I was thinking about going around Vilnius this time. It is a wonderful city with many faces, not too posh. Uzupis especially is my favourite part of town, even though I’ve stayed most of the times somewhere near the bus and train station. That’s due to the convenience, as I’m often passing through, either with my bike on the bus towards Tallinn or to spend fabulous time in Belarus, the Soviet Disneyland.
My reason for going to Vilnius was that I had overlooked cheking my brakes. I have Avid’s mechanic disc brakes, which work just perfectly. Until recent day, when the rear brake kept noise and didn’t really work anymore. So, the bike maintenance tour to VIlnius.
I left my homestay in Maisiangala quite early in order to be on time to the bicycle workshop. I had googled the Velovilnius and called them asking if they can fix my bike. They asked me to bring the bike there and see what they can do; they don’t have the brake pads for disc brakes, but they would get the parts from some other shop.
On he way, I stopped at one bicycle shop and went asking their offering for brake pads. They had one pair left, so I bought it. After some navigation and hassling, I reached the Velovilnius. The bicycle mechanic had a look at my bike and said that it’s enough to change the rear pads so that’s what he did. It took surprisingly long time, but he also checked other things with my bike. He also adjusted the rear derailleur, which I hadn’t asked, and unfortunately not well, as it was ok before but not after. The cost of all this fun was 12 € for the brake pads and 18 € for the work.
Meanwhile it had started raining. I had thought of taking a train to Trakai and go camping there, but instead I decided to try Vilnius Downtown Forest Hostel and Camping. To my bad luck, I ran into some cyclists right after I had checked in, and took some beer before I even got my tent pitched. There was a pause with the rain, so I could pitch the tent, have a shower and prepare for the dinner. It was a joy to chat about cycling and try convincing non-cyclists to try out. We agreed upon the meditative qualities of cycling and talked about which songs run in your head for all those hours on the road.
So, the result was that I was actually quite shaky in the next morning. It was rainy, too, so I decided to have one more day in Vilnius. I went for a walk, bought some food and enjoyed the day.
Kristiina Ullgren 