E-Bike!

Should I have been so excited?

I was up for breakfast at 0730 this morning. Then I started talking to a woman I’d mistaken for Kaytlin after sitting at her table on the terrace. There was a bit of small chat about cycling and it sounded like she had been a pro road cyclist in Germany. I mentioned the E-bike idea and sloped away inside, trying not to look too rude. Later on, when I was getting my bags out of my locker for my room move, she said she’d hired one and loved it. Then at 9’ish Kaytlin joined me, we had a quick good luck and bon voyage and she went on her way to Zermat. I’m thinking about putting that on my list too,

My bike for that day.

For photo oportunities my bike was great. I booked it with a helmet for £65. Fot that, I would have expected tyres in better quality. The shop said I could take it back for maintenance if I needed to.

First impressions were that riding it was harder than it should have been. It was very heavy, that bike position was not what I’m used to, and did I say how heavy it was. It definitely did the job and got me up the hills, but I didn’t really trust it on the loose stuff or up up one of the many tricky uphill sections.

It was great being out and having a look around. More planning was needed and I should have taken the chances to recharge. When I did take it to the shop for new tyres I decided to hammer up the hill and use all my three bars. The shop had put some charge in and I had three bars. Heading up the same way I’d ridden in the moring I started to ride Route 1 and taking on some steep loose stuff and failing. So, to the single lane roads that the Grindelwald bus follows. Up and up. The busses make a loud noise to let you know they are coming in your direction with some chance of stopping in time, if they really needed to. Then again, maybe not. One close shave was enough.

I was running out of power, and this bike is to awful to ride up an Alpine climb. Then it happened and I pushed to the top, knowing that I could roll down all the way to the bike shop. Which was where the bike was t it’s best. I had another 90 minutes if I wanted to hang around for a charge, but I’d had a good day aleady, despite my quibbles about the bike. Then to Avocado for a large lager at 6CH

What else happened? I needed to move rooms.

I’ll finish this in the morning.

The food in the hostel was good, but the smoke from the wood burning bar-b-que was awful. It wasn’t a good air day.Oh yeah! Changing rooms on the second night. Room 126 looked a little cosy, but I put my kit in there anyway. There were six berths side but side. When I returned, there were two slightly freaked out Korean girls. They had the room booked out with four others. It was all resolved and I moved to another large room with three bunk beds.

This did look wrong, but I thought it was part of the hostel experience!

That was my last night in the hostel. It was busy, and half full with Korean people on their holidays.

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