July 24, 2013
A Difficult Parental Decision
Spokane, WA
I would like to be able to report that we blasted out a 100-mile day to get to Spokane, but that isn't quite honest. Allow me to back up a few hours.
Aaron and I started early (for us anyway) to avoid the afternoon heat and we were making great time thanks to a favorable tailwind. We had a nice breakfast in the little town of Hartline. The food wasn't fancy, just your basic hash browns, over-easy eggs, toast, etc.--but well prepared. The cool thing about it was that the greeter, the server, the chef, the checkout clerk, and the busboy were all the same woman. It was so quaint I almost melted.
Back on the road, wind still mostly at our backs, cruising along through miles and miles of more wheat fields, we pressed on to our day's destination of Davenport. Unfortunately, there was another incident.
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A few miles east of Wilbur, Aaron pulled over to the side of the road for a water break and to wait for me to catch up. While moving off the road, he hit some loose asphalt on the edge of the regular asphalt, lost control, almost regained control, lost control again, and took a nasty fall. In his words, "the bike rolled onto me and I was flopping around like a turtle on it's back."
Being well behind, I didn't see the incident, but a woman in a pick-up truck did and she made her husband stop to check up on the kid on a bike who wiped out right in front of them.
When I rolled up to the scene a few minutes later I was confused as to why Aaron would be talking to a middle-aged woman in the absolute middle of nowhere. Then I saw the blood flowing from a wound on the side of his knee. The woman was offering to take him to a hospital--an offer that Aaron declined. It was the kind of injury that all serious bike riders suffer at one time or another and Aaron shrugged it off.
What he could not shrug off was that his rear derailleur was bent into the spokes of his rear wheel. He determined he could possibly bend it back, but he would need a large wrench to do so and, of course, none of us were carrying a large wrench. So the friendly couple offered to throw the bikes into the back of their pick-up and drive us to the next town where Aaron figured he could borrow a wrench at an auto repair shop.
At this point, Aaron's bike was unrideable. We considered our options and narrowed them down to these two: A) I could send Aaron off with two complete strangers while I rode on to Davenport, thereby preserving the purity of my Seattle to Hastings tour, or B) I could ride in the truck with Aaron, thereby ensuring that if these seemingly friendly people were actually psycho killers, we would be murdered and buried together out in this hidden wasteland.
I chose option "B." So when all is said and done, and I show up in my hometown somewhere around September 1st, you will be able to say, "Technically, Greg, you did NOT ride your bike all the way from Seattle to Hastings."
To which I will reply, "But it was only a 25-mile glitch."
And you will shrug your shoulders and say, "Sorry, I don't make the rules."
The owner/mechanic at the auto repair shop in Davenport was also very friendly and, after insisting that Aaron go to the washroom and clean the blood off his leg, he was glad to share a gigantic crescent wrench and even helped hold the bike while Aaron carefully bent the hanger back into place. In first gear the derailleur still rubbed against the spokes, but he felt it was good enough to get back on the bike and ride into Spokane. So he rode the the final 50 miles of the day with no first gear.
Today's ride: 100 miles (161 km)
Total: 312 miles (502 km)
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