No. Oh, I didn’t think that through. It’s okay. We’ll deal with it. It’s still daytime. I’m going to put it in the sun to dry. [ __ ] tragic. I got to be more attentive to that. Ah, I do not think I’ve ever smelt mildew quite as strong as what I’m currently smelling. God, I am dumb. But plus side, I learned this lesson on a relatively bright, warm day. This is much better than finding out that I’ve got this problem when it’s dripping outside and I have no other options. This tent does come with its own tarp. That’s cool. This is basically just a protective layer for the bottom side of your tent. So when you put your inflatable bed on top of this, there’s not like accidentally a rock or a stick that’s poking through. This is just like a protective layer. Looks kind of complicated. There’s a little triangle piece for reasons. Okay, that’s not too bad. That makes sense. And I think that we clip the tent on like this. And then it has a rainfly because I’m pretty sure it’s gonna rain. It doesn’t look like it’s gonna rain, but it always rains. And it looks like it comes on with just buckles. So, while I wait for all of our blankets and bedding and stuff to dry off, I am going to sit on one of these hammocks and I am going to read. I thought about going for a hammock instead of a tent. Um, but I’ve used tents before. I’m familiar with them. I didn’t want to risk it. The electricity is over here. I do have my own extension cable because that’s just the kind of thing you should carry. It’s not very long, but it’ll do the job. There we go. We’re good. €15 for that. That’s not that bad. In a different country, I might find those prices kind of steep. But if you look on Booking.com, a comparable tent, like a like a comparable campsite cost like $69 if they provide their own tent. So So by bringing our own tent, we saved like 50 bucks. While we have a second here, just going to take this little paint brush that I got, use it to clean off the dust from all my stuff. I’ve tried using like rags and like shirts before, but they don’t they don’t really get into the grooves that you need them to. I want to pay special attention to the suspension and all of the springs and components so that I can get dirt out of there and it doesn’t end up scratching anything. I’m going to try something experimental on the bike. One of the reasons I don’t have nearly as much range as you would think I do is because I’m not able to pedal because every time that I move my thing up, my knees hit the handlebar. I’m going to see if I can’t maneuver the handlebar a little bit to be able to move it out of the way so my knees can come all the way up. The first thing we need to do is we need to take off all of these accessories like my GoPro and my phone stand. This part right here is what I want to flip around. I want to see if I can turn that 180°. I’m just not sure if this is going to interfere with the basket. I can probably make that work. Okay, actually the basket is in my way. Uh, come on. Okay, I can just reattach it and then we’ll try putting it like that. There we go. I think that’ll work. That means that I do have more room for my knee to come up, but it means that I need to lean forward more. So, pros and cons, I guess. Now, I just need to reattach the basket, which is held on with zip ties. You guys would be surprised how often zip ties come in handy. Like, when I was first doing research for this bike packing trip, I heard people say how useful bungee cables are. No, no, no. Zip ties. That’s where it’s at. Okay, I think she is good. Let’s go test it out. Yeah, I definitely need to lean farther forward, but I do have full range of motion in my legs now. Okay, new problem. The seat doesn’t have anything to hold you in place. So, you end up sliding all the way forward rather than being like right here where you need to be. That like you end up just like being like right over top of it. Here we go. grocery store called Maxima. I should get food for multiple meals rather than just tonight. This is where our drone was supposed to be, but I think I’m just going to cancel the order and figure something else out because I don’t want to just wait here for the next like four or five days. They’re playing American country music. We will get some oatmeal. Oh, I don’t think this is in a bag, which means if it rains, this whole thing gets I needed to have like a waterproof bag on the inside. These probably have like a waxy coating that’ll keep them dry. Oh my god, I am dyslexic. And that is not what I thought that said. Oh, they do have some like readycooked meals. All I need is a microwave. And I’m pretty sure the campsite has one of those. We’re going to go with some Chinese food. What I’m thinking I want to do is I think I want to cut open the seat and I want to like cut out a divot in the foam so that it just like holds you in the right spot. But I’m not sure if I’m good enough to be able to cut out a section without like destroying the whole thing. I might want to go from like the underneath and I’ll think about it because at this point that’s the only problem the bike still has with pedaling. It is cold again. Let’s go pop this guy in the microwave. I’m sure there are cooking instructions on here, but I can’t read them. So, I’m going to say we’re just going to crack it a little bit, let some steam out, and cook it for like two minutes. More. Oh, that doesn’t smell very good. [Music] Um, okay. Update. This is not chicken. Uh, this is fish. [Music] It does look like it’s about to start raining. So, we’re going to pull all of our stuff into the tent. And actually, I’m going to charge the batteries in the kitchen. I saw that there was an outlet in there. I don’t want them to be out here charging if it’s raining. They’ll be safe to charge here overnight. Yep, it’s started. I don’t think I have anything on the bike. I think we’re good there. Yeah, probably. And now we get to get real comfortable because this is where we’re going to be for the rest of the night. [Applause] How am I getting wet? Like like water is splashing me right now and I’m not sure how. Oh, it’s probably my zipper. I got to I don’t know how to do that from the outside. I think it might be over. It was started like that and it just ended like that. Okay, we are good for the night. We are just outside of the Estonia border. So, that means that we are going to go from here. We’re going to go all the way up into Estonia and then we need to find out how to get like a ferry into Helsinki and then we’ve just got a whole bunch of riding through Finland and a little bit through Norway before we get to the top of the continent. We are probably 40% of the way done. Maybe 30%.