Bike Meets Blacksmith

[ Valle de Bravo ]

Hola transglobalistas!

While preparing Fargo for departure last night, I went through my usual pre-ride checklist: check tire pressure, lube the chain, tighten critical nuts and bolts, top off mi botellas de agua, and load up with appropriate snacks. As one does. Usually it’s a pro forma exercise, but not this time.

Turns out—as I predicted back in Death Valley, early on—that one of the brackets supporting my gear racks was broken. ‘Twas cracked in two places—one hard jolt shy of snapping in half. As my ride consists largely of jolts and jostles, this posed a problem most urgent. Luckily, I’m in a part of the world where people repair things that break, and so I set out this morning to find a blacksmith.

This being Ash Wednesday, some folks were closed for half a day, but I persevered and soon I found the assistance I needed. It took a little more than an hour from “buenos dias” to “bien viaje,” but it was an overwhelming success: new brackets, made just for me, which will literally never, ever break. (He shoots! He scores! GOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAL!)

I’ve attached a few phone-only photos of the experience, for your viewing pleasure and mechanical edification. Enjoy.

Thanks to my local blacksmith, I’ll be back on the road either tomorrow or the day after—time to get my volcanic groove on, at long last.

Hasta pronto,

—jim

PS

For those interested in specifics, I ride Axiom Fatliners front and rear. They are outstanding racks for the money, and more or less bulletproof…EXCEPT for the small, flat plate which bolts to the bike’s braze-ons and the bottom of the rack. Those plates are too soft, too flimsy, and are a guaranteed point of failure for those with substantial loads riding rough surfaces.