June 28, 2015
An octogenarian doing terrifying things: With an angle grinder
I was in dire straits. I checked the bike again in the morning, just in case I’d been mistaken. Just on the off chance that it had all been a bad dream (it wouldn’t be the first time that I’d had a nightmare involving a giant galah) but unfortunately the great big demon crack was still there. My options were limited. Under no circumstances was I going to accept a lift in a motor vehicle. Even if the bike became impossible to ride, there was still no way. I’d wait in Kimba until a new frame could be delivered. Or I’d just walk. The problem with those strategies, great as they both were, was that I also absolutely had to be 1382 kilometres away in Melbourne in a little over eleven days, and neither DHL nor my feet promised such efficiency. By far my best option remained trying to find some crazy old man in the middle of nowhere with a welding torch.
Cycling the ten kilometres back to Kimba was done as delicately as I could, with a great deal of care taken to avoid potholes and bumps, as well as deceased kangaroos and other such Australian road debris. The crack was now spreading with such malicious speed that I was reduced to walking and pushing the bike as if it were made of glass by the time I was back on the wide empty streets of the town that is not-exactly-but-fairly-close-to-being halfway across Australia. As befits such a town early on a Sunday morning there was nobody to be seen.
I gained a great deal of encouragement from quickly locating both a mechanic workshop and a farm-machinery-engineering place, both of which probably had welding equipment. Unfortunately, of course, neither of these were going to be open on a Sunday. So I returned to my position outside of the library, and sat and used the wifi briefly, trying to find out whether emergency welds could be conducted with a lighter and a paper clip. Thanks to the ever-dependable google, I got some promising results, but unfortunately the battery on my computer ran out before I could get the details, and then I found out that I didn’t have a lighter. Or a paper clip.
It was nine-thirty in the morning and I was already mentally preparing for the fact that I was going to have to wait at least 24 hours for something to open, when a woman actually walked along the street. This was a bit of a surprise, to say the least, but I wasn’t going to waste an opportunity, and quickly explained my predicament. She was very friendly, and wanted to help, and thought for a while, before pointing me down the road to a large farm shed where she thought there may be a man who might be able to help. Then, as I was thanking her and heading off to make enquiries, she added, almost as an afterthought “Oh, and there’s also a man just around the corner. That street there. Third door along. He fixes stuff. Oh but he’s a bit… well, he’s a bit…”
I already knew very well that the mysterious man who was a bit [unstated] was the man who was going to fix my bike. I knew it very well, but I still tried the big shed first. I headed across the large scrap-metal-strewn yard that the woman had pointed me to and into the shed, which was more like a hangar. It was filled with bits of cars and farm machinery and scrap metal, which raised my hopes considerably. I called out a few times, until eventually a man of about sixty popped his head out from behind somewhere. He eyed me suspiciously at first, but soon warmed to me when I told him of my situation. Unfortunately, however, his response was very much in the negative: “No, no, no, no, no. Sorry. Oh, but you could try the man who lives over there. That street. Third door down. He’s a welder. Oh, but he’s a bit… well, a little bit…”
I headed to that street. I went to the third door down. My destination wasn’t hard to spot. Amongst the freshly painted porches, double-glazed windows and manicured lawns of the surrounding houses, this one stuck out like a sore thumb. It was a clapboard shack, with peeling paint and rusting gutters. Weeds overtook everything. The windows that weren’t boarded up were covered in grime. A large aerial rose from the roof. An old caravan sat in the yard, wheels long since eroded into the paving. I couldn’t even get to the front door through the undergrowth. Yep, this was definitely the place.
I knocked on the door at the side of the house and, after this brought no response, tried tapping at the windows. Still nothing. Maybe it was still a little early in the morning, so I took a walk around town (that galah is still haunting my nightmares to this day) and returned to try again, with the same disappointing result. I repeated this procedure a couple of times, unsuccessfully, and was almost resigning myself to having to spend a night in Kimba when, as I approached the house again, a rusty pick-up rumbled up the driveway and disappeared around the back of the property.
I followed on foot and saw it park up behind. An old (and I do mean old) man peered (and I do mean peered) out of the driver side window as I approached, with a look that was part “who the hell are you?” and part “I can’t see anything!” I quickly said hello and stated my business, telling him that I needed my bike welding and that I’d heard he was a welder. He said nothing, but continued to peer from a wrinkled face that sat beneath a few determined strands of sparse white hair. Then he suddenly opened up the door and stood bolt upright, with a loud creak that might have been either the door or something else, I couldn’t be sure. “Well, let’s take a look at it then!” he said.
He was eighty if he was a day, and probably much closer to ninety. He told me that his name was Graham as we shook in greeting, and I noticed that his timeworn hands were shaking just a little bit, which made me wonder if these were really the hands that I was going to entrust my poorly bike to. Yet, there seemed no harm at all in letting him take a look and give his opinion. I stripped the bags off the bike and removed the rear wheel as he opened up a sizeable shed in his backyard. I walked inside to find a calamity of equipment, tools and workbenches, but was pleased to see amongst them at least two welding machines. I flipped the bike over and placed it under a torch which Graham had just about managed to get working. I pointed out the crack and my elderly companion peered at it briefly in a way which suggested, worryingly, that he had no idea what was going on.
