Bike Repair

 

Bike Repair

I biked from Cle Elum to Ellensburg on Wednesday.  Along the way my rear wheel began emitting unnatural sounds.  Though I have a great capacity to ignore things, there came a point when it could be ignored no longer.  I pulled out my cell phone looking up bike repair shops.  I discovered that there was a local mobile bike repair shop.  I telephoned Seth who told me where to meet him along the trail.

            An hour later he arrived with a wonderful travelling bike repair shop and a very endearing setter named Rusty.  I played with Rusty while Seth worked on the bike.  He replaced 4 damaged spokes and trued the wheel.  He also phoned up the bike store in Pullman, Washington and gave them my specifications so that they could make me a new wheel to be ready upon my arrival in that city.  He gave me a bottle of chain oil and a new inner tube. For all of this, and over an hour of his time, he charged me 38 dollars.

He also stated that my load was too heavy.   As I rode into Ellensburg I began to consider this as a rather apt description of my mental and spiritual state.  Upon arrival in Ellensburg I bought a bike cart (a photo of which I shall include in tomorrow’s post) that the burden might be shared. I invite all of you to consider this, as well.

            Crossing the Cascades into Eastern Washington one observes a change in the landscape.  I have left behind the rain forests and have entered the desert.  I had the opportunity to meet with Ethan Bergman, the vicar of Grace Church, Ellensburg.  He is also an avid cycle and offered some helpful counsel about the route as I head eastward.  He is also serving as a professor of nutrition at Central Washington University. 

            I am grateful for the hospitality of Jack Calvert with whom I spent last night.  He is a recently retired nurse practitioner