- Spokes (beyond counting; once broke 24 on one trip)
- Flat tires (ditto)
- Shredded outer tires (once went through 14 in a single year of touring, before getting Schwalbe Marathons)
- Handlebars (hilarious slow-motion break as I sat waiting at a traffic light)
- Pedal (had to take a taxi out of Nagorno-Karabakh just to find a new pedal)
- Front chain rings (gears)--most recently in Przemysl, Poland
- Chain (worn many out, but broken them too)
- Derailleur (destroyed one in Bulgaria that required a couple of bus rides to find a new one)
- Bottom bracket (several)
- Frame (cracked and rewelded previous frame in Kyrgyzstan)
- Braze-ons (the little rings that allow you to screw racks onto some frames)--broken and rewelded in several Caucasus towns
- Wheel rims: on this trip and at the end of my Balkan Blitz too. I need to have a bomb-proof 48-spoke tandem rear wheel built, I think
- Headset bearings
- Pedal cranks (had to have them hacksawed off recently in Switzerland)
- Saddle (ever tried riding 70 km with no seat? Luckily it was all downhill)
- Rack
- Rack screws
- Front forks (OK, bent but not actually shattered--yet)
- Seat post (again, bent rather than shattered, but once you bend it it's pretty much useless)
Showing posts with label Belarus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Belarus. Show all posts
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Beautiful Baroque Cities and Charming, Unusual Belarus
Kaunas, August 7
I am stuck in Kaunas, Lithuania's second city, for couple of enforced days off. Two days ago, as soon as I arrived here and set up my tent, my long-suffering freewheel, the bit inside my rear wheel hub that lets you coast without pedalling but then start accelerating when you start pedalling, died. It was actually kind of funny; one moment I was pedalling along, and the next my legs, pedals, chain and back gears were all spinning madly, but I was slowing to a stop. Within a few seconds, my bicycle was now an expensive and uncomfortable scooter. I scooted back to the campsite, and the next morning walked into town with my rear wheel and a spare hub that I had bought in Slovakia when I first realized that the strange noises I was hearing were presaging the demise of the freewheel. I was lucky that this happened in a biggish city in a cycling-mad country, rather than (say) in the middle of the forest in Belarus. I found a bike store that is apparently, as I type, rebuilding my old wheel (rim, gears, spokes, brake rotor) around the new hub. I hope it all goes to plan, and that at 10 am tomorrow I will be ready to ride out of here, fattened up on beer and Lithuania's great contribution to the world of beer snacks, deep-fried rye bread. Having lost two days of riding, I will have to modify the end of my route and skip the west coast of Lithuania in favour of a straight cross-country shot north to Riga.
I was actually, in a way, pleased that the freewheel broke, although I hate the loss of cycling time. This more or less completes my career grand slam of breaking things that can be broken on a bicycle. Here's a more-or-less complete list of different broken bits over the past 21 years of cycle touring.
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