Delivering Hope to Ukraine - End of day three

Delivering Hope to Ukraine

End of Day three.

Eventful is one word which describes today, others one could choose from could be “disappointing”, “cold” and/or “frustrating”. However the ones to avoid are words like “disaster” and that’s one we took a lot of time out today to ensure didn’t raise its head. More about that later.

The day started with the usual checks, today even before breakfast. One of those tasks really got to me. I carry with me a cycle hand pump, ok it’s a bigger bore than standard but nevertheless a hand pump for a cycle is all it is. When attaching the tube to the valve more air was coming out than I’d like. This meant when I’d pumped the tyre up, it was only where it was pressure wise before I stated meddling. After doing this twice, I resorted to calling upon my wingmen to help out. For those who’ve never followed my various cycle challenges before, these are four late male roll models I had and still have much time for. Russell Nicholls, Adam Beddard, Marco Simoncelli and Joey Dunlop. Unfortunately the four are now five, as they’ve been joined by the late Daniel Hegarty. If tomorrow’s not too eventful I’ll fill you in a bit about these guys tomorrow.

Anyway, back to today . . . so I’m blowing up the tyre and request a little help from the wingmen, as per, they respond and not only does said tyre go up on the third time of asking but we even get a few more pounds in than we need and I have to let her down a tad. I’m sure you remember this one Annette Nicholls, I believe I was either in Sardinia on a long haul up a never ending climb or maybe it was in the Alps, I called upon their help and the bike appeared to peddle itself. It was a very surreal moment.

I digress, today after a cracking early start there came a sound from the front wheel, I’d heard it from time to time yesterday, but only very intermittently and not very loud at all. Well, today after about fifty-miles it was getting so loud I felt the need to stop and take a look. I found somewhere next to a shop with a bit of sun on it and importantly out of the wind, which was biting today. Concerned the noise was a dry wheel bearing I stripped out the wheel and inspected everything. No sign of dryness or play in the bearings, I reassembled everything and off we went, same noise again, but this time I noticed every time the note changed the speedometer gave a shudder. This suggested a speedometer drive issue rather than a bearing. Wheel out again, worm drive mechanism out, checked and cleaned. Reassembled and off we go again, still the noise persisted and now it’s 24/7 and getting worse if anything. Final stop to disconnect speedometer cable from front wheel worm drive. The downside now being we don’t know how fast we’re going (which is hardly an issue ), however we also have no record of miles covered which would ordinarily be physiologically helpful for me. We don’t need to know the mileage coz it’s circa 3,000, we know that already. Added to which it’s being tracked by both Strava and Polar Steps anyway. Thus, it’s no big deal in reality. Most importantly we DON’T have a problem with the wheel bearing, which could have resulted in a catastrophic failure.

Tonight, in the dark and with a little help from the torch I’ve disconnected the cable from the speedometer and flushed the cable from top to bottom with WD40. That might help, we’ll see in the morning.

Tonight we are in Nörten-Hardenbeg, not as far East as we were hoping by the end of day three - it is what it is!

Anyway, distancing ourselves from all the above negative shenanigans . . . this evening we went into a roadside cafeteria to get some supper, the guy who serves me wants to know why I have Ukraine flag on my bike? I tell him what I’m doing, he says I