Basel is a good place to be stuck for a day.
On Monday morning I found a shop that sold glue-on type tires, and they were not too expensive. So I spent the morning glueing two new tires onto the rims, and glueing all kinds of dirt and grease onto my hands. They are still a sticky mess as I’m writing this on Monday night, after spending all day wringing and washing and scrubbing my hands. At least I know directly how effective the glue is! The instructions say to wait at least 8 hours before riding, so that meant today would be a layover day in Basel. No big deal, the weather was expected to be cold, rainy, and windy. So in the afternoon I went over the river into Germany and visited the Vitra design museum. The museum looked interesting from the outside …
… but inside was just a bunch of funky chairs.
But what’s this? Mike Tyson’s likeness made with packing tape! (It’s a bit hard to see in my photo, but worth a squint)
Then I walked back through France, and thought about how today’s events might end up being representative of the trip as a whole: start in Switzerland with much bike maintenance and optimism, then briefly through Germany which was a bit different than I expected, and then wander through France trying to understand the language and to figure out which road to take. Here is the 3-country bridge that also makes a good symbol for this trip:
Tomorrow, onward to Germany’s Freiburg!
