Highstronaught
I think you can host on warm showers for free without paying the membership.
I was happy with the bikes, only issue we had was my gears had 2 major failures throughout the trip, one just as we were leaving Edinburgh, towards Dunbar and another next to a canal in Belgium. First one was where my chain got caught on my front chain rings as I was changing gear, this pulled the tensioner all the way forward and broke a bit off of it, it still worked but was never quite the same.
The second time the bearings in my jockey wheels fell apart and locked it up solid, had to take them apart and use tape to fill the gap until we could get to a bike shop. First picture is how it looked when I took the jockey wheel off the bike. Second is what was left of the tape after 15 miles of cycling with it.
As for the bags I think I will re make them at some point to include some of the things I wish they had (bigger opening, slightly thinner etc). I liked the roll top and how they were attached to the frame, also having a small hole for a charging cable was really useful.
As for future rides, a tour around Scotland is definitely going to happen at some point. I would also like to do northen Europe again, maybe following more bike routes and at a slower pace so we cam see more things. One reason we tried to stay off th main routes is to increase our chances of warm showers hosts however that didn’t work as we got none anyway.
Made a new post here: https://feddit.uk/post/16250811
Wrote some more here: https://feddit.uk/post/16250811
Started in the north West of Scotland (trying to not doxx myself too hard) went to see a friend near Edinburgh and stayed for a few days, then to York, via a town between Birmingham and London to visit my girlfriends parents (she was riding the red bike (a Specialised Hardrock)) then through London to Kent to see my parents. Then after a stay in the most run down hostel I have ever seen we crossed at Dover to Calais and then cycled up the coast to Brugge, then to Amsterdam, then to Hamburg and finally Szczecin. We had planned to go all the way to Warsaw but we have run out of time, wanted to get the train but they are all fully booked so are taking the flixbus instead.
Writing all this out makes me think about making a better post about our entire journey
Does it talk about fixes, I.e proportional representation, stv, etc?