June 27, 2015
Something very, very, very bad happened: Halfway across Australia (sort of)
It was looking like being another day to be filed under the category of ‘unremarkable’ as I made slow and steady progress across the wheat fields towards Kimba, the next little town on my route. Kimba is a town which prides itself on being ‘halfway across Australia’, a neat little selling point that some bright spark probably came up with to attract tourists, or at the very least attract tourists to stop briefly and have a coffee. They must have been gambling that no one would look too closely at the map, however, because Kimba is 2,235 kilometres from Perth, and 1,704 kilometres from Sydney. But out here what is a few hundred kilometres between friends?
But before I reached Kimba, the town that is 56% of the way across Australia, something very, very, very worrying and bad happened. I saw a kangaroo. That wasn’t the bad thing, it stayed out of my way, I just remembered I also saw a kangaroo. But after that I stopped to oil my chain which was squeaking a bit and I noticed a scratch on the inside of my left chainstay (if you’re not very familiar with the names of bits of the bikes, chainstays are the thin sections of the frame that run between the bottom bracket and the rear hub (the bottom bracket being the bit where the pedals are and the rear hub being the middle of the circular wheel thing.)) It looked like a deep scratch into the paint, but I could think of no reason for there to be such a scratch on the inside, which was not very exposed to anything. I was worried it might be something more serious. A crack. No, no, no. My frame couldn’t have cracked. No, no, no. Please, no. Not out here.
Worried, I continued to ride towards Kimba, but I was soon further delayed by a puncture on my rear tyre. Although it was a pain to have to take all the bags off, turn the bike upside down, and remove the circular wheel thing, all of this did at least give me the opportunity to examine the damage to the chainstay more closely. The following image shows you what I saw, the link in the caption below will provide a visual of my reaction:
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Oh this was bad. This was so very, very bad. My frame was cracked. It was my worst nightmare. The crack was on the inside, almost from top to bottom, and on the outward facing surface there was also a corresponding dent. ‘What could have done that?’ I wondered, ‘a kangaroo?’ I couldn’t believe it. This was a disaster. I’d replaced everything else on this bike, but not the frame. I mean, I could replace the frame, and it’d still sort of feel like the same bike, but it would start to be a bit like Trigger’s broom wouldn’t it? No, no, no. This was just terrible.
I arrived into Kimba, with one of my pedals also sticking and not turning properly, and it felt like everything was collapsing around me. I’d removed some of the paint to take a look at the crack and that seemed to have encouraged it, and it appeared to be growing. I needed help, and fast. You know how everyone, when looking at buying a touring bike, is encouraged to get a steel frame because you can always weld it if you need to, but nobody ever actually needs to? Well, now I did need to. Such a shame that Kimba was a tiny little town and there appeared to be nobody around. Things were going from bad to worse, and not even a giant galah could cheer me up now.
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One very good thing I will say about Kimba is that the free wifi at the library can be used even when the library is not open, as was the case on this day, which was a Saturday. So I sat outside and flicked open my laptop and got on the trusty internet, which like a soothing mentor soon calmed my nerves. A little research revealed that cracked chainstays could be repaired or replaced and that I probably wouldn’t need to junk the whole frame. This was great news. There was even a place in Melbourne that did these specialised frame repairs, if my bike could only make it the remaining 1,400 kilometres. And the big town of Port Augusta was only 150 kilometres away. I planned to get a temporary weld there, and then get a permanent fix done in Melbourne. Things were looking up as I cycled on out of Kimba towards Port Augusta in the early evening.
Ten kilometres later I stopped and checked the crack. To my great alarm and distress I saw that it was getting worse. The two ends were spreading like tentacles, wrapping over and under the chainstay. Soon they would be all the way around and the whole thing would be disconnected. I now had a look of distress that went far beyond anything that could possibly be epitomised by a cartoon animal reconstruction. This was so, so bad. I realised that I wasn’t going to make it to Port Augusta. I was going to have to go back to Kimba and try to find someone, anyone, who could weld. But it was too late in the day now, it would have to wait until morning, and so I set up my tent. Sitting outside cooking dinner under the stars that evening I had such a disjointed, melancholy feeling. I was stranded. My bike was broken.
Distance completed: 2428km
Distance to go: 1382km
Days to go: 11.5
Average distance required: 120.2km/day
Today's ride: 95 km (59 miles)
Total: 43,309 km (26,895 miles)
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