Come Rain Or Shine: Days Off In San Martin.

March 31, 2016

The weather on my day off the bike here is like the day over eleven years ago when I was passing through San Martin de Los Andes for the first ever time, inasmuch as it is a damp rainy day. It was Monday the first of November back then. I had been in Patagonia just a week and it was all very new to me. The world was upside down, going from Winter into Spring.

I started off when it was a dry but grey morning in Junin de Los Andes. and ride forty kilometres steadily downhill all the way until it is spitting rain as I reach the outskirts of town, which increases to steady dripping rain as I continue along the main street of wood cabin style buildings; many of the shops outdoor shops; there's even a bike shop; and the pavement underneath the veranda fronts to the shops have a steady flow of overseas tourists.

I had broken a spoke a few days earlier, that's why it was good to see a bike shop, but they had just closed from midday until three. Meanwhile to escape the throng of slow moving vehicles in the rain soaked street, I take to pushing the bike further on the pavement when, a middle-aged Scotch couple approach and say hello. They were interested when they saw the bike. They themselves being part of an organised cycling holiday and today is their rest day after a long day yesterday coming across from Chile. They ask about any problem with the bike. I mention the broken spoke; to which, they suggest their tour group mechanic will be able to fix it. So I follow along as they lead through a gateway between shops, into a car park at the rear of their hotel, wherein a dozen or so of their tour group in raincoats and one or two with umbrellas stand round watching a short Chilean mechanic underneath a parasol doing routine maintenance on the group's bikes.

The mechanic puts aside the bike he is working on and examines the wobble rear wheel on my bike. Then while he goes to work, removing the cassette in order to access the spoke hole, I become the object of interested questions about my tour from the many nationalities of the tour group. Though, I don't have long to endure the question and answer session as the mechanic works rapidly, within minutes having a new spoke treaded through and is screwing it up tight with a spoke key and screwdriver, then plucks other spokes followed by a pluck on the newly installed spoke to determine the right spoke tension through it ringing the same tang. Then there is the Michelin tyre on Mavic rim I was using then: the final bit of tyre difficult to get on the rim: an Englishman with distinct South London accent, a tour leader and part mechanic resorts to using tire levers to put on, something there is a trick to doing without nipping and so ruining the inner-tube. There is then talk about lunch being ready and people start drifting off in the direction of the hotel restaurant. The Scotch couple invite me along, but I decline the offer as they'd been already extremely kind. My wheel now fixed and running true.

A few years later I met cycle touring Kiwis, Julie and Thomas here in La Puma hostel. The day after they set off early and I followed later going in the same direction as they. Mid afternoon however, I meet Thomas returning to San Martin, with a mangled wheel. I recall the hub flange was broke. He had left Julie to camp with their luggage, while he rides gently back to town, hoping to buy a new hub and have the bike shop rebuild his wheel. All goes to plan and he returns with the newly built wheel the following noon. I having met up with them at the Chilean border. They seem then to have done a good job, so I am hoping the same bike shop will do a proper job on my rear hub, which if you remember has persistent loose cones and therefore the bearing surface seems to have a burr and without a doubt needs replacing.

I have left the bike in the shop in the morning and the mechanic told me to return at five in the afternoon. When I return at the appointed time, the job is done, having new axle with race and bearings. The mechanic hands me the old axle he took out. The race indeed with a burr and with a slight kink in the axle itself. So I settle up. The cost 140 pesos (£7), cheap for all that has been done. Then wheel the bike out of the shop, glad not to have to worry about the rear hub for a few thousand kilometres.

On Thursday, as is usual after such a wet rainy day, the following day is glorious. Even before sunrise, though I am not out so early, I'm in the common room working on my journal. I stop for breakfast at eight, just as the sun starts making it's ascent, seen out the window as sunlight and an area still in shade receding slowly across the rear garden. As I still have more journaling to do, I check in for a third night at the hostel and remain journaling until eleven when it is no longer possible to remain inside with it being such a find Autumn day out. So I go for a walk; not far; just the whole way up one side of the main street and back along the other side the whole way to the lakeshore. On the return to the hostel, I discover a second bike shop with Shimano XTR equipped Specialized mountain bikes, displayed in the window. I just wish such bike shops would stock touring equipment instead of fancy bikes.

The weather is likely to be the same tomorrow, so I'm off. My planned route taking me back to Chile.

Make what you like of the wild westish architecture.

Extravigant: actually, I had breakfast here eleven years ago.

Multitasking: childminding and checking emails.

Note "Che Museum" sign. The man having passed through San Martin in 1951, during his epic journey.

These guys failed the audition to play the Beatles crossing Abbey Road.

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	0
Comment on this entry	Comment	0