February 15, 2025 to February 17, 2025
Day 136-138: Malawi border to Mbeya
Crossing the border was a bit slower than some other borders, but straightforward, by the time we worked out how to get into the building. Changing money was more fun, the touts and then the banks refused to accept the USD notes we were carrying. Not perfect condition, and too old (2017 and up is what they want at the moment - our oldest is 1998!!). One money changer would do us a favor and change them at 1/3 the going rate. Thanks, but no thanks. Luckily there was an ATM, unluckily it charged a fee (boo!).
Scenery is great around here. We've gone pretty much straight uphill for two days, then raced downhill into Mbeya. Hot and sweaty, but some pretty nice views from the ridge. The plant life has taken on another dimension, now that there is space to grow more than just maize, casava and sweet potato. We both love the sight of the odd familiar looking gum tree growing amongst the green. We have even spotted flowering callistemon.
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This is supposed to be the small dry season, but the weather made a point of raining on us twice.
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Mbeya is a big smelly city. Lots of traffic, even on a Sunday afternoon. We needed to go right into the city to collect our bike parts. Otherwise it would have been possible to skip the city (it's a small detour to enter the city). The DHL express parcel did work, despite the warnings we found online. Ours took 12 days from Germany, and we didn't get charged any additional import fees in Tanzania.
The reversed chain ring and cheap chain are still holding, so we'll just end up carrying the new chains & chainring for a short while until they're really needed. We've bought a few extra cheap chains as back-ups in Mbeya. We also tried to get some tubes, but no luck there. Luckily we had a couple sent in the DHL package, otherwise we'd be out.
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The Dunlop valve, (also called a Woods valve, an English valve or a Blitz valve[1]) is a type of pneumatic valve stem in use—mostly on inner tubes of bicycles—in many countries, including Japan,[2] Korea, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, most European countries, and a number of developing countries. The Dunlop valve has a wider base than a Presta valve, similar enough in size to a Schrader valve to use identically drilled valve holes in rims,[3] but it can be inflated with a Presta valve adapter.[4]
Looks like the best global touring rim would have Schrader/Dunlop size valve stem holes... Do you have a drill with you...
1 week ago
https://www.schwalbe.com/en/clik-valve/
I've seen (somewhere) rubber bungs you can use to pad out a Schrader hole to use Presta valves. Not that us low pressure, low speed, heavily loaded touring types get any advantage from any of the valve types - just use the one that you can get hold of.
I've been offered the drill solution a few times. I'll wait until I have no other options, thank you very much!
I still have a couple of spares, and have heard rumours that Presta valves exist in Dodema and Arusha. And maybe Nairobi. Fingers crossed.
1 week ago
Today's ride: 119 km (74 miles)
Total: 6,908 km (4,290 miles)
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