The Nepalese curse on our bicycles continues 15 th February 2009 After the fun of my bike frame breaking the day we entered Nepal and the next couple of weeks of trying to sort out a replacement we finally transferred all the parts from my first frame on to the new one, serviced the hubs and replaced some bearings, cleaned everything else, tightened everything and replaced the chain. Once it was all done there was this feeling that everything wasn't quite right with the gears. I played with them loads, messing with the adjustment screws, checking everything, changed a slightly worn derrailleur cog and then because the chain kept slipping when I put loads of force on it I noticed that some of the gearing cogs on the rear wheel were heavily worn so I got some new cogs thinking that I'd solved the problem. But there was still the feeling that something wasn't quite right. I finally decided to try a different mechanic in Kathmandu not because Sonam from Dawn to Dusk wasn't any good but because I wanted some fresh eyes to see the problem. I ended up showing Harry from 'Himalayan Mountain Bikes' the problem and luckily he spotted it almost straight away: the rear derrailleur hanger , supplied on the new frame by Koga was slightly bent and this was creating the gearing issues. Luckily for me he had the only Park T ool derrailleur bending tool in Nepal and we managed to straighten it quite easily. Watching him work was fantastic, he was a man who loved bikes and it showed, he was so careful with everything. We set off for Pokhara and the bike seemed OK, a little different, but then the new frame made it feel slightly odd, so I wasn't really bothered. We got to Pokhara, went trekking for a few weeks and then set off on the 5 day ride to Bardia. On the first day I noticed that the rear brake wasn't working pe rfectly , but with the generally flat roads of the Terai and long distances to cover in short days I j ust ignored the braking pro blem. We were cycling for 7 constant hours, arriving as it got dark, eating and falling asleep almost immediately and the last thing I wanted to do was service the bike. On the third day I got two punctures in the wheel and decided to have a better look. Much to my horror the rim was coming away from the rear wheel. I sat cursing Isabelle for making us cycle over the craziest road in the world in Pakistan – the Shandur Pass with it's 50km of rock instead of road. In the end we decided that there was nothing we could do so I marked the edges of the crack with duck tape and we cycled another 120km. At the end of the day the crack was 5cm longer. Over the next few days the crack reached about 20cm, the rim was so far away from the wheel that I had to disengage the rear brake. We limped into Bardia down the 13km of dirt road that approaches it grateful to have arrived still riding the bike. Under the rim tape 4 of the spokes had big cracks around the spoke nipples...the wheel wouldn't have done much more on dirt or poor surfaces. Luckily we'd kept the card of the amazing mechanic Harry from HMB in Kathmandu, he had a real Mavic rim and after hassle with finding a way to pay him, he put a new wheel with a new hub and 9 speed gearing fitted (we weren't sure whether we'd be able to remove them with our tools) on a bus and sent it out to Bardia. The bus should have arrived at 3am, so B took me to the main road on the back of his motorbike at 2.30am and we sat in the dark and waited at the army check point that checks vehicles for wood smuggling out of the park. By 4am the bus hadn't arrived, so we woke up one of the guys from a little tea shop who gave us some dried meat and made us some milk tea. B slept on a bed, while I looked for the lights of the bus in the distance. At 5.30am it finally arrived, almost on time by Nepalese standards and we retrieved the wheel and headed back to bed. We dismantled the broken wheel, kept the hub and the almost new 9 speed gears and gave the rim to a little kid to play with..he was delighted! Luckily the bike is now absolutely fine all the little issues seem to have vanished, there are no slightly strange noises, nothing wrong at all!! And anyway we've left Nepal now so things are bound to be OK. The irony of it all is that the roads in Nepal are pretty good, yet the only problems I've had have been inside Nepal's border s.
