Riding the bike yesterday felt a little wobbly, which I attributed to the tyre pressures being slightly low. Inflated them by the light of the new external lamp over the hab door, ready for a gentle ride along the coast from Moncofa towards Xilxes for lunch.
The bike still felt a little wobbly, but I began to ride a little quicker after about 3kms and was able to change up the gears and get the legs working. About 300m further on, the bike began to shake quite violently at the rear wheel and it took me a wee while to bring it to a safe stop.
Wheel nuts were tight, so rotated the rear wheel slowly and noticed a broken spoke, flapping in the breeze; then another, and another, and so on. Eventually, 6 spokes in a row fell away from the rear wheel hub, in a domino collapse. 'Twas a long way back pushing a knackered bike of over 25kg for 3km+ ...
The spokes look to have sheared, with shiny metal where the hub fasteners used to be and gouges around the hub where the spokes scraped it as they worked free and rotated ... We have to move off the Aire tomorrow (but everyone seems to just drive a couple of hundred metres to the adjoining streets where high rise new builds have been abandoned, so we will probably join them and hope that we can get the rear wheel respoked, or buy a replacement on Monday) ...
The shopping trip to Consume, less than 5 minutes on the bike, is a good 15 minutes on foot, and the extra 20 minutes across the outward and return walks coincided with the start of the downpour
The bikes are 3 weeks past their guarantee, and the Biwbik Retailer in Benicarlo has a sign in his window last week indicating he was still on holiday (or retired?). No signs on New Year activity ...
Steve
