More on the back pain later, but for now, here's what happened with my rear wheel:
It split!!
BADLY!!!
We left the nicely appointed guesthouse all ok (other than my bruised & cut foot from where I slipped in the bathroom and bashed it over the edge of the tiled step)... And got rolling along the roads heading northwest towards Siem Reap.
After about an hour of riding, I started to hear a slight knocking/rubbing sound... A rhythmic, rotating sound... I thought it must be the magnet that makes the speedo work, but nope, not that.
Glancing down at my rear wheel, I noticed my brake calipers were steadily twitching... So I stopped to check, and sure enough, could see the rim bending out and the tyre starting to bulge at the same point.
We stopped, and I spent a half hour trying to fix it, but as expected, to no avail. The aluminum was so fatigued, as soon as I pumped up my tyre it just bent back out.
The brake pads had also started to wear a groove in the tyre side wall, so rather than wreck a perfectly good tyre, I disconnected the brake cable to open them up, relying on my front brake only.
We had about another 80 kms to go to reach Siem Reap, so both of us were hoping the wheel would hold out that long.
It made it another 10 kms before bulging even more... So much so I had to use a mini bungy cord to pull my brakes open further, as they'd began to rub again.
I rode on another 10 kms, and by then, we were just hoping we were going to make it to the next small town, another 7 kms away, stop the night there, and then figure out how to get a ride to Sien Reap to get a new wheel, as it wasn't looking likely that it was going to hold on much longer...
And it didn't. It lasted another 100 yards, and with a pop and a whoosh, the inner tube failed, and we were pushing the bikes 6.9 kms to town!
After 4 kms of pushing, with lot of kind locals offering to help us fix my flat tyre, (but then realizing it was a bigger problem than one we could have fixed ourselves anyway) and no trucks that could give us a ride, we were fully resigned to pushing the rest of the way. It was then that a double-cab flatbed 4x4 flew past, the slammed on the brakes, jumped into reverse, and came back towards us. A smiling face popped out of the cab and said
" Do you need a ride to Siem Reap?"... And that was how we met our new friend, Kimsour.
What a guy!
He dropped us off right in the middle of town, and once we'd found a place and washed up and he'd gone back to wash up and pick up his lovely lady, met us in town and showed us the real Cambodia night life, and some amazing local beef and chicken dishes.
So out of a sucky-busted-wheel situation, we came out much better off, with some great local experiences, and some new friends.
Luckily for us, the next day, we found a great new bike shop in town, The Vicious Circle bike shop, who sorted me out with some sweet new rims and hubs, ready for us to carry on rolling on.
So that's the story of the busted wheel..! Sorry for the delay.
More posts and pix WILL be up shortly too, I promise... There's been some developments, for sure!
Cheers!
RWK.
OUT.
-Posted from my amazing iPhone 4!
Location:Siem Reap, Cambodia.
