We are in low spirits, dear readers, as we reach you tonight from Unity, Oregon. Calamity befell us 20 miles east of here when Bonesy broke a spoke on the drive side of her rear wheel. We each carry spares, and they're easy enough to replace... when they're not on the drive side. For that (this) you need to remove the cassette, which requires a special wrench. Judging by the tone of this post, intuitive readers, do you think we have such a wrench? Of course not, which is stupid. So anyway, thanks be that this happened in one of the two towns we rode through during today's 65 desert miles: we just happened to be in front of the Nicest Lady in the World's house. TNLitW gave us cookies and drove Bonesy and her bike to this campround. She also invited us to church tomorrow morning, which we declined.
Then the people here were really nice and offered to take us to the nearest real town on their grocery run tomorrow, but one of the two shops in that town just closed down and the other's owner's out of town. So tomorrow they're going to take us to Mount Vernon, where we have tentative Warm Showers hosts who might, we hope wildly, have the tools we need. Otherwise I might hitch it into Bend with Bonesy's wheel -- we're just not sure. It's frustrating that even with so many people being so willing to help we're still kind of screwed.
Also, I'm bummed out that at least tomorrow's leg is going to be by car -- it grinds my gears that we'll now have ridden Almost the whole way from Burlington to Crescent City. It felt, too, like we were building some good momentum after my convalescence: today we broke into Pacific time, passed the 500 miles-to-go mark, and did some fun climbing out of the hot, flat, and boring "Treasure Valley." At least tomorrow is a vacation day, kind of.
Ride on.
Hi! This is Stacey (Rachel's husband), your potential warm showers host in Bend.
ReplyDeleteI have the very tool you need. Is there any way you can ride the bike with the missing spoke? I have an old touring bike that lost a spoke in the mid-90s, I've ridden it that way ever since. If you can make it to Bend with the wheel as is, we can fix it when you get here.
Hope you guys were able to limp to Bend's Warm Showers host. unbelievable to me, a non cyclist, that she has the tool you need. So sorry you have had to readjust expectations.
ReplyDeleteAny updates? Bike fixed?
ReplyDeleteHope we get an update today since the above 'Disaster Strikes' entry. Talked to Jessica last night - - and they have biked up/down crater lake over the weekend, and are now in Crescent City!
ReplyDeleteUpdate coming! Honest!
ReplyDelete