flying pigeon, decrepid tank: a one-footed feat
did i say that my bicycle rides like a dream? maybe 'decrepid tank' would be a more accurate description.
problems started one day into the trip when my bell stopped working. i didn't worry about that too much, though. then about a week or so ago my rear tube exploded. that happened inside a city where there are bike shops every few blocks. when i tried to leave gonguan four days ago, i noticed a horrible clanking noise coming from the front of the bike. upon closer inspection, i realized that the cups and cones on the front hub were far to tight, and had ground the bearings down quite a bit. i took the bike to a mechanic and came back the next day to find that he had managed to pop the front tube and break the front braking mechanism. he fixed everything,
though, and didn't charge me much so i didn't complain.
today was the real kicker. i was out of the saddle cranking hard up a hill. all of a sudden my left pedal snaps off under the pressure! i was 20 miles from the nearest town. ... i tried to lash my left foot to the crank arm, but that didn't work. so i lashed my right foot to the right pedal so
that i could complete a full rotation with one foot...
tonight i am staying in qinzhou. tomorrow i will ride to fangcheng, the last major city before i cross the border into vietnam.
lately i have been digging the tastey sugar cane here. it's like a thick stalk of bamboo. when you cut away the outer hard layer, there's a fiberous, stringy core, kind of like celery, but much denser. you tear off a chunk with your teeth and chew it to get out the sugary water, and then spit out the fibers. yum!
posted by charlie at Wednesday, February 01, 2006
1 Comments:
Charlie, we admire you for getting involved in traveling in foreign countries. You have spent 1 month already and seemed to have "survived" pretty well. When I worked in northern Japan I bicycled way out in the rice farming area around Misawa Air Base. I only spent the day riding my bike which may have been similar to yours. Mine was a coaster brake kind with a bell on the handlebar (I am talking 1970). Anyway I may have had a taste of what you are experiencing. I didn't know the Japanese language either. The railroad stations had mostly Chinese character signs and I couldn't make sense out of them. I have had to sit on the floor on an old railroad train because the train was too crowded. I have been following you on the map. Sounds like the monsoon season hasn't started yet. I am wondering how you are dealing with the weather. I wish you luck on your next leg of your trip in Vietnam.
James Walterscheid
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