01/26 No cobblestone today but the dirt road was rough in spots. The last mile before Chugchilan was being grated which meant a very hard climb up soft dirt. No big hills either; just a few steep spots and lots of slow climbs up and slow rides back down.
My rear tire died. The sidewall had a nice tear in the sidewall so I had to stop and replace it with a spare. I think I sideswiped a sharp rock. At least I didn’t puncture the tube. Since I only had one spare I emailed my warmshowers host in Quito to see if I could get back the 2 tires I left with him. They both have a couple thousand miles left on them and would make great spares.
Staying at the Cloud Forest Hostel. $12 a night with breakfast and hot showers. The wifi is broken but the router has some LAN ports so I should be good. The vilage is very tiny; just a church and maybe a dozen buildings or so. An older lady was selling a plate of french fries with a fried egg on top so I tried one of those. Pretty tasty.
K&M are at the next hostel over. Guess they took a rest day. Karin gave me some good news. The black dog that followed us to the volcano made it back OK.
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I saw you arriving yesterday… looked like a lot of hard work! Great job! Nice to see the data about elevation from Sigchos to Chugchilan. How did you embed the GPS data onto Google Maps? Good luck with the rest of your trip. The climb from Chugchilan to Laguna Quilotoa is even harder!
You must have been the guy in the truck right? That hill coming into town was brutal. There’s a plugin for WordPress called XML Google Map and it displays elevation info. Yep, the climb to Quilotoa was much harder. Dirt roads are not so fun on a loaded touring bike when its been raining.
Just keeping your bike rolling has taken more change-outs than I had imagined. Yes keep plenty of spares handy. Those cobblestones were amazing…and I wondered how your new rear wheel would hold up. Apparently well. The acid test! I had to smile at the story of your wheel building adventure. GOOD JOB! I worked in a bike shop for several years, and finally took on the task of building a wheel set for myself. Very satisfying. I was the only one in the shop to do so. I was also the only one in the shop who took wheel tuning and spoke tension seriously. So I applaud you. And once you’ve changed out your new frame, you’ll be a pro! I hope that goes well. Will there be a good repair stand to borrow…bottom bracket tools, etc.? Post photos of the process…and good luck!
I wasn’t too surprised by a lot of the things that wore out but there’s no way I expected the Phil Woods rear hub to break (repeatedly) or the Koga frame to have a corrosion problem after 2 years. I’m pretty bummed out about the frame. It would have been really nice to finish this trip with the same bike. Yeah, the last week has been the perfect test for the new wheel. If it can survive the cobblestone it can survive anything. The place I’m staying near Quito (and where the frame is being shipped) belongs to a bike mechanic who has a fully stocked bike repair shop in the back. That worked out pretty well. There’s also another cyclist staying there who is a bike mechanic so I’ll have lot’s of help if I need it (and I will).