Long days on the bike gives us lots of time to pontificate the meaning of life and entertain one another with dumb what if questions. A classic has been, “what if our bike breaks irreparably?” Would we buy single bikes and continue on? Return home? Continue the trip by backpack/bus? Set up shop in a cool city and take Spanish courses for a few months?
Thankfully, we have not ever had to answer that question. Mark has spent countless hours maintaining our bike to keep it runnable, but since we decided to ride a clown bike for seven months through Latin America, we have of course had some problems: broken spokes, bottom bracket bearing failure, freehub failure, drive train fatigue (we have gone through dozens of chains, a few cassettes and a few chain rings), and a slew of other nuts and bolts replacements.
Still, however, with only two weeks remaining, we saw one of our most challenging bike problems yet. Our front rim cracked about 25 kilometers after leaving Chos Malal, Argentina. We had taken note of the rims thinning from the rim brakes way back in Peru, but decided to hope for the best, knowing that the terrain here in Argentina was flat and would require much less braking. This has been true, but apparently we found the straw to break the camel’s back, as our rim failed on a flat road under our normal load. Mark noticed the irregularity in the front wheel quickly, and we didn’t crash or pop a a tube.
Instead, we pulled over and started hitching back to town. We found hitching surprisingly easy. Two cars stopped that were not able to give the three of us and our bikes a ride, and then a large truck stopped, the driver on his way to pick up a load of lumber. We piled the bikes and our bags into the empty back of the truck and loaded in the front, where we enjoyed some chit chat with Lucas, the driver on our way back to Chos Malal.
We returned to town where we had left just a little over an hour before. The owner of the hostel in town kindly permitted us to return for another night, even though she had already washed our dirty sheets. We were glad to have a place to get our bearings straight while we waited for the bike shop to open after siesta (an Argentine tradition that we are less than taken with).
When four o’clock rolled around and the bike shop opened up, we were glad to find that they had any options at all for our 26” rim brake wheels (29” disc break is the standard). We bought the best rim they had that also worked with our hub. The rim was expensive but does not look to be very high quality; the spokes were cheap, and look cheap.
Mark and the owner of the bike shop surmised we might be able to reuse our old spokes, so when we returned to the hostel, Mark initially tried to build the new wheel with those old spokes. He took apart the old wheel, and then laced the old spokes and hub into the new rim. Only after using our multi tool to tighten down every spoke, Mark discovered that the old spokes were too short and that he would need start again with the new ones.
Since it was already 10 pm when Mark had taken apart the wheel for the second time, we decided to call it a night and pick up the next morning. Thus, by the time Mark had finished the new wheel and gotten the tire bead properly seated, we were not on the road until 12. Noël has been patient with our bike antics, and we have certainly enjoyed having a fresh perspective on the more challenging logistics of bike touring.
We were glad to be riding again, and the repeated kilometers felt surprisingly easy even the second time around. Mark and I have been anxiously inspecting both rims daily. The new rim is not built with the quality parts we would have picked given any other option, but it seems to be holding up. Our rear rim is in similar shape as our front one was when it cracked, but the shop did not have the parts to build a new rear wheel, so we are once again riding on hope: hope that it will make it until May 2.
Back into the desert of Argentina, we have found the riding the last few days to be surprisingly pleasant. Dry conditions and mostly favorable winds have made for good riding. We are very excited to be leaving the desert behind as we have finally arrived to the mountains of Patagonia. The glimpses of snow capped by peaks over the last week has built the anticipation. Today we arrived in Junín de Los Andes, and we are starting to see some of the real mountains this part of the world has to offer; we will look forward to more views soon.
-Nic