Meltdown!
Broken wheel
Well maybe meltdown is a bit dramatic a title but today I experienced a mechanical failure that put a complete halt to my efforts. On my way to Mundrabilla I noticed my bike was starting to feel a little wobbly. I watched the wheel between my legs, it appeared to be true and the bolts on the rack were still tight as far as I could see but still the bike was very unstable.
So I stopped and had a closer inspection. It turns out that my rim was on the verge of total collapse. I had one broken spoke and a fair few others felt ’soft’. At first I wasn’t too worried, I can easily replace a spoke and true a wheel, so I turned back to the Madura Roadhouse and figured to have a cold drink while I got to work. After taking things off the bike I attempted to remove the cassette.
Now before I left I made sure it was tight, but not so tight that I couldn’t remove it on the side of the road. In Perth, you may recall I had a new one fitted, well I tried for 2 hours and nothing would make it budge. I got some help from an British couple, we tried wrapping a cord around the cassette and tieing that to a pillar to get extra leverage but no joy. In the end I admitted defeat. It didn’t really make a difference as I spotted that a broken spoke was the least of my concerns. The rim was cracked all over and three spokes had pulled through their eyelets. Thats why the wheel didn’t look like it was buckled and why I was completely screwed!
I knew I needed a new rim and before I even had time to comprehend my problem the british people offered me a lift back across the Nullarbor. So I left my bike and some of my bags at the roadhouse and grabbed the essentials, my broken wheel and before I knew it I was zooming back the way I’d worked so hard to come. On our way back we stopped at Balladonia again and still having the shower door combination in my head I jumped in to make myself clean 
It felt good to be clean.
That night we got into Norseman after covering 500km. There was a 24hr truckstop so I let my new friends take a much deserved rest (they’d covered nearly 1200km in one day) and I went to relax in the truckies lounge. There was an offer of a lift to Esperance in the morning but a rummage through the Yellow Pages didn’t hold much hope of getting anything there. So I decided to try get back to Kalgoorlie, there was a pretty decent bike store and I could possibly pick up my rugby ticket if I was lucky! I really hope that ticket pans out.
Whilst I was sipping a melty hot cup of tea a car with two wired Aussies pulled into the station. I decided to try my luck and see if they were going North. A bit odd asking for a lift at 2:30 in the morning but they said no problem and before I knew it I was on my way towards Kalgoorlie. These two lads were on a mission to get to Perth to exchange a drivers license before a 12 month suspension kicked in at 1pm. When we got to Coolgardie I jumped out and lay down to have a bit of a sleep. No sooner than I closed my eyes a car pulls up, they were back with news that they could sort out the license issue in Kalgoorlie only 40km away instead of Perth 550km. These guys had driven all the way from Adelaide, over 2000km since 10:00am the morning before. No wonder they decide to go to Kal instead of press on for Perth. So there I was back in Kalgoorlie less than 12 hours after discovering the problem. Not bad going really!