Late summer ride

Today was such a beautiful day that I simply had to ride my bike. Although I planned to ride my Zenetik Pro, I took my XP instead, planning to ride for a couple of hours. I decided to ride to the crossing of the canals, where very recently a watch tower has been put up . I rode along the towpath all the way up to Dessel where I climbed all the way up. The view over there is magnificent, a lot of trees and of course the crossing of 3 main canals.

While coming down from the tower, 2 elderly man where watching my XP which I had parked at the bottom of the tower. When I approached, one of them asked me : "We were just looking at your wonderful bike, but we can't seem to find the battery ! Could you please tell us were the battery is installed ?" I managed not to burst out laughing, but told them it was not an electrical bike at all. When they pointed at my rear wheel, I told them that is my internal gear hub. They both had a lot of questions ( like usual ) which I explained very patiently before I took off. I've had some weird remarks regarding my XP in the past, but never someone taking it for an electric bike before ! I think my hair must be turning grey ;-)

View at the canals

New fenders

Since I started riding my XP I have been looking for black fenders. I know Freddy Fenders are black, but not available here in Europe. SKS should have them, but I've never found them so far. Until two weeks ago. While on holiday in the Netherlands, we visited Emden in Germany for one day and in a local bike shop, I found a set of black SKS fenders.

They are a little bit wider than the set I already installed on my XP, which is perfect since I'm using big tires. So far, when riding on sandy surfaces, some sand and debris still gets thrown up besides the fenders, ending up between my legs on the seat (and probably on the chain too).
The new ones are a bit wider so hopefully they'll solve this problem. I installed the new fenders today, which was a piece of cake since I only had the change the fenders itself. The one for the back wheel is a little longer, which is perfect to keep the debris off my kickstand and off the chain.

Just a little bit longer is long enough ....

The result is just what I was looking for, more finished if you like. I sure prefer the black fenders over the silver ones, finally my XP is like I wanted it to be from the start !

Now if only that silver fork ....