I struck camp and ate breakfast pretty quickly. Then I headed to an unoccupied campsite with an electric outlet where I had plugged in my power bank battery last night to vampire electrons all night. Then I headed to the campground bathrooms before I hit the road. When I down shifted before stopping, my rear derailleur shifted right into the spokes of the rear wheel, broke and wedged itself between the spokes and frame of the bike. Not the “Good Morning “ I was hoping for this morning. This was bad.
I decided I needed to remove the trashed derailleur and chain so I could at least roll the bike to a bike shop. The closest and only shop was 4 miles away and didn’t open till 10:00 am. So I decided that my best course of action would be to roll my bike to a coffee shop to wait.
After ordering coffee and a pastry and finding an outlet to plug in my phone, I called the bike shop and left a message. Then I messaged the two Warmshowers hosts in town to see if they knew of any other alternatives to the bike shop. I got a message back from Dave saying he worked at the bike shop and could come pick me up in the shop van, saving me the 4 mile walk. A half hour later he was there and we loaded my bike in the van. At the shop, I unloaded all my bags off the bike so it could be put in the repair stand and they let me stow them in a corner of the shop. I think Dave may have jumped my bike up the work list of bike repairs and the next thing I knew he was working on it! It definitely needed a new 9 speed derailleur and lucky for me they had one in stock. Dave also tightened the spokes on the back wheel, trued it and straightened the derailleur hanger. He was having trouble getting the indexing of the shifters to work with the new derailleur and needed to start working on other bikes. I told him I understood. He said he would work on it when he had time in the schedule later in the day. I went for a walk about to find some food.
Around 3:15, Dave sent me a text saying my bike was ready. He had decided that the indexing in the derailleur and the shifter were not compatible so he switched my shifter to work as a friction shifter, a little more work for the rider to shift correctly but it should solve the problem and get me down the road. Dave at The Ski and Bike shop in Grand Forks, SD saved the day for me. Thanks!
Dave offered to take me out for dinner after he got off work but I wanted to get down the road so I thanked him but declined. I rode the 4 miles back to the campground and by then it was apparent we were going to have some weather blow in. After looking at my weather app, I decided it would be prudent to wait to get on the road and that the public library was the place to do that. While waiting Dave the mechanic messaged me and let me know I shouldn’t get on the road because of the weather (tornado watch) and if I hadn’t eaten, we could still go get some food together. So that is what we did. It was nice be able to visit some more with Dave, he has done some epic bicycle touring, has a kind soul and has led an interesting life. Hope you can pull off that Icelandic bike tour in the near future Dave!
I finally got on my bike and rode out of town at 8:30 at night. By 10:00 I had covered 12 miles and it was very near dark. A roadside rest presented itself and I decided it would have to do. The mosquitos were epic! I imagined that if they all decided to try to fly without taking their Proboscises out of me, I would levitate.
Slow and Steady 
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