The next sequence of events happened very quickly, and I must point out that I find it very nerve-wracking, even now, to recall them.
The elderly Graham suddenly, and without any prior warning, pulled out an angle grinder and fired it up and, before I knew what was happening he advanced the rapidly whirling blade towards my bicycle. I believe I may have gasped, and was likely quite close to fainting, but fortunately the old fellow turned it parallel to my chainstay, and was only using it to remove the paint from the affected area. Of course. He just wanted to remove the paint so that he could have a proper look at the damage. I breathed a sigh of relief. This breath was probably quite useful, because it was almost certainly the only thing that kept me conscious when, in the next instant and once again with no warning whatsoever, the geriatric suddenly turned the angle grinder sideways and took a great big chunk out of my chainstay.
He pulled back, then stuck the angle grinder in for another go, sparks flying everywhere. I was now in a state of extreme anguish. My beloved bicycle, my most prized and treasured companion for the last five years, was being mutilated. My eyes were the size of golf balls. My jaw was on the floor. I couldn’t quite believe what was happening. It was terrifying. Graham then pulled his instrument of torture away from the maimed end of the chainstay and, shockingly, began moving it menacingly towards the other end of it as if intending to chop a great chunk out of that too.
Before it was too late I leapt into action and swept my poor bicycle up into my arms, carrying it away from the evil man and back out into the daylight. “Thank you!” I cried, “Thank you, that’s enough. I’ll be going now.” I nursed the poor thing in my arms and surveyed the damage. Suddenly a cracked frame didn’t seem so bad, by comparison with what I now had, which was a frame with two very large gashes carved into it.
“What are you doing?” It was Graham, emerging behind me.
“What am I doing? What are you doing? You’ve cut a huge hole in my frame!”
“Well I needed something to weld. I can’t weld that little crack. It’s too thin.”
“Look what you’ve done! My poor bike! You said you were just going to take a look at it!”
“Well you can’t ride it like that, it’ll collapse on you!”
“I know!”
“Bring it back inside, come on, you wanted me to weld it, and I’m welding it. You think I don’t know what I’m doing?! I’ve only been welding for fifty years!”
At that moment I didn’t very much feel like entrusting my bike back to the man and yet, unfortunately, I didn’t really have any other options. He was right, I couldn’t ride it in its present condition, and there wasn’t likely to be anyone else around to repair this mess. Against my better judgement I reluctantly carried my poor bike back into the operating theatre.
Graham explained that he just needed to remove some paint from the other end of the chainstay in order to attach a clip for earthing the welding machine and he did this with his angle grinder as I winced. Then, thankfully, the angle grinder was put away and the octogenarian fired up his welding machine instead. It was a gun that fired out a stick of metal of some sort that fizzed and sparked wildly as Graham jabbed it in roughly the right place. I’m no expert on welding, and I have no idea what metal he was using, or what type of weld. I very strongly suspect the wrong kind, but I’d just about given up control of the situation entirely to fate by this point. He stabbed at it with shaking hands, clearly not able to see very well through his grimy welding mask, while I sobbed inwardly at this whole sorry situation.
This went on for some time. He had, after all, made some rather considerable indentations. Eventually he was satisfied, and stopped. I looked and saw that there was still a great big hole in amongst the ugly weld. He scrutinized it himself for some time, then declared “little pinhole there” before firing up the machine again. Eventually it was done. It was butt ugly, but it was a weld. I breathed a sigh of relief. It was over. The trauma was finally at an end. I could relax. But then my venerable companion suddenly fired up his angle grinder again. He wanted to try and tidy things up a bit. “Stop!” I cried, “I don’t care what it looks like!” but the old fellow could barely hear me even without the sound of his angle grinder, and so there was no chance now. He swung the spinning blade wildly around, in between the frame, narrowly missing brake cables and gear cables and racks and braze-ons, needlessly risking everything at the last moment. I was practically on my knees weeping, praying to some unknown god to please make this stop. And then, finally, it did.
Graham offered me a coke, and we stood outside and chatted whilst I drank it, mostly about people that he knew that had died, whilst we admired his handiwork. He’d even spray painted it black again for me, and declared it as good as new. I wasn’t sure about that, but it was at least in a better state than it had been half an hour ago, and I dared to hope, optimistically perhaps, that it might just hold until Melbourne.
I thanked Graham and left. For all the trauma he had put me through I was still extremely grateful to him, for he had got me back on the road. He’d kept me in business. That morning the whole trip felt like it was hanging by a thread, but now I was able to cycle again, and boy, I really did cycle. Despite losing half the day I was so thankful for the second chance that I rode and I rode, long into the night, and covered 150 kilometres in all, enough to bring me within sight of Port Augusta, and keep me, miraculously enough, still right on track for Melbourne.
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Distance completed: 2578km
Distance to go: 1232km
Days to go: 10.5
Average distance required: 117.3km/day
Today's ride: 150 km (93 miles)
Total: 43,459 km (26,988 miles)
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