April 12, 2022
To Uzès
First the good news
We have a fine buffet breakfast at our hotel this morning, Hotel Estelou. It’s a conversion of the former train station, as is obvious looking around. A bright space on a sunny morning, it makes an attractive spot and way to start the day.
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Our ride starts beautifully, on the smooth asphalt bike path to the outskirts of Nimes. It’s the route we were planning anyway, but we were reminded of it last night by a surprising chat with a fellow hotel guest outside our room. A Londoner, he’s just heading home after being down here for about ten days for the cycling. He’s pretty stout so I assume he’s talking motorbikes, but no. He’s definitely a cyclist and has been enjoying riding the hills with a friend of his, a triathlon competitor. He warns us that we’ll find the hills in Wales to be an interesting challenge.
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Our big hope for the day is the bike store seven miles out, right on the bike path. From its website it looks like a candidate for picking up a new Garmin, but no such luck. They sell GPS devices but only carry Polar. We at least pick up a handlebar mount for the cellphone, and once we install it we’ll use it until we score a win on the Garmin quest. As we leave the chief mechanic follows us out to check our rides and ask about our journey. Nice guy, even if he doesn’t stock Garmins.
Back on the bike path, after a mile I stop for a look at an attractive arched footbridge beside the greenway. I lean the bike against the railing and walk across the road for a better look. When I return though, something’s off with the bike. The end of the derailleur cable is rattling against the spokes. I must have bumped it somehow leaning the bike, so I bend it back out and spin the wheel to validate it’s clear.
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Rachael starts up and is almost out of earshot when I bellow to her to turn back. The bike won’t shift, and when I look again I see the derailleur is bent in, possibly broken. We turn around and pedal fast back to the bike store, which closes for lunch in a half hour.
We’re in luck. The guy (Jean Paul, he’ll later tell me) drops the bike he’s working on and throws mine up on the rack for a look. After a minute he shows me the problem - it’s not the derailleur, it’s the attachment to the cable that’s bent. He straightens it, spends another ten minutes tuning the adjustment, and pronounces it good. He won’t take anything for the work, but points to a piggy bank and suggests we make a small deposit so I go out to Rachael to pick up some change.
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Back on the road, it all seems great. We leave the bike path in another two miles and turn north toward Uzès. There’s still thirty miles, but we’ve plenty of day and conditions are ideal. We have a short switchback climb out of Clarensac, but otherwise it’s a flattish ride until we come to the final climb into Uzès - not bad, but a mile long that steepens to about 10% at its worst.
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2 years ago
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Then the bad news
So is it true then that bad things come in threes? Does that mean that once we get past this one we’ll be back to smooth sailing? Or did Team Anderson finally exhaust its reservoir of unreasonably good luck and this is the new normal now? Time will tell.
My derailleur started skipping on the final short climb into Uzès. I suddenly couldn’t get into my lowest two gears but labored up in the next lowest one, relieved when the curve of the road started bending before I did. Four blocks later though there was a pop and the derailleur bent inward and scraped against the spokes again, as it had this morning. Broken.
Rachael thinks I hit something crossing over a curb cut, but I’m sure not. I think the sound she heard was just a piece of the device snapping off under tension, possibly set up for this from my efforts to pull it into gear on the climb. likely it all stems back to whatever I did wrong stopping for a photo of that damn footbridge.
In what counts for a kernel of good news at least, we’re less than two blocks from our hotel when it breaks so I can just walk there, the bike rasping embarrassingly from the sound of the derailleur scraping against the spokes.
In another good news/bad news twist, the best bike store in town is less than 200 meters away. I leave Rachael at the hotel with all our belongings and noisily walk the bike over. I’m immediately rebuffed at the door though. They’re a specialty shop, they take work only by appointment, and they’re booked solid for the next two weeks. She directs me to the other bike store in Uzès. It’s just 300 meters down the same street and they have a mechanic, she informs me; so I walk on.
The 300 meters is actually more like a mile. It’s all downhill though, so I detach the derailleur, strap it and the chain up and out of the way, and coast. The Giant store is open, the mechanic is in, and will look at the bike. When he does though he doesn’t like what he sees. He’s never worked on a derailleur like this, and it takes a while to decipher what he’s trying to tell me. It boils down to this: if we can get the derailleur he’ll do his best to install it but can’t guarantee the work because he doesn’t really know what he’s doing (honesty which I appreciate). He suggests that I take the derailleur and chain back up to the other store to see if they have it in stock; in which case he’ll work on it tomorrow. Otherwise he’ll order it over the internet himself tomorrow and work on it the following day.
I leave the bike and walk the mile back up to the other store. This time they at least look at my greasy component and chain but say that they don’t have a replacement in stock, and add that if they had to order one they’d probably be waiting a month or more because of the worldwide components shortage. Depressing.
I’m almost back at the hotel, so I head back there instead to talk the situation over with Rachael before awkwardly biking back down to the Giant on her smaller BF. I drop off the goods with the mechanic, who’s still willing to help. He takes my name and number and says he’ll call around in the morning and let me know what he finds.
So there’s nothing more to be done today other than grab a meal, have some wine, and consider our options. We don’t really have any idea what’s going to happen at this point, and it’s clear that one way or another our plans are in upheaval.
And the final silver lining? We’re both healthy, Uzès is an attractive place to wait while the Gods consider whether to torment us further or move on to pick on someone else; and there are worse places to be in limbo than southern France in the spring. We’ll manage.
And for the record, we’re looking for a Shimano Ultegra R8000 eleven speed with a long hanger. Thoughts?
Video sound track: Don’t Worry, be Happy by Bobby McFerrin
Ride stats today: 39 miles, 1,900’; for the tour: 711 miles, 38,200’
Today's ride: 39 miles (63 km)
Total: 711 miles (1,144 km)
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What about this?
https://www.bike24.com/p2271135.html?menu=1000,1868,1969,1976,1978
2 years ago
2 years ago
There is nothing proprietary to Bike Friday to do a derailleur swap. As long as the new derailleur is compatible with your shifters, it is just a bolt on and adjust assuming the hanger is not bent or damaged. Sometimes bike shops get freaked out by the odd frame and little wheels. Good luck!
David
2 years ago
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