08 February 2009

Launch aborted

Bad news for all of you waiting for news of saddle sores: I've had to put my departure back a day.

To cut a long and technical story short: when I put the bike back together after the flight, the gears were playing up and after some tweaking I thought I'd fixed it. However, as I did some final fine-tuning on it this evening the chain started catching on the lowest gear and making the kind of noise that suggests the chain won't last too long if it continues. I'm almost certain I know what it is, and if it is that then literally it will be as easy as turning a screw to fix, but I can't shake the suspicion that it may have taken a bump on the plane, so I'd rather take it to a bike-shop and sell the basta... sorry, have it checked over by a mechanic tomorrow. A couple of google searches suggest it could also be something more serious so I'd rather not tinker with it for fear of making it worse.

Predictably, this has proved pretty demoralising. I wasn't looking forward to my first leg, but I was itching to get moving and get some momentum going. Then there is the issue of not knowing what's wrong with it (let alone being able to fix it). I knew I was no expert bike mechanic expert when I started, but to be defeated so early on does not fill me with confidence for the rest of the trip. Bus anyone?

2 comments:

  1. You can do it, Rodney! It's just another day you get to spend drinking pisco without worrying about the effects of dehydration.

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  2. I read this title as 'Lunch Aborted' and I panicked, I was thinking "Oh my god, something is terribly wrong!"

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