Road to Ukraine – Day 18

Not one, but two security checkpoints by armed Ukrainian Gaurds

good morning everybody we are going to go ahead grab some breakfast and then hit the road back to spar and look at this we’re here early in the morning so all of this stuff is hot and fresh it looks like they’ve got like Bagel Bites they’ve got pizza hot dogs oh my God there’s so much interesting food here look at this freshly buttered bread they’ve got like cherry pies okay I’m happy with this I just got an absolutely massive amount of different types of food I’m also going to get one of these coca-colas with coffee I know I sugar in it but they’re just really good in Armenia they had one of these with zero sugar in it that was the that was the okay now we have the supplies I need if I want to camp it’s technically illegal here in Ukraine because there’s a curfew but now I can actually eat and drink while we’re at a campsite the first thing that I want to try is those little things that look like Bagel Bites these guys so it’s it’s like an English muffin with cheese and meat on it H okay actually I think it’s just a small version of the pizza I just looked up the exchange rate $760 for all of this oh hey the buttered bread is full of I think that’s like cranberry sauce okay let’s store this stuff for later and then hit the road okay we have 110 mies till we get to laiv the weather is looking a little dicey we’ll have to play this by ear now that we’re staying on main roads the roads are in significantly better condition they’ve even got the reflective lights to let you know that there’s a turn coming at night definitely have a military checkpoint now hello hello where are you from America and how you go with it bicycle bicycle bicycle I’m trying to get to KV how about this where are you go KV K uh first L and then Kev okay have a nice good day thank [Music] you okay I believe this is a cafe I’m definitely down to charge the batteries and try climbing that mountain yeah we already last two bars it’s been an hour I also have to edit and post yesterday’s video not a cafe I think that’s a cafe where’s the front that’s a bathroom where’s the front door to this place uh that’s a bar actually yeah not what I thought it was like I looked at that it looks like K A and then like an fish thing and an E I thought that spelled Cafe I do need to find a place with [Music] Wi-Fi I think that was the fastest I’ve ever gone on an ebike we were clocking 70 km hour that was fun another thing this asphalt is wet on my last bike anytime I was riding on wet roads I was terrified I was going to end up sliding out this bike is totally comfortable like not even worried at all these clouds are looking real [Music] rainy I see awnings so I think that means that this is a restaurant [Music] God I get those brakes fixed oh it is a restaurant cool um let’s get something to drink um I don’t have anything sugar free let’s try some of their some of their smart Cola I guess yes electric electric yes um I don’t speak Ukrainian I’m [Music] sorry so I ended up paying a lot more for this and she was charging but I’m totally fine with that because it helps the people out they have Wi-Fi too they’ve got Outlets what a fantastic place no I feel really bad so you come over here and you see they’ve got this full like full thing they’ve got chicken and meat and soups eggs and they’ve got all of this food and nobody has come in here yet like they made all of this food and nobody’s eating it I feel like it’s all going to go to waste I can’t really help with that but I can order something I can eat some of their food I’m not sure what any of it is though I know what eggs are okay let’s go I really like that place I Got a notification today that Tik Tok is allowing me to upload 30 minute Tik toks does 30 minute long video so that means that I need to do less editing I can just take the same video that I post on YouTube and just move that over to Tik Tok but I’m not sure how effective that’ll be because again 30 minute Tik toks I don’t know I’m not even sure if I want to keep investing in Tik Tok because of the Tik Tok ban I left a bunch more money on my table um I’m not sure if tipping thing I’m not sure if tipping is a thing in Ukraine but it doesn’t matter I’m just glad I can help him out I might have left too early because it is starting to rain we have 43 mil to go till we get to the next major city and we’ve got full battery so we can probably make it I don’t like this rain though I’ve decided to increase my speed because the roads here they’re so okay the roads here are great these roads are in perfect condition so I can afford to go faster and I know that we’ve got full batteries so I’m not worried about range exit the roundabout on N1 laviv up ahead continue on N for 18 miles we are making fantastic time we’re 14 miles away from the next city from the next like major city the reason reason that we’re making such good time is because we’re going a lot faster than we normally do normally we go like 16 to 18 M hour now we’re going 27 to 28 mph hello I have a passport for you where’s your helmet I don’t have a helmet why um I’m a YouTuber it makes things look weird that’s the stupid reason but that’s the reason okay okay I should to tell you that you need to wear a helmet oh this is a bike yeah this is a elect bike it’s an electric bicycle yes this is not a motorcycle how many watts in Gant has 750 for the motor uhuh no bro good luck we good yeah passport cool okay appreciate that thank you so much told me that I should be wearing a helmet when he thought it was a motorcycle as soon as he found out it a bicycle he’s like oh yeah okay that’s fine he was concerned about the amount of Watts that were in my motor I lied okay ladies and gentlemen I believe we are heading into our first major Ukrainian City this town right here is called Stree it’s got a population of about 60,000 at least Google says it had a population of 60,000 back in 2020 I’m I’m not sure if that’s changed since the invasion actually so I’m trying out Google Gemini right now that’s Google’s new AI thing all I had to do is ask it what is the population of the town I’m in right now and it was able to figure out where I am and I don’t know I’m impressed I didn’t need to specifically tell it the city that I’m in I think that this is a good time to talk about laws because I’m sure some of you guys are curious if what I’m doing right now is actually legal the officer he asked where my helmet was because he thought I was riding a motorcycle and in basically every country a helmet is required if you’re going to be riding a motorcycle but in most countries that’s not the case for a bicycle as soon as he found out this is a bicycle it was fine the second thing he asked about was the wattage of