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Journal: |
I got up at 2:20am after 4 hours sleep, conscious that Sandfire
Roadhouse, my target for the day, closed at 7pm. In neutral
conditions I expected it to take a little over 14 hours which didn’t
leave too much margin for problems if I started too late.
Initially the riding was good, if a little cool, and I soon put my
jacket on. After about 20km, I heard a familiar “twang” and
discovered another spoke had broken on the rear wheel, also on the
derailleur side. Although I now had a freewheel remover, I
didn’t yet have a suitable wrench to use it with. I stopped in
the dark to see if there was anything I could initially do.
The wheel had buckled and was rubbing on the brake so I disconnected
the brake and continued riding. However, an hour later, while
it was still dark, I found a suitable spot to stop and decided to
adjust some spokes to reduce the buckle but it was too dark to do so
efficiently and I decided to keep riding to daylight. I then
stopped again and spent about 30 minutes making similar adjustments
to yesterday. All up I had lost an hour and now realised, with
240km to go to Sandfire, that I might struggle to make it by 7pm.
My problem was exacerbated by a brisk south-westerly sea breeze
which, while it took the edge off the heat (low 30s C), was a direct
headwind which I ended up battling into for the remainder of the
day.
There followed a very tough day, where I struggled to maintain an
average speed of 20kph, and ended up digging very deep in the last
50km, when already exhausted, to make it to Sandfire with three
minutes to spare. It is still using temporary premises (after
a fire three years ago), and had a limited supply of food and drink.
Two pies and an ice-cream for dinner plus multiple 600ml soft drinks
(6, actually) to rehydrate. Although I started out with plenty
of fluids on the bike, I began to think I had under-catered with
about 80km to go when, as if sent by the gods, a foreign family
touring in a campervan pulled up just ahead of me and asked if I
wanted any water. I said yes and they gave me a 1.5 litre
bottle for which I was very thankful.
I spent a lot of time during the day worrying about my buckled
rear wheel and when and how I would get it fixed without detouring
off my track, and also worrying about my prospects for continuing
the record chase. It seems that every day I have to dig very
deep, only for some problem to arise that requires digging even
deeper, all so I can have another day doing the same. I have
more or less decided to stick to a schedule that will get me home in
51 days for as long as I can. If for any reason this becomes
impossible, then I will back off to become a tourist and aim to
complete the circuit averaging, say, 250kpd, instead and trying to
make it a little more enjoyable.
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