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In Which I Am Shocked, Again
April 19, 2008 by Mike
Peniscola
I'm still here, then.
For a town I planned to spend 20 minutes in, I'm getting used to Peniscola. To waking up in my tent on the slightly misleadingly-named Camping Eden (did Adam and Eve have to borrow an electric drill to make holes for their tent pegs? I ask you!) To stumbling round the corner, showered if not shaved, to grab a strong black coffee for breakfast. To pacing the seafront road -- the same one that cost me the rear shock -- looking over to the castle of Peniscola.
In other words, it's taken a while to get the bike fixed. Not the "two weeks. Or maybe three" that I was first quoted by Michael and Paco at Moto-Sajo. But long enough. I've opted for non-original replacements on the grounds they're a third of the price; just as good -- I'm assured; and ready here and now.
Yes -- the new shocks are now on the bike. With no luggage on, I rode out last night and today rode 40 miles or so back to Castellon. The bike feels OK. Hard to judge until I get the panniers back on. Touch wood for me, eh? I went to Castellon to see Paco's stall at a vintage bike rally.
Bless 'em, there were other punters taking photographs of *my* bike. Which is two years old, even if it looks 42 years old. Which, I'd like to stress, isn't old at all. Not even middle-aged, really.
I want this bike.. or at least, it's paint-job.
Back to Peniscola.
Michael is German. He works in the bike workshop in the winter and sells perfume at the local hippy market in the summer. It's now spring, so he re-sized, prepared and fitted the shock yesterday, and spent today hawking Sandalwood, Mint and Patchouli.
I was a lot more help today than I could ever have been in the workshop. Two German tourists and a Spanish woman smell nicer today thanks to Mike "Snake Oil" With.
And I spent the evening boozing it up with him and his chum Olaf in a British bar.. but also in the hipster Spanish chill-out lounge round the corner. You haven't lived until you've spent the evening listening to Bike Mechanic jokes told by someone who *never* knows how to say the punchline in English. ;-) (Michael -- you were brave to try them. And *very* funny!)
Sadly, I either can't remember, or can't repeat in a family-friendly blo- I mean diary, any of his jokes.
--
I also promised a bit of info about the castle at Peniscola. Well, depending on yr point of view, you'll either be most impressed that it was the seat of the schismatic antipope Benedict XIII; or that it was restored in order to star in the Charlton Heston movie El Cid.
You might conceivably want to know that it was built by the Knights Templar. If you're interested in them because you're a fan of The Da Vinci Code, please click here. Heh.
It's a good-sized castle for a wander, even a clamber, but I can't recommend going out of yr way to visit it because the piped mediaeval musak is SO LOUD that you can hardly concentrate on the fact that half the exhibition isn't there (just empty spaces on the walls) and what remains is aimed at five-year-olds. And people who think The Da Vinci Code is a cracking good read. Sheeesh.
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