the motor a lot of countries they’ll have restrictions on ebikes based on how powerful your motor is I’m pretty sure in the United Kingdom for example the strongest motor you’re allowed to have is 350 Watts my my motor is 1,000 Watts so my bike would not be legal in the UK but those laws are kind of Toothless because there’s no way for a police officer to know how powerful your motor is without hooking up a multimeter and I any police officer could actually do that to a bike like this mostly those laws are to inform what manufacturers are allowed to make like if the UK says that no bikes more powerful than 350 watts are allowed nobody’s going to be selling ebikes that are stronger than that in the country so it’s less about uh preventing you from riding a particular bike and more about stopping manufacturers from creating strong ebikes long story short this is legal here in some countries it would be illegal but nobody would be able to enforce that the Netherlands for example I know that in the Netherlands all of this is illegal the bike is too powerful you’re supposed to have a helmet everything about this is illegal so we are not going to the Netherlands it is not even 5:00 p.m. we traveled 45 mil in less than 90 minutes that is a fantastic Pace but you’ll notice the batteries are almost dead after 45 mil you would think that they would last longer than that right like you’ve seen them go 80 why are they dead at 45 before I tell you why going fast reduces your range I’m going to pause and I want you guys to leave a comment about why you think it is it’s super unintuitive there are a couple reasons why going fast would reduce your range one of them is chemical batteries like to be depleted slowly if you take a bunch of energy out of them really quickly they’ll lose some of their efficiency but that’s not as important as the other reason the biggest reason why your range goes down when you go super fast is because of this right here this is your gearbox this is your transmission this is what helps you pedal each one of these gears that you have is for a different speed so one right here this is for when you’re basically standing still and then each one of these things you switch up as you start going faster but there is a maximum speed here this is like 18 M an hour after 18 M an hour your pedals just Spin and they’re not actually helping Propel you forward what that means is that if you’re riding your ebike at 25 M an hour you’re going too fast for you to be able to Pedal your pedals are just spinning and not doing anything if you’re going slower your batteries are able to do a little bit of the work and your legs are able to do a little bit of the work but as you start going faster you put all of the work on your batteries and your legs aren’t able to do anything I am looking for a room that has a washing machine I don’t see a picture of a washing machine here but it says that this room has one and it is $13 a night so I think we’re going to give it a shot we will wash our cloth today and then tomorrow we will take our bike to a car wash it is surprising how many people you see in military uniforms I imagine they’re just like off work just like going home on I forget what military people call it but I don’t think that they’re like active on duty right now it’s is crazy how many of them are currently wearing camo uniforms I have to pay for this anytime I’m making calls like this it costs money hello hello do you speak English no uh booking.com yeah I’m pretty sure cost me like 20 cents a minute hello oh perfect $13 for a private room fantastic let’s go find this washing machine it said there was one they are charging $4 for each load of laundry you want to do they definitely did not mention that in the booking they don’t even have a dryer it’s just a washing machine that is more expensive than doing laundry at America still $13 is a pretty good price $13 is basically what you would pay for a hostle I should probably find a place to put my bike we’re in a large enough City that I should pay more attention to that actually I could take this to a car wash now pull everything off the bike put it in the room yeah let’s do that why put off to tomorrow what we can do today I can’t remove these two bags because they’re zip tied on but everything else has coming inside okay let’s go get this guy clean I have to leave this battery on there because I need that to move the bike around but I will take this off when we’re spraying it the car wash is about a mile away here we go so it says they accept 200 150 20110 I don’t think I have any denominations that small actually yeah I’ve got thousands let me see if I can find somebody that can break a thousand nope yep they are all the same I have too much cash crazy okay let’s go to a gas station buy something cheap and break the Thousand they don’t have any sugar-free drinks do you speak English thank you you can have the coke thank you she wasn’t able to understand me that uh I wanted a hot dog so I just bought a Coke instead but they don’t have zero sugar Coke so I just gave the coke to the kid standing next to me I do have a bunch of cash now though I think the coke cost like 50 okay we’ll put 100 in which is like $2.50 let’s see what this buys us in terms of car wash 100 okay so it’s able to read it um I don’t want to use soap I just want water because I don’t want to take any of the lubrication off of stuff I just want so I think bubbles is soap so I think this is [Music] water that’s kind of powerful I’m going to stand back oh let me take the battery off first we do not want this getting wet okay don’t fall over [Music] look at that doesn’t that just look better and we only used half of the time so that means that it still cost us $2.30 but we could have got away with this for like a buck we will want to add more lubricate to the chain God I’m so happy with that looks so much better now the only problem with cleaning your bike like this is that this makes it look better which means people are more likely going to want to steal it from you whereas if it’s covered in dirt and it looks like somebody’s used it a lot it’s a lot less likely to get stolen let’s make sure it still works look at that perfect so much nicer this has been a productive day we’ve gone almost 60 miles we got the bike cleaned yeah good day I do still have some food up in here it might be soaking wet who knows oh no they’re in plastic bags they’re dry we’re good we got the hot dogs we got pizza we get to have a little hot dog pastry not a single scientist was able to replicate ponds and fleshman’s results and So within just a few weeks up to the room to go edit the video okay I just found a bug on the bed I don’t think it’s a bed bug I’m pretty sure it’s like a beetle but now I’m worried hell