21/10/24
The rest day had taken a different direction before it had started. We’d had a late night and obviously Jonathan was keen to get his wheel sorted and found it hard to sleep in.
We did have a lovely cup of coffee though courtesy of Gabi’s machine, it was a nespresso but probably much better. We’d researched heavily to find the best bike workshops to get this weird and unexpected problem sorted asap.
Trying to avoid more problems we stashed the green surly in our accommodation on top of a tarp to keep it safe. With caffeine pounding through our blood we headed into the drizzly weather we wanted to hide from and walked towards town.
The first bike shop we wanted to go to was called Rad Ab and it was around 50 minutes away. We made sure to be early so as to be first through the door when they finally opened, at what we thought was a late 10am.
They opened perfectly on time and we went in with hope in our hearts. The mechanic, who we presumed was experienced from his age and demeanour, was shown the problem and quickly said a new wheel was needed. Having feared the worst and being prepared for this we accepted this diagnosis and he headed out back to find a new wheel. He returned moments later with a QR wheel. Puzzled that he couldn’t tell the difference we pointed it out and he shook his head bluntly. One could be ordered for 3 days time. He suggested we go to Magno round the corner.
Magno was shut. It wasn’t according to google but a newly erected sign said it was now a rest day. The next destination was the bike shop behind the hauptbahnoff. It was another 20 mins pavement pound.
The mechanic here was curious. He identified it as a good bike and the fact it was new gave him pause for thought. He said he would look right away and we could see him popping the bike on the workstand as we attempted to give the receptionist guy our details.
Less than 5 minutes later the mechanic came out with the bike and said having taken the wheel off and putting it back on that it now worked. We asked him how that was a possible fix and he simply said in a blasé way that it must have been either too tight or too loose. Not being convinced but not sure what else to do we paid €16.90 for him to take the wheel off and put it back on, and felt fairly ripped off.
After test riding the bike we called the bike shop where it had come from in Cambridge to get some advice. They confirmed our suspicions, if it had happened already it would happen again. We headed off to Schicke Mütze, an expensive slick looking operation not far away to see about a new wheel.
The guys there were very friendly, but with a standard German air of defensiveness, and one of the mechanics said he would look at the wheel for us. We were a bit apprehensive of being ripped off further but allowed it to proceed, with a view to wanting a new wheel.
It wasn’t long before the competent mechanic had opened up the hub and found there to be entirely too much of the wrong grease inside preventing the pawls from popping up in the ratchet mechanism. This would have happened at manufacture. He degreased and put the proper stuff in before reassembling it for us taking around 30 minutes. All for the princely sum of €30. Talking to the guys during that time they had a good philosophy.
Phew, it was fixed. Triumphantly we set out to peruse the town, albeit in the drizzly rain. It was a nice city and as Siggi’s son had described it was very clean. Well almost, on one of the plazas there was an actual pile of shit by a bin. Weird.
We looked for a little walking tour and discovered the city, the black surly now complete with a familiar ticking of the hub that for some reason we hadn’t noticed was missing. There was crappy fake German stuff next to one of the old castles which was sad. We overheard an English guy saying how good the bratwurst was. Everyone in Germany smokes, well obviously not but a lot of people do. They’ve also recently legalised cannabis, not for sale but for personal usage and there are head shops popping up. Also, people are generally quite smartly dressed.
We found a delicious bakery and bought a loaf of bread for dinner called a Schwarzwalder along with some broccoli, tomato and some German style sliced vegan meat. We headed home, as the rained picked up, feeling fairly demoralised and were once again reevaluating our life choices. Perhaps the bikes were too much for our journey?
We revitalised ourselves by taking a nice hot bath and eating dinner. We then watched Click (the Adam Sandler film) although it was punctuated by the tv running out of memory and crashing when it tried to play crappy Milka adverts.
We did get to bed nice and early. We were going to take it day by day and see about getting to Köln tomorrow. We’d found a nice host on warm showers and were hoping to see the city first as well.
Surly They Won't Make It 