Regarding Broken Spokes

It usually goes something like this:

Fixing a broken spoke in Big Sur

We are riding through some gorgeous stretch of highway in rural Mexico, somewhere green and beautiful. Little kids laugh and play soccer around fruit stands on the side of the road. The sun is shining, birds are chirping, and right as you begin to think, "My, isn't this lovely," a bright, twangy, metallic pop cuts through the dense jungle air and sends a wincing shiver up my spinal column. That snap is agonizingly familar to the Riding for ROMP crew. That snap means my bike has broken a spoke...again.

Fixing a broken spoke in Baja California

Like myself, many of you following this blog are not completely fluent in bike shop--a terse, highly-tecnical vernacular used primarily by tattoed bike mechanics--but fortunately for people like us, wheels are one of mankind's simple machines, and most all bicycle wheels work like this: in the middle of the wheel you have the hub, which is connected to the outside rim by a series of intertwined rods holding whole thing together. These are the spokes. Alone, they are just small, metal spaghetti sticks you can bend easily with your hands, but if you string them up together and tighten them correctly, they create a wheel that is both lightweight and strong. Strong enough to, say, bike to Guatemala.

Fixing a broken spoke in Manzanillo

The problem with spokes, or I guess my problem with spokes, is that from time to time they break and have to be replaced. I have broken and replaced twelve (12) so far on this journey. There is a long, painfully repetative process for fixing them, and at this point in the trip I could do it blindfolded.

Thanks to these breakdowns, we have continued south down the MEX 200 highway in hurried spurts, riding the sign wave of spoke maintenance (biking through Jalisco--high; spoke breaks--low; fix spoke--high; road with coastal view--higher; break spoke--new low). Even with the continued bike problems and that uneasy feeling in our guts that all could turn sour at any minute, we were still riding through some of the most beautiful coastline on the planet, so we did our best to enjoy ourselves, you know, for ROMP. We soaked up places like Puerto Vallarta, with its touristy-yet-still-worth-it malecon, and Barra de Navidad, home to world class waves and awesome people like Enrique, the shirtless mountian biker who gave me a lift to the nearest bicycle shop just because I spoke Spanish. All over this amazing country we find beauty in the places we visit and the people we meet. But, of all the great people who have helped us, Carlos is by far the coolest in the history of planet earth.

After a record breaking day of dissapointment (4 hours on the road, 3 broken spokes, 2 blown tires, less than 20 miles), Greg and I limped our way into an unexpected dot on the map with a few hotels and a bus station to Colima, a city 100 km inland with a bicycle wholesaler. After only being in the town for 20 minutes Greg finds me and says, "Grab your stuff, we're getting a ride." It seemed as though a local hotel manager named Carlos, a complete stranger, had offered to drive us to Colima in his pickup and help us find the parts to fix our bikes and get on our way.

During the course of the car ride we learned much about our new friend Carlos. In addition to owning a beachfront hotel in Cuyutlan, he also had a spacious home in Colima and operated a farm where he grew mangos for export to the United States and Europe. During the 1980's, he founded the University of Colima's agricultural program and taught courses for decades. Carlos, it seemed, was the man, and he came through for us in a big way.

The bike shop in Colima did not dissapoint. It turns out Carlos' friend used to ride professionally and knew the bike wholesaler in town. The place was an oasis of quality, professional grade bike parts, which we eyed greedily as we skipped through the building like kids on Christmas morning. Elated and relieved, we solved all of our gear problems in one fell swoop, and the next morning Carlos drove us back to the coast, free of charge. Cheers to you, Carlos, wherever you are. You are a prince among men.

Blog update on the spoke-breakage-free Michoacan coast forthcoming.  

Riding for ROMP and the guys from the bike shop. Carlos is the baller in pink.