Trish & Phill's Tandem TransAmerican

Tour 2003 

Jun 7 Hartville - Ashgrove 75mi

We set off around 8am this morning as it was yet another long day, these long days absolutely take all my strength, I knew this was going to be a tough call cycling across America but man I didn't think I could be so tired, having said that after today's riding I feel we are getting stronger.

We have been having so much trouble with our gears that Brian changed the sprocket yesterday before we left camp. It has not yet made a great deal off difference , in fact it is worse I don't know the mechanics of it but I think Phill said it needed to be tweaked  (bike talk I would think).

Poor Phill he has spent more time fixing things on the bike than riding today. First we had another spoke go this being the 3rd one so far, the load is far to heavy for the front wheel so we decide to take the panniers off the front to lighten the load again by reducing our clothing yet again ( this rate I will be cycling in my birthday suit) and sent one of the panniers home, the other one we put on the back.

We had another split in the tyre luckily we bought a cheap tyre from Wal Mart last night as there were no bike shops in town it was pure luck that Wal Mart had one, anyway we changed the tyre just in time I guess before it burst the inner tube.

With no spokes left Phill used a temporary spoke (teflon cord) he bought in Australia not thinking for one second he would ever need to use it. It did the job very well until we got to the next town.

The scenery is so beautiful no matter how low you feel it is made up for by the view.

Our leader Brian who has been so helpful to us with this wheel problem. As we cycled into a small town there he was waiting for us at the side of the road. He had thought about our problem and decided as we had such a heavy load and he didn't (and there was no bike shop until we reached Kansas) he would change his front wheel for ours. He said he had nursed bike wheels back to camp with 3 or 4 spokes broken! Makes you wonder what he was doing to the bike to break that many but thats a different story I guess. 

Latter in the afternoon the chain broke (what next we thought) Phill got all the spare bits and fixed it. That didn't go to smoothly - it looks easy to repair a chain in the workshop but on the road it's a different task. By removing a couple of links the chain was now shorter and two minutes up the road the chain got jammed, Too tight. We finished the day unable to use top gear and take advantage of any down hills. We finished the day's ride about finally getting into camp around 7pm.

As it was our turn to cook we felt really pressured into rushing back but yet again the gang decided we would eat out. I did apologize and said sorry guys we are not doing this because it's our turn to cook, one of the guys responded saying  he thinks it's great and we may even pay you guys to be late more often, ha-ha, eating out is always a great treat for us.

All's well that ends well (so we thought!!!!)

Page owned & maintained by Trish Collins email to  trishphill@aapt.net.au.  Last Updated 28/07/2003