Current Location: Wanaka, Aotearoa
The parallels to the Pacific Coast at this moment in time is frightening. I feel somewhat like Icarus, each time I try to go to the highest point of my ride the wheels give out on me. I started the hill with a rebel yell, I was really looking forward to conquering the hill and it was shaping up to be a great day of riding. It was to make up for missing Leggett hill on the Pacific Coast and I thought it would make for an interesting challenge. I made it up the first two-thirds of the hill with about 2k left in the climb, then it started when I would peddle the rear wheel would just spin around the axle. My first thought was uh-oh not my axle. I then looked at the road and there was frost on it so I quickly attributed it to that since I was still in the shade and I thought the wheel was just slipping on the road. I got off the bike and walked it to a sunny part of the road and let the tyres warm up in the air. I get on the bike again and start peddling with the same result, only this time I look down at the rear wheel and the spokes are in the middle of the axle, not on the outside of the axle like the should be and I am now wobbling around like crazy on the rear wheel. As I get off the bike I realize that I somehow unscrewed where the spokes connect to the axle and there is no chance of me walking the bike to the top of the hill just so I can ride it downhill (most of the remainder of the days ride was downhill.) So out popped the thumb, I waited about 15 minutes before getting a ride. I disassembled the bike and stuck it in the trunk and made it to Wanaka yesterday. The bike shop can only find a 36 spoke replacement since they can’t find any axles of the 40 spoke variety which leaves me worried, hopefully the weight I’ve lost can lead to an easier time on the axle. I’m now stuck here until Sunday when they expect to get the part to me (they can’t get it to me Saturday as there is a huge mountain bike race going on here.) I guess my biggest concern is that Wanaka is the last town with a bicycle shop for the next 500km (approx) So if the wheel does fail me then it will either lead to me backtracking to Wanaka or having to hitch to Greytown which I really don’t want to have to do.
As people have been telling me there are worse places than Wanaka to get stuck which I sort-of agree with, I’d much rather be cycling rather than having to have my bike fixed though. Other than that Wanaka is another Queenstown, just half the size of it which fits me much better than Queenstown. I stopped by Arrowtown on the way to Wanaka yesterday and it was the definition of quaint, it’s an old mining town and they are in the midst of their autumn festival, the hot chocolate there was excellent.
Getting stuck here gave me a good excuse to upload some pictures.
A Nice ending to a long trek