Olympic bicycle ride 2008

I had long planned to write an entry on dogs since these creatures are really our daily companions on the road, sometimes lazy-phlegmatic, often running and barking after us but never dangerous (at least up until now).
Being in Sinop, the birth town of Diogenes (the one with the tub, not D. Laertius, who was his biographer) gives me the excuse to draw a few comparisons between cycling and cynic ways of looking at things.
According to Diogenes, this is what dogs do:
Besides performing natural bodily functions in public without unease, a dog will eat anything, and make no fuss about where to sleep. Dogs live in the present without anxiety, and have no use for the pretensions of abstract philosophy. In addition to these virtues, dogs are thought to know instinctively who is friend and who is foe.
(from Wikipedia)
No doubt, long-distance cyclists have learnt the lesson: we are cynics!
(To be sure, not all dogs know to distinguish between friend and foe. I'm glad I took my three Rabies vaccination shots, the last one in Athens at a ridiculous price compared to what I had payed for the other two injections back in Finland.)

Event of today's rest day in Sinop: I received two brand-new wheels by Express delivery after serious safety concerns (see entry Challenges, part I) and I would like to thank the people of Winnora/Schweinfurt and Zweirad-Shop/Wiesmoor in Germany for friendly and quick assistance.