There was a stiff breeze in the night and also first thing in the morning. I put a hoodie over my T-Shirt and thin fleece and was not overheated. I didn’t hang around as Stephanie had expressed a wish to join us on the Early Walk at some point. Having told her the timetable, I thought it might be kind to stick to it so we were walking towards the Promontory for the first time just after 05:30.
One motorhome occupied the beach car park and I don’t remember if there were others along the beach road. The moon is almost full so there was plenty of light. The moon was heading towards the western horizon so it wouldn’t last long. We hit the beach car park at 06:00 and were back again having walked to Plakaki and back by 06:30. We completed the final Promontory walk and were back at the van just after seven. This was by design as I’d had a late call from Sue at Inter Sport about access to their former POS system and something to do with their Access database.
I was able to complete my brain exercises as well as deal with these problems all before 08:10 whereupon I left for the top of the mountain on my bike.
Today, the bike battery was full so I was able to see what the maximum voltage was on the bike dashboard. I have yet to completely decipher the instructions which are in Chinglish. The English itself is quite good just that it doesn’t actually mean anything. I feel certain the translator was very proud of his work but it was against the rule that states you translate into your own language. There is more work to be done to get all of the bike’s controls working as I would like them. The motor and controller function perfectly just not quite in the way I want them to do. For example, the throttle is supposed to provide a gradual increase in power not just all or nothing. More experimentation is required.
It was windy going up the mountain especially as I turned the corner. With the old setup I struggled to make it round the corner when the wind was strong. Now that I can access the full power of the motor thanks to the new controller, I can easily make progress against the wind no matter how strong it may be. The road is slightly less strewn with dross so I was able to make my descent more quickly.
In Paleochora, I passed Frank and Stephanie who were going off for a long walk somewhere. I guess towards Lissos but this is pure speculation. I didn’t stop elsewhere and went back to the camping and brought my bike into the compound to put it on the decking for later. The plan being to put on the front hydraulic brake, the thumb throttle control and the new handlebar grips to replace the twist throttle.
After tea and all the other mundane tasks such as feeding the dogs, I decided to change the front bike brake for the new hydraulic one. The operation is much simpler than for the rear as it’s not necessary to thread the plastic pipe through the frame. The only slight complication is that the existing adaptor has to be reused and put on the right way up. I also wanted to bleed the rear brake as I was sure it had air in it which entered when I installed it.
I was called away by Maria who had a man coming to collect the old card machine. I’m not sure how long she’d had the new one but he needed to take away the old one. I’m very pleased the machines don’t just end up in a massive heap of broken kit and all the accessories are reused. She decided she wanted the new machine on the desk which required swapping over the ethernet cable to the switch. Not that hard as I’d left it coiled up when I removed the faulty one. Nevertheless, the whole operation probably took much of an hour as nothing is ever as simple as it should be. I went raving mad and put through a transaction for €0.10 just to see that the machine was working. I was ten times more generous as I usually make it only €0.01 (one cent). The processing fees are greater than the value of the transaction. Maria mentioned some customers who’d been asking after me. I went down to their van but no one was around. The price of fame!
I went back and completed the brake bleed, swapped out the front calliper and lever as well as install the thumb throttle and new grips. Looking at the original brake pads I was surprised how much remained after more than 6,100km. I went up the hill by the greenhouses to test it all out.
The day has been pleasantly warm for working out on the decking although the wind was occasionally strong enough to blow away my foam kneelers and other small items. It is a lot more chilly now that the sun has disappeared. The doggy rice is done so I have a deputation of waggy tails!
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