Today is the second day since I started cycling that I didn’t ride my bike at all, and this time it wasn’t through choice. While I was injured and patched up yesterday, my bike also received some damage as it careened into the pavement, the front wheel is not even round enough to rotate through the fork, and the right brake lever got smashed into two pieces. Both are toast and beyond repair. I tried to stand on the front wheel so at least I could hobble the couple of miles across town but it is permanently bent, the bike is not for riding.

So today my two priorities were mostly taking care of myself, which was easy, I was already in a state of forced immobility, and secondly figuring out how to fix my bike. The town I’m in doesn’t have a dedicated bike shop, and the brake lever I need will have to be ordered, even in a large city no bike shop would have it in stock. I called up the nearest bike shop in the next town over, an hour away by car (have I mentioned Kansas is huge and flat and very sparsely populated outside of the major cities), which also is a little closer to the TransAmerica trail. The mechanic hoped on the computer with me on the phone and placed an order for the parts that I need. They should arrive by Friday and he said he should be able to work on my bike the same day.

I only booked two nights in Hays while I figured out what to do next, so tomorrow I’ll use the local taxi to drive me and my bike over to Great Bend where I’ll be able to hopefully have my bicycle repaired the following day. If all is well by Saturday I could rejoin the trail and continue east, Great Bend is near to the start of section 8. There’s only about 100 or so miles that I will have skipped ahead. If nothing else having a working bicycle will be liberating as these cities are not navigable on foot. I haven’t been able to explore the Hays downtown which is almost an hour away on foot, which is not only a lot of walking but also unappealing in this Kansas summer heat.