Still here at the Casa de Ciclistas. It just so happens that Zdenek is a master wheel builder and after talking to him about my 2 broken spokes he thought it best that I put together a new wheel. The rim, as I suspected, is not the best for touring and the hub is the poorest quality Shimano hub they make. So I went into Quito and picked up a new rear hub (Shimano Deore) and bought a new rim from Santiago (Alexrims DH19). With a lot of guidance from Derrick I built the new wheel (making sure to cross the spokes 3 times instead of how they were when the guys in Costa Rica built them last time (2x which is not as strong). He took care of the tension since I had no idea what I was doing.
Karin took my sandals over to a shoe repair place and they stitched them back together again for me. Hopefully I can squeeze another 17,000 miles out of them. The metal buckles are rusted out but the actual shoe is still in good shape.
My next big worry is what looks like corrosion in different places all over the frame. I think it might just be the paint but I can’t tell. I’m going to email Koga with some pictures and see what they think. The corrosion seems to be limited to the surface but I don’t want it eating away at the aluminum.
Staying here has been pretty nice. The 5 of us hang out at night at Karin and Marten’s tent chatting and drinking beers. During the day we are all pretty busy cleaning and fixing our bikes up.
The current plan is to leave Monday.
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I have an Airstream camper and corrosion like that is common. Fortunately mine is a pre 64 and is T3 AlCad and not prone to that particular type of corrosion. The airstreams with clear coating are very prone to this. They call that corrosion “Filiformâ€.
What has happened is there is a clear coat or an anodized top layer. That layer has failed exposing the underlying aluminum (probably 6061). The corrosions creeps on the surface as it eats away at the top coat or under it in the case of a clear coat.
At the stage it is on your bike it probably has not become a structural issue. I’m still riding my Cannondale that looks 10 times worse (course I’m putting a couple hundred miles a year not fully loaded puttign on thousands). Early Cannondales were very prone to problems like that. It does make a point where deeper corrosion can set in and create a stress point where it will start to crack if left going long enough. You have caught it well before that.
The easiest fix is It could be acid cleaned to remove the corrosion and clear coating or anodizing then clear coated after “brushing “it to restore its look or powder coated to fix it. Where are you going to find somebody that could do that down there?
Koga mentioned that they’d seen this before so I guess it’s not a new problem. The frame is aluminum 7005 BTW. Since the corrosion is covered under warranty and getting a replacement frame shipped over and assembled isn’t too much of a hassle I might as well deal with it now vs. having a problem in a less forgiving country. In a couple places on the frame the corrosion actually pitted the aluminum so I think there is at least some risk of structural damage.