Day 4
Alternating tail winds and head winds
More sun sun sun
First puncture. Inch long nail. Sorted quickly enough under the relentless sun...
Pyramid of Austerlitz. Closed but can still see it for what it is, which is a little pyramid.

Saw 4 teslas today, and a couple of other electric cars. Outside some very nice houses to be fair, but they could have just had BMWs

So much respect for bikes, cars always stop and give way, although i still don't trust that to be the case. Yes clearly this is not England, but after a lifetime of living with a national attitude bordering on contempt towards cyclists its hard to switch.
Also so many dutch people cycling. Oh yes captain obvious, but out in the country, groups of older people for pleasure, younger people apparently on reasonably long errands, etc, the rural post ladies, parents with multiple child seats attached which must weigh more than my luggage,
So many cycle paths, some of which seem redundant since they run alongside country lanes with no traffic...

Day 5 day off in Utrecht.
After the peaceful countryside, initially an overwhelming assault on the senses, you have to look every way 6 times to avoid getting run over by hundreds of bicycles.
Actually its reasonably logical and organised. Just a big change. Plus there are tourists yuck.
Bicycles cover every surface like barnacles. Where do you park? Every immovable object is already submerged. Seems most people just lock the wheel to the frame if that.
Fortunately the hostel has space in the back garden for peace of mind.
In the hostel. Electricity! WiFi! Not that I haven't survived thanks to old solar panel but have severely limited use to navigation only.
To do list activated. Web development.
Simple things, plagued by syntax errors which are harder to see on little screen. But the process works, and job is done of auto geotagging posts - provided use a compatible mobile browser like Firefox (not opera mini like I was using) and remember to actually turn the GPS on..... Doh.
Photo thumbnails seem to be broken though, may change to pull direct from flickr, although I think it was slow originally which is why I was trying to scrape them first....

Visited four bike shops, offered two second hand wheels for around 40 euros, but the dynamos looked and proved unsatisfactory.
So have splurged on a proper good one, hopefully will arrive in Amsterdam to coincide with me....
Still haven't booked Africa flights.

Tonight went to watch a canadian psychedelic rock band, including a sitar player name of "Elephant Stone", yes that was a stone roses song. Everyone else in the city busy watching Ajax lose to the scum in the Eufa cup.

Bike has performed wonderfully so far, feels good. Rode it briefly today without the baggage and it felt light and skittish, rather than the solid heaviness I've got used to. The weight is only evident when stationery, when moving it just feels balanced and unflappable, point it in a direction and its gunna keep going that way