Mon 12/14/09 1:20 pm

Day 9

Location: Busted rear rim in Hamilton Tx

Comments:

Well I’d gotten 350 miles without a showstopper but it caught up with me in Hamilton. This was where lack of planning for an emergency showed up. What I should have done was just take a deep breath and think for about 5 minutes – I would have realized that the only smart thing to do was to call the closest bike shop that carries Trek bikes and just order a new rim and gear cassette and have it next day UPS’d to me at the Hamilton post office….. but I didn’t do that….. at least not right away. I thought maybe the rim could be welded up – which in retrospect was pretty stupid! Live and learn – anyway I met a guy named Sam Seale at the Ace Hardware store that offered to try to weld it up for me. We loaded my bike and backpack in the back of his truck and rode out to his shop 4 mi south of Hamilton and he tried to braze and then weld it but it was just too thin. I finally realized a little before 5 pm that I needed to call a bike shop so I called Rising Phoenix Adventures – talked to John. It turns out there are 2 different rear wheel gear designs that are used – free wheel and cassette – which I never knew before and it’s not real easy for a layman to figure out what is what. Long story short I didn’t call in time to get the rim out in the mail on Monday so I had to lay over in Hamilton an extra day. John UPS’d the rim to me and it came in on UPS @ 11:15 am Wednesday morning. Through the kindness of a lady named Shawna at the Post office, I got a ride from the Post Office, back to the motel to pick up my backpack and then 3 miles out of town to Sam’s shop. I put the tube and tire on the new rim and was back on the road by 1:30 pm Wednesday. This was another example of needing the Internet because I had to rely on family members with busy schedules to shuttle the information to me which was just not the right way to do it. Next trip – have a list of bike shops along the route and a way to access the Internet – let’s see I think that’s the 2nd time I said that on this trip – do I detect a pattern?