Dirty Fun with the CX Bike

I've written about bike cleaning before. It's still something that I fail to do often enough. But since I've put some new tires on my (crappy) CX bike last week, and then went out to hit the Naxian dirt roads along the coast (from town to Agiassos), there really was some cleaning needed.

In difference to the description in that post, I didn't use WD-40 this time. Just water with soap. Maybe a bit more scrubbing was needed, but that was ok. Mostly I had to get all that sand and dust off. It was everywhere and it had gummed up anything that was oily before. Water and soap worked quite well for that. I can't claim that the bike is totally clean right now, but just "good enough for me".

As for the dirt cycling itself: I had a great time. I should write about the new tires (Continental Cyclocross Speed, 35mm) another time when I have a bit more experience with them, but so far they rock. They are perfect for the dry, hard dirt roads that are common here on Naxos.

It rained in September

Looking back at the month of September, a few things come to my mind. One of them is my friend Borja and family coming for a visit, which resulted in many visits to the beach and a good number of rides. Another is the slow passing out of the tourist season on the island. And then there is the first rain after the summer (early morning on the 20th). It was as if our galician friends had brought a little present of rain with them. The last time it rained before that? I think it was May, but maybe I'm wrong and it was in early June.

In any case it has been months. Given that the last winter was very dry, with rainfall levels way below average, there is a big water problem on the island. I've described in another post (in German) how we had a few weeks with water outages.

Jokingly when we talked about the rain, I had said that when it starts raining finally, I will go out on the street and let myself get rained on. In the end, the rain fell during the night. I woke up and when I heard it, I smiled, but I was too sleepy to go outside. Everybody is hoping for more rain as soon as possible, so maybe I'll get my chance for "singing in the rain" then.

Astrid from Azalas has an excellent article about Urginea maritima, a plant that is (amongst many other interesting things) said to be an indicator for coming rainfall. The fields on Naxos have plenty of them right now. I'm really hoping those legends are true.