An ode to Sasha the bike (Edgar Allan Poe style), may she rest in pieces:
I have abandoned Sasha to live out her final days in a vacant world of rust and insult. Fortunately, I feel but little remorse, for she treated me far worse, and with more contempt, than I treated her. Nevertheless, I can't help but feel is this small consolation enough to grant my conscience surcease of suffering should this dark, unholy act come back to haunt me in the depths of a starry bikeless night? I fear by the time I fully comprehend my actions, it may be too late.
Yes, ladies and Gentlemen, the rumors are true. Sasha has let me down for the last time. I was riding on Sunday night, between Namur and Bastogne in Belgium, taking the short cut through the middle of ass-nowhere. I had climbed about a seven percent incline for five or six km and finally reached the top when I heard an odd clink. I looked down to see my bike chain on the pavement several feet behind me. I stopped, baggied the chain like a piece of toxic dog doo and rode my bike down the other side of the hill and into the tiny town of.... something or other. For some reason there were not many people about, being a sunday at about 8:30 in the evening. I finally found one helpful stranger who spoke a few words of english and said that there was no one around who could fix a bike. I'd have to go to Bastogne for that. Unfortunately for me, Bastogne was 9km away and darkness was beginning to set.
But, driven by a desire to well... not sleep in a ditch, I began walking. My wheel made a strange clink, clink, clink, sound each time it turned and the brake appeared to be locked on ever so slightly which made pushing it up hill for the next 9km not as much fun as you may think. You'll be glad to know however that the animals came from miles around to mock me. An eagle flew with me for about 200 m, a group of deer looked up from their feeding to laugh silently at my inconvenience and cows ran (I didn't even know cows COULD run) to me from across their farms to greet me at the fence and either eye me suspiciously or make taunting groans at me as I passed.
Eventually, I arrived in town at about 11:00 pm. I rented a hotel for far too much money because everything else was closed and the next day I was lucky enough to meet two other cyclists whom I had camped with in Namur. They had a repair kit and with a little effort, they re-linked my chain, discovered my rear wheel wasn't running true because not one, but TWO spokes had snapped, and that one of the teeth on my gear wheel literally had begun to rip off, probably initiating this grand catastrophy. Nonetheless, they helped me get my wheel mostly true, and although I was riding minus two spokes and a middle gear, my bike was once again road-worthy.
I set off to Luxembourg and although I successfully crossed the border, I never quite managed to arrive at Ettelbruck, my destination. About three quarters of the way there (and 12 km out), the gear shifter on my bike litterally ripped itself off and lodged itself in the front gears. At that moment, I think I died a little inside. Still, I didn't particularly want to walk 12 km into town (uphill again) so this time I got a big rock and started randomly hitting the gear shifter with it until it was either fixed (or broken) enough that the chain could rotate once more. I couldn't shift gears mind you and the rear brake had once again permanently locked in place, but my bike was ready to go a final 12 km to its death.
When finally I arrived in Ettelbruck, I considered having a ritual ceremony in which I light the bike on fire, or give it some other form of horrible yet somewhat noble death. Instead, I was too tired from the damn ride in so I felt exile was more appropriate:
Now I take the train.
(Pictures are on their way soon... stupid locked up computers. I'm thinking of getting a tiny tiny little $300 notebook with wifi so I don't have to pay for internet everywhere. Might even break even in the end.)
