Quote from jayg on Dec 4th, 2015, 9:19am:Congratulations, Jim! Glad you were able to complete your ride. How were you able to overcome the language barrier when trying to get your velo's mechanical problems corrected?
Did you run across any straight, steep downhills? If so, what was the maximum speed you achieved?
Most people in Europe speak good to great English. Even those that didn't, in context of pointing and showing bad/broken parts could understand what I wanted/needed. Interestingly, like many bike shops, some where completely against anything not DF (and it showed in their actions and 'inability' to communicate at all) to those who allowed me to take their pic's by the velo after helping me out for free! My two police stops (one in Germany when I found myself on a highway and couldn't figure out how to get off, and one walking in the Netherlands also helped with directions) were very friendly, and both turned out to be very helpful, when they found out that I was a bike, and what I was trying to do.
The only fairly straight steep downhill (which of course introduced an up hill) was in the Benelux tunnel Rotterdam, the Netherlands (
http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2011/11/benelux-cycling-tunnel-rotterdam.ht
ml). It goes under Nieuwe Maas (New Meuse) river, and to get to it I had to put the velo in a large elevator at each end, which actually saved some of the really hard climbing. Not sure what speed I actually got up to but I do remember somewhere in the upper 30's (MPH).
On my commute home the other day I was in the low 40's, and it was quite fun. Even being buffeted by the crosswinds that were fairly strong, I can do in the 30's on the same hill.
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I've come a long way baby! (Read 4481 times)
