After experiencing two bad days in a row why not make it a third? The day started well; the rain decided to take the day off and the sun was out. My kind of weather. And my cold was on the mend. Finally we should get a decent day under our belts. Our first stop was just 5km down the road from our hotel. We stopped to have a bite to eat for breakfast. Before sitting down to eat we argued for a couple of minutes about where to place the bikes. Nothing out of the ordinary. Well actually that’s not quite true, upon entering the town I did notice a couple of guys in a black truck pulled out onto the road just as we entered the town and they just sat in the middle of the road for a couple of minutes watching us (or at least that’s what it felt like). They eventually drove on but not before giving us a good stare down. That made me feel a little uneasy given the story the French Canadian told us the day before about the motorcyclists getting robbed. Also the town had a military garrison stationed across the street from where we parked ourselves for breakfast. Not the kind of place I’d like to get stuck repairing the bicycle. The only positive vibe I got was from a jolly Mexican across the street yelling at everyone who passed by to come and have some of tacos he was selling. We declined and instead chose to go to the mini-market to get Froot Loops and some bananas. Most of the locals took up his offer and went over to eat his tacos. Even a bunch of the military guys did too.
After breakfast we head onward. As usual the town was littered with speed bumps. After going over the third or fourth speed bump my rear tire feels a little mushy. I look back and, yup, I’ve got myself a flat tire. Why, of all the towns, did it have to happen in this one? We back track and find a place to repair the flat. I unpack everything and tear apart the tire only to find nothing. The patches are fine, there’s no puncture that I can see; the tube seems fine. I suspect a valve leak and pump up the tire to see what happens down the road. Off we go again. As we ride I’m constantly looking for that black pickup truck I saw in town as I’m paranoid thinking they’re waiting for us down the road, just waiting to rob us or something like that. Somewhere between 20 and 30km down the road, as we crest a hill, we do see a black pickup trunk ahead. Seconds later it hits a telephone pole and the hood pops off. Two other trucks stop to see if the occupants are all right. As we approach two guys get out of the black truck and look to be unharmed. The driver shrugs his shoulders and then begins speaking to who pulled over to help out. We slow down but continue on. Kevin saw it unfold better than I did and says he saw a delivery truck pass the black trunk which forced it off the road into the telephone pole. That’s one thing we’ve noticed, Mexicans pass all the time. It doesn’t matter if there’s a dotted yellow line, a solid yellow line, a double yellow line, a hill, a curve, or someone already coming in the other direction; they’ll pass. So this type of accident isn’t really that surprising. A little later at a point where Kevin stops to take a picture of some vultures I see the black pickup speed by with its hood back on. I’m not sure but that could have been the same pickup I was afraid of in that first town. Nothing to worry about, just some crazy Mexican drivers that’s all.
What I should have been worrying about was my tube. Shortly after it gave out again. As we were only 5 or 10km outside of another town I just pumped it up again. As I was pretty sure it was the tube’s valve failing I would replace the tube while we snacked in town. We reach the town and sit down in a park. I get to work on the tube while Kevin goes in search of food. I unload the bike, tear apart the tire, pull out the replacement tube, put the replacement tube in the tire and try to feed the valve into the rim. Only to find that the replacement tube’s valve doesn’t fit through the valve hole in the tire rim. This is a problem, a rather serious problem. The tubes that are currently installed on the bikes are Presta tubes. All the spare tubes I’ve brought are Schrader tubes. Schrader tube valves are wider than Presta tube valves. The tire rim on the bikes only have enough space to fit the Presta tubes. This sucks. And here I thought that the rim would fit both valve types. Okay so now what? I can try filing the valve hole in the rim to make it bigger and fit a Schrader tube or I can continue pumping up the tube every 5km or so until we reach a town with Presta tubes. I chose the latter since I worry that filing the rim will structurally weaken it and make it fail sooner. So I put the Presta tube back in and pump it up. The next town, Playa Azula, is around 50km down the road so I’m going to be doing a lot of pumping.
3km down the road, after a stretch of speed bumps and potholes, the tube goes flat again. Off I get and pump it up once again. 5km down the road the tube goes flat again. Off I get and pump it up. Let me tell you that pumping up tires in the tropical humidity with the sun blaring down on you is sweaty work. The sweat was pouring off of me. So I go for a drink of water. I’m all out. Kevin gives me what remains of his water: 250ml. I down it and off we go again. 6km down the road the tube goes flat. Again I pump it up, but this time without water. This goes on and on until we make it 5km from Playa Azula. The tube goes flat again and again I get off and pump it up. However, this time, after I remove the pump, I notice that something is missing. The tube’s valve lock (the piece that keeps the air from escaping and allows air to get in when you pump it up) is missing. Fortunately it’s in the locked position but I don’t think I’ll be able to pump it up again the next time it goes flat. We’re only 5km from town so if the roads don’t get any worse than they’ve been we should be okay assuming the town has a bike shop with a Presta tube.
We make it Playa Azula, but my tube is on its last legs and probably can’t go any further. There had better be something here. Kevin asks someone and they say Playa Azula doesn’t have a bike shop but the next town 3km down the road does. I look at the road leading to the town and it doesn’t look pretty. The road is riddled with potholes, hills and speed bumps. I attempt it anyway but am only able to make it 1.5km before the tube goes completely flat. Kevin goes on ahead while I walk.
