Day 119-128: Lilongwe to Nkhata Bay

January 29, 2025 to February 7, 2025

It’s not all about the bike – until it is.

We both have Rohloff hubs, but the frame Stephen has (Surly Troll) has a way to move the rear axle / hub horizontally to tension the chain (no chain tensioner / derailer). This means you can see the chain wearing. The chain gets saggy, so you slide the axle back to tension the chain. There have been a few times that the chain wear rate has seemed excessive (I’m looking at you Namibia with your sandstorms). But we’ve been occasionally tensioning the chain, even though that is a painful activity with this frame and moving on. We didn’t expect what was to come.

In Lilongwe we started to look around for a replacement chain and chain ring. Not surprisingly we couldn’t get the chainring I am using. It’s possible, though rather expensive, to get an aluminium chainring with fewer teeth. We started to look at alternatives. Cath has contacted most of the bike shops and then half of the expats in East Africa by now on Facebook / Instagram / WhatsApp to see if they can help. The bike shops can’t. I thought we had relatively standard bikes apart from the fancy hub. Chains are common. But replaceable chainrings: oh no. I didn’t even ask if they have a rear sprocket to fit the hub (I have carried a couple of spares of these knowing they would be impossible to find).

Long story, short: we’ve ordered the parts we need to keep going from an online shop in Germany. Sent them to our friends in Germany (thanks Stefan and Sabine!). Where to send the parts in Africa took us several days to decide. We’d originally planned to send them ahead to Kenya (~2000 km ahead) using a more sanely priced DHL delivery option and pick them up when we arrived. One thought was to have a holiday in Germany and collect them (skiing anyone?). The bike stepped in and changed that.

Riding out of Lilongwe we had a full day of rain. The chain felt relatively clean being washed by the rain all day. The next riding day was along the lake, and the road is being reconstructed. Some parts smooth asphalt, other parts dirt. And when it rained, which it did, some parts were thick goopy mud. We tried to keep everything clean, but it wasn’t possible. Even got sprayed by mud from passing cars. With hindsight we should have waited for the road to dry out. On this day Stephen’s chain ‘stretched’ visibly, despite using most of the drinking water to try to clean the chain. The hub was already as far back in the frame as it could be (it is so far back, it has slipped out a few times and slightly damaged the hub). We figured the chain was stuffed, but with care we should still be able to make it across Tanzania. A couple of days later the chain skipped a few times when standing up (putting in more power). Uh oh. We backed off the speed and power. The following day the chain was skipping every few pedal strokes. Drat.

Walking through the market in Simla looking for bananas...too late

Stuck in a village church while the storm passed...they sat here like this watching us for about 15 minutes

Last few kilometres into Nkhata Bay, Stephen was pushing uphill and rolling downhill. The chainring was done. The teeth looked like shark fins (that’s very bad). Only done 6500 km on that drivetrain.

Nkhata Bay is a large village, basically a tourist village (we even found banana & chocolate pancakes). For sure it has no bike shop that can help. I found a cheap (6 speed! Heavy duty!) 1/2” x 3/32” chain in a hardware store. As a temporary, very optimistic, likely futile, effort, we’ve reversed the chain ring (which is not meant to be reversed), reversed the sprocket (which is, but is worn well past the point of needing a new one) and fitted the cheap, cheap chain. It has gone 1km without gear pedalling very slowly and kind of works. Tomorrow, we go 1000 m uphill. At least we can push uphill if need be.

Do you think they have the part we need in here?

The could be worse places to work on the bikes

After all of that, the new chain is being sent (via very expensive DHL express) to the closest town in Tanzania, about 450 km from here (several long days of pushing, or a relatively short ride in the back of a truck!). And should arrive in 3 days (yeah, right!). We have our fingers / toes / everything crossed that they just arrive in a week or two.

This has taken most of the attention away from what should have been a very pleasant roll north along the side of Lake Malawi. This is one of the best roads we’ve been on. It’s relatively flat, and relatively good road. There are some potholes, but they are easy to miss on a bike (motorbike and cars may disagree how great this road is). Best part: there is almost no traffic. It’s been great! And friendly people. Luckily, they’re friendly, they’re everywhere. They all call out “Mazunga!” (foreigner!) repeatedly. Which gets a bit annoying, but they have a smile when they do it. It sounds nasty, but it seems to be meant well. Even when they ask for money, they’re not disappointed when they don’t get any. It seems like “give me money!” is as much a greeting as anything else (to the obviously filthy rich, or at least plain filthy, cycle tourists who are riding past).

We rode 2km off the road to stay at this 'resort'...I guess it's low season.

Bread truck! So exciting to find this... especially as we approached from the front of the truck. And just because it says bread truck on the front, doesn't mean it's still a bread truck

Local snacks...I'm not sure if they are supposed to taste stale...let's just say they are not as good as cheezels

Flame tree lodge. As the only ones staying there it was pretty peaceful

Another puncture...yep, a bit of tyre wore 🙄

After all the excitement of fixing the bikes, doing battle with the DHL website (to force a three-line Tanzanian address, with no street number, into the one-line German website form), eating, finally seeing other tourists, we needed a little lake-side holiday. We haven’t moved for 2, no 3, days 😊.

Cath has healed. The eye turned out to be nothing – probably some dust. The road rash hasn’t been repeated (touch wood) and is scarring up nicely.

Paying 4x the usual rate for mangos as it's the end of the season. They still end up being 10c each!

Breakfast of champions, and people who wan to have a heart attack...fried everything.

Today's ride: 432 km (268 miles)
Total: 6,476 km (4,022 miles)

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