Tomorrow, the 25Th of December 2008, five friends of mine are going on a trip to Gokarna and back, covering many places in between. This is the second time that i am gonna miss riding my bike on that route. The reason why i didn't go this time, is an entirely different philosophical discussion which i shall skip for obvious reasons.
Me and my friend (Mr. RX, if you remember him from my earlier posts), were having our regular brew of strong coffee at our regular hang out hotel. After that I asked him whether he needs some tools, puncture repair kit, spare tube, air pump etc, which have come to great use on earlier trips, just to help the guys if they happen to run into trouble along the way. He had told me that since none of them know how to remove a wheel, any tools that i give would be only extra weight on their backs to carry. So that idea was scratched off the book. Having wished him a happy and safe journey, we left for our homes.
Then at 9:30 at night, i get a call from him saying that his bike has a flat tyre and there're no mechanics around to fix it! People who know me well know that I'm always all excited to do such things, and I'd rather do such things myself than let somebody hammer at my bike mercilessly. I packed up my tools and left for his place. On reaching, it was quite obvious that he had a flat tyre, and there was a nail stuck in it. What was not obvious is that the nail was 2 inches long. And the troubles were just beginning. I found out that the spare tyre i had taken had no pin in it. And i couldn't remove the pin from the punctured tyre to put it on to this one. This happened to be a blessing in disguise as it saved him the trouble of changing tubes again in Hassan tomorrow morning, cause i knew there was no way that the tube i had could withstand those distances on the patch it already had on it. This info we found out from the puncture guy who had to be woken up from sleep to fix the wheel we'd taken to him. He told, the punctured tube was useless and the tube I'd taken to him, the one which was already patched, was of little use too and confirmed my fears that if put, it would give up in under 100km! He goes in and brings a brand new locally-made tube, it's not good, but is surely better than the one i held in my hand. Finally we got it fitted on the tyre and took the wheel home and fitted it back the bike under the light of mobile phones and streetlights! the whole thing took a little more than 1 hour to complete! kinda unfortunate just before a big trip, but better now than in the middle of nowhere! Once again the bike burst into life and the test ride was two-big-thumbs-up! I wish them a happy journey and will be looking forward to meeting them on Sunday evening when they return!
Me and my friend (Mr. RX, if you remember him from my earlier posts), were having our regular brew of strong coffee at our regular hang out hotel. After that I asked him whether he needs some tools, puncture repair kit, spare tube, air pump etc, which have come to great use on earlier trips, just to help the guys if they happen to run into trouble along the way. He had told me that since none of them know how to remove a wheel, any tools that i give would be only extra weight on their backs to carry. So that idea was scratched off the book. Having wished him a happy and safe journey, we left for our homes.
Then at 9:30 at night, i get a call from him saying that his bike has a flat tyre and there're no mechanics around to fix it! People who know me well know that I'm always all excited to do such things, and I'd rather do such things myself than let somebody hammer at my bike mercilessly. I packed up my tools and left for his place. On reaching, it was quite obvious that he had a flat tyre, and there was a nail stuck in it. What was not obvious is that the nail was 2 inches long. And the troubles were just beginning. I found out that the spare tyre i had taken had no pin in it. And i couldn't remove the pin from the punctured tyre to put it on to this one. This happened to be a blessing in disguise as it saved him the trouble of changing tubes again in Hassan tomorrow morning, cause i knew there was no way that the tube i had could withstand those distances on the patch it already had on it. This info we found out from the puncture guy who had to be woken up from sleep to fix the wheel we'd taken to him. He told, the punctured tube was useless and the tube I'd taken to him, the one which was already patched, was of little use too and confirmed my fears that if put, it would give up in under 100km! He goes in and brings a brand new locally-made tube, it's not good, but is surely better than the one i held in my hand. Finally we got it fitted on the tyre and took the wheel home and fitted it back the bike under the light of mobile phones and streetlights! the whole thing took a little more than 1 hour to complete! kinda unfortunate just before a big trip, but better now than in the middle of nowhere! Once again the bike burst into life and the test ride was two-big-thumbs-up! I wish them a happy journey and will be looking forward to meeting them on Sunday evening when they return!
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a trip is incomplete without such incidents...they just pep up the spirit higher!!..
ReplyDelete@rubs
ReplyDeleteyes, i for one am always excited to get my hands dirty! but if it happens in the middle of nowhere like on top of kemmangundi, like it did for us, then u'll probably have a little less enthusiastic view about it :) but this was fun, a quick one hour job!