The first part of the ride today was not as hilly as yesterday. A few 10%'ers but not one right after another. After a coffee break at Hartville, we took a short detour to avoid road construction, during which we hit the hardest hill of the day, 14%, and not as short as we would like. But we got over it.
We saw two wild turkeys this morning, and three more later on. We also rescued four turtles who seemed intent on joining their cousins as roadkill. A final wildlife note, we had a glimpse of a large black mammal which may have been a bear. Or maybe not.
At midday I called ahead to the nearest bike shop, in Farmington, to alert them we'd be there Monday morning for work on our bike. Besides the problem with the front derailleur (we're stuck in the small chainring) we developed a new problem today with the shifter for the rear derailleur. It would shift to larger cogs OK, but started being reluctant to shift down to smaller ones. The problem got worse and worse until we were stuck in the largest rear cog, which meant we could climb hills, of which we had plenty this afternoon, but could pedal only when going 8 mph or slower. The prospect of spending the next three days like that was discouraging. We started having thoughts of ASAP finding a town with Greyhound bus service (forget finding a car rental place) so we could take the bike to a city with a shop.
When we stopped for lunch at Bendavis, I looked at the shifter and realized that the two shifter levers, which should move independently, seem to be dragging on one another. It looks like a lubrication problem, but I couldn't get it to free up. The shifter mechanism is complex, and I wouldn't think of doing surgery on it.
Back inside at lunch, we had a long chat with the convenience store's owner, who ended up not charging anything for our pizza, on the grounds that the day was getting late and he was going to throw it away anyway. What you know about basic economics may not be precisely true.
Before we left the lunch place an old farmer came in, and as always we got talking about our bike and trip. He said with a great deadpan, "I got a call that my dog was chasing a guy on a bicycle. I said it couldn't be my dog because he doesn't have a bicycle."
Back on the road, I discovered that I could reach my right hand backwards on the left side of the shifter, hold the large lever with my fingertips and pull the small lever with my thumb, and get it to shift to smaller cogs that way. Awkward as can be, but what a psychological boost to find a work-around for our problem. Forget the Greyhound bus.
With today's 69 miles, we are near the 2/3 point on our trip, depending on what we choose as as a final destination on the east coast. We've logged just about 200 miles for the last three days, but there are convenient stops at about 45 miles for each of the next three days. Not too long, especially when I can shift at least some of the gears.
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