Day 119 - A race against spokes. - Unfinished Business

August 27, 2023

Day 119 - A race against spokes.

There was a loud knocking on my door at 6.15. I covered my nakedness with a towel and opened to find a fellow delivering breakfast - rice, noodle, egg and tempeh, with a cup of tea. It was fine.

It was then time to finish yesterday's blog, having topped up my phone credit at an Alfamart - of course, late last night.

With that done, I went downstairs and extracted the offending wheel and brought it to my air-conditioned room. It would be nice to alter the temperature a little, but the remote doesn't work. Battery? Probably!

I quickly had the spoke in place and tensioned to roughly the right note. Then, as I was stress-relieving the spokes - squeezing pairs with a hand (it should hurt), I had another go ping. That doesn't augur well for the ride ahead! Very soon, I had my last spare rear spoke in place, tensioned them all again, and got the tyre back on and inflated. Cora's analogy is perfect: "I'm in a race against spokes". As long as I can get a bunch of roughly the right length then I might win. Robbie's bike shop is 11 km away and opens at 12.

Is this the way to Robbie's? No! The arrow indicates a foolish ceiling. If you never clean, then keep the lines simple.

The joke is that Robbie's is just around the corner from the hotel I aimed for yesterday!

Before I got going, Cora sent these photos. One reason that I wanted to be home in early-mid September is that bee populations grow quickly and they try hard to swarm. Cora's on top of it!

I wheeled my bike past a sleeping hotel worker in the lobby, out the door and down the lane to the main road. I couldn't make a right hand turn, but I could a few hundred metres up the road. I simply pedaled up the wrong side of the road behind a copper on his motorcycle. I headed up one main road and turned right onto another, snapping a few photos as I went.

This wooden scaffolding is definitely for the very old worker.

Every day I find myself more attracted to the art of poles and wires

I didn't see anything of astounding or unastounding beauty. But that may just be my lack of vision.

I found Robbie's reasonably easily although I did have to duck under boom gates at the parking lot. Now, let me tell you that there is nothing better when approaching a bike shop, in a country like Indonesia, than to see a large "Trek" sign. It indicates good-quality bikes. Now, let me describe how much my face lit up when I entered this shop and saw a "DT SWISS" sign. DT make excellent spokes.

I showed the two pieces of a broken spoke to a worker and indicated that I want to purchase spokes. She typed in her phone "we are empty with spokes". I made sure, using a translator, that she knew that I wanted to buy spokes. Her reply was the same. Thats unbelievable! It must mean that they've never had them. Its not like I want something complex, like a dust-cap or a tube of glue. I just want spokes. I asked if there were other bike shops that may be able to help me and could she possibly phone them. She said there is, but it doesn't have a phone! Talk about the DTs.

I continued on my merry way to more bike shops. Unfortunately, none stood out like Robbie's, as being purveyors of quality bikes. But who cares? Spokes are just fancy pieces of wire! The trouble with some of these shops is that they're in markets and I was on my loaded bike. I had half thought about at least getting to the outskirts of Palembang later in the day.

I tailgated a motorcycle to exit the massive shopping complex that housed Robbie's, and before I knew it, I had landed in a "festival," something that we would call a market for yuppies. I found it disturbing.

African grey parrot - the species made famous due to the cognition experiments by Irene Pepperberg with Alex.

I finally arrived in the vicinity of a couple more bicycle shops only to find myself at Palembang's bird market.

There were many vendors and hundreds of birds; a revolving door of misery and death.

I did take a few other photographs as I meandered.

Remember the first rule of Indonesian footpaths?

After cycling in concentric circles and being misled by any number of people, I eventually found the bike shops. They brushed me aside; wouldn't sniff the bait.

I decided to concede defeat on the spokes, turn on the navigation app in my head and make a beeline to the Maxone Hotel. That's where I intended to go last night and a place I saw en-route to Robbie's. Again, I tried to summarize my wanderings with photographs. Of course, I also kept a lookout for bicycles.

And, what did I spot? I wasn't necessarily looking for spokes; I wanted a lead.

As I was looking for somewhere to lean my bike and extracting the appropriate lengths of spoke from a pannier, this fellow came from nowhere and gave me a bottle of water. He wouldn't accept money, but after a protracted exchange, he reneged.

He's one of those volunteer parking fellows

At the bike shop, my vendor of the day to be showed an interest in my bike. I got over the potential stumbling blocks by typing "please, I just want spokes of this length". I was excited when he took the broken spoke - I had a lead. A few minutes later, he returned with a handful and would not accept money. Apparently, they're not worth much. I gave him an A$5. He was ecstatic. I had some spokes that might be rubbish but they may be rubbish enough for 900 km.

The flash Maxone had a room so I splurged. The thing that attracted me to the place is its eccentricity.

Five hours passed between me leaving Hotel WIN and arriving at Maxone. I'm still in the race.

I needed good food and walked 1.5 km to a Ramen place, where I got a pretty good meal.

Unfortunately, once again I was a zoo animal. There were hysterics when I walked in and for some time afterwards. When other diners left, there were requests for photos. I obliged but not before typing "I am just another human. There's nothing special about me. I am just older than you and look a little bit different. And I don't smoke." I got them to take a photo on my phone. It's the usual shocker.

I wandered random lanes on the way back. This is some of what I saw.

Today's ride: 27 km (17 miles)
Total: 8,504 km (5,281 miles)

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Ian DouglasThe omens spoke well for ye.
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