Sunday April 8, 2007
Darren’s bike has been gradually falling to pieces over the first two days of the tour and we needed to find a cycle shop to have a few spokes replaced in his rear wheel, he is also missing one of the bolts that hold the rack in place. A couple of welds on the rack have broken too, but that can wait until we’re back in the UK to get fixed. Today is Easter Sunday so we were very lucky to find a cycle shop open, but Mac Bike relies on tourists for their business and Easter is high season. They cannot fix the wheel today but we will be able to pick it up tomorrow morning, so it looks like Rotterdam will be another late finish.
We spent most of today walking around Amsterdam, occasionally popping into bars and pubs for liquid refreshments. It was another lovely sunny day.
Amsterdam, city of bicycles
…and canals!
Our host in Amsterdam Richie leads us to a cycle shop
There are about 700,000 bicycles in the city
A typical Dutch café
MacBike, we managed to get Darren’s wheel repaired here
More Dutch bicycles
Each year, about 80,000 of them are stolen and 25,000 end up in the canals