Intro
Today was supposed to be the day I finally felt the road beneath my tires again, but Lima had other plans. The morning started under a sky that looked like a bruised lung, damp and heavy, as I made my way back to Manuel’s workshop to reclaim my frame after fifty days of separation.
The Mechanic’s Bench
- I arrived at 9:30 sharp, but the metal shutters were still down, reflecting the grey coastal light. I killed time topping up my SIM card, and by 9:50, Manuel finally appeared, moving with a lethargy that didn’t match my internal urgency. When he finally rolled the bike out, the frustration set in immediately. He started explaining that the new front chainring was a different size and the chain tension was all wrong. I had to step in and show him how to use the eccentric bottom bracket to pull the slack out—a basic adjustment for a Rohloff setup, but one that seemed to baffle him. We spent the next hour threading wires for the lights along the frame, my hands getting greasy as I guided him through the routing.
- The real tension, however, wasn’t in the chain; it was in the rear wheel. Looking closely, I could see the tiny bends where the spokes exited the nipples. They had used 14mm longer spokes and just forced them to fit. In my limited Spanish, I had to explain that this wasn’t just a cosmetic issue; it was a structural failure waiting to happen. We went back and forth on the bill for thirty minutes. I refused to pay for a safety hazard he hadn’t cleared with me first. We eventually settled on splitting the cost of the incorrect spokes, a compromise that felt like a defeat. I paid the bill just to get my bike out of his hands before he could do any more damage.
The Walk of Shame
- I didn’t even try to swing a leg over the saddle. I couldn’t risk putting torque on those compromised spokes or damaging the Rohloff hub, so I pushed the bike through the humid streets back to Casa Ciclista. It felt ridiculous—having my ‘beloved’ bike back in my possession but being unable to actually ride it. Back at the house, I spent the afternoon doing the small, tactile jobs that actually felt productive. I moved the front bottle cages up so they wouldn’t rattle against the frame and spent an hour sliding gritty rubber gas tubes over the railings of my rack. The texture of the rubber was rough under my thumbs, but it’ll stop the panniers from sawing through the metal on the washboard roads ahead.
- I sat on the floor of the Casa Ciclista eating a handful of Chancay Bizcochos—dry, sweet bread that stuck to the roof of my mouth—and prepped for the move south. I knew I couldn’t cycle out of Lima safely, so the plan was to bus it to Punta Hermosa. I left the house at 3:30 p.m., leaving the bike behind in the casa ciclista, feeling a strange mix of relief and lingering anxiety about the wheel.
Five Hours of Stagnation
- At the bus stop, a large bus pulled up with ‘Panam. Sur’ splashed across the windshield. In my head, that meant a straight shot south on the Pan-American Highway. I climbed aboard, only to realize within twenty minutes that I had made a massive tactical error. The bus didn’t bypass the city; it dove straight into the heart of Lima’s rush-hour gut. For the next five hours, I was trapped in a metal box. The stagnant, humid air inside the cabin became a thick soup of diesel fumes and body heat as we crawled through downtown at a pace slower than a brisk walk.
- The sun went down somewhere behind the buildings, and the interior of the bus turned into a neon-lit fever dream of stop-and-go braking. By the time we finally cleared the city limits and the bus picked up speed, the clock was pushing 9:00 p.m. The transition from the chaotic, honking mess of central Lima to the absolute silence of Punta Hermosa was jarring. I hopped off the bus into the dark, the coastal air finally cooling, and walked through the empty streets toward the hostel.
Overnight
I’m staying at a hostel in Punta Hermosa. I arrived so late that the owner had already gone home, but they left a key in a hiding spot outside for me. The village is completely quiet tonight. I’m currently sitting alone in the communal dining area, eating a late dinner of crackers topped with tapenade and canned tuna.
Reflection
A bike is only as good as its weakest spoke, and right now, I have thirty-two reasons to be nervous.