Walking wasn’t fun so I decide to try pumping the tube one more time and ended up being successful at getting some air in the tube, enough to get me down the hill into town where I find Kevin who says the bike shop is just 2 blocks ahead. We cycle to the bike shop only to find that it is literally a hole in the wall. As soon as I see the shop I know there’s no way this place is going to have a Presta tube. It doesn’t even look like a bicycle shop. Sure it has three beater bikes sitting in front, but so does the mini-mart situated next to it. Other than that I don’t see anything that even resembles a bicycle part. We’d probably have more luck getting the tube at the mini-mart than we will at this so called bicycles shop. We give it a shot anyway. Two guys sitting on the stoop out front try to help (one guy can speak a little English). We show them the tube that needs replacing and the owner doesn’t give us a very optimistic look. However, he goes off in search of the tube. Not at the bike shop though. He heads off down the road in search of the tube. Uhmmm… Hold on a second. If we’re standing in front of the bike shop why is he going somewhere else to get bicycle parts? Isn’t that what the bicycle shop is for? Where’s he going off to? The mini-mart? Anyway, he returns with, as I predicted, another Schrader tube and it’s even the wrong size. Well this isn’t going to work. Kevin asks where then next bike shop is. They say it’s in the next town which is 17km down the road. I don’t think my bike can make that distance. I’ll be pumping up the tire every kilometer. At this point we’re hungry so we decide to have a snack while we think about our predicament.
We cross the street, park our bikes and while Kevin again searches for food I pump up the tire. I find that I can completely pump up the tire after tightening the pump’s head. This is good news; maybe I can make it the 17km to the next town. Kevin comes back with only drinks as the mini-mart didn’t have pastries. We’re still hungry so we cycle a couple of blocks and stop in front of another mini-mart confident that my tube can make it to the next town. We park the bikes and Kevin searches for food. He tries several mini-marts before settling on the first one he had entered (none of them really had the best selection). He emerges and we finally eat.
After replenishing ourselves we get up to leave only to find that my rear tire has deflated yet again. No matter I go ahead and pump it up again. I remove the pump from the valve and… Pop! Phhssssssszzzzzz! What remained of the Presta valve is no more. The piece that was holding in the air blew out. I hate Presta tubes (this isn’t the first time this has happened to me)! I uselessly try to pump up the tube several more times. Maybe if I’m quick enough I can get the cap on before the tire completely deflates. That doesn’t work as half the air escapes before I can screw the cap on, and even if I were quick enough the cap would blow off after I hit some potholes. What to do? Get a hotel here and bus into the next town? Or find someone with a file so I can make the valve hole bigger? I even played with the idea of taping the keeping the pump attached to the valve (so the air doesn’t escape) and then taping the pump to the spokes of the wheel. I dropped that idea as it was just stupid.
Kevin remembers he has a swiss army knife which should have a file. It doesn’t. I end up using the small knife and carve the hole bigger. This takes me a good 45 minutes but finally I make the hole big enough to fit a Schrader tube. The Presta tube goes into the trash where it belongs. However, I’m worried the filing I’ve done to the rim will cause the rim to fail prematurely (something I’ll need to research the next time we find some WiFi—I’ve just checked and it looks like it’s safe to do). In either case I now have a rim which can take Schrader tubes. That makes life a whole lot easier because not very many bike shops in the countries we’re headed to probably won’t have Presta tubes either.
All sorted we tackle the remaining 17km to our final destination. The 17km road was riddled with potholes and upon entering the town there were speed bumps galore. There’s no way the Presta would have survived that. As it was approaching 6:30pm we decided to skip looking for the supposed bicycle shop. There should be one in Zihuatanejo which is only 100km down the road (I hope I don’t eat those words tomorrow). Instead we look for food and a hotel. There was a Walmart but it was still under construction so we settled on a Bodega Aurrera. As usual I waited outside guarding the bikes while Kevin went inside.
This supermarket was pretty busy. Out front a bunch of taxi drivers were trying to drum up some business, some Walmart spies were conducting a survey (actually Kevin tells me Bodega Aurrera is associated with Walmart), and a guy who sells useless car accessories (window wipers, car wax) was trying to make some sales. The guy ends up selling a pair of window wipers to one of the taxi drivers. He then goes on to demonstrate his car wax to some lady before she enters supermarket. After his demonstration the lady heads towards the supermarket entrance with a shopping cart. A shopping cart that won’t fit past the bikes. So I start moving them. The guy who sells the car accessories sees me doing this and to show his potential customer he’s a good guy he helps me move the bikes. But he does so in a rush and bumps Kevin’s bike into mine. Not a big deal but Kevin wouldn’t have been pleased had it known. The lady passes but the guy stays as now he’s interested in the bikes. He starts talking to me in Spanish, none of which I understand. So I respond with, “No hablo español.” Then he comes back with, “Ahh. Inglés.” And after a pause continues with, “Cuanto.” And points at Kevin’s bike. Crap, the dreaded question: how much are the bikes. This is a question that you always want to avoid as you don’t want to give potential thieves an idea of how much money you have. So I umm and ahh and play stupid (which isn’t too hard). Eventually he gives up and goes in search of someone who can speak English. It seems like one of the taxi guys could speak a little English but was too embarrassed to try his English on me. Good. Unable to find an English translator he resumes trying to find potential buyers of his wares.
Kevin returns after what took ages. The supermarket was really, really busy. We head off in search of a hotel. We happen upon our cheapest hotel to date in Mexico. Only 120 pesos ($11 US). And for that price it’s much better than that 250 peso box we found ourselves in the night before. By the time we get in it’s 7:30pm and we only accomplished 116km on the day. Yet another pathetic showing.
As they say, bad things come in threes. So tomorrow things should finally turn themselves around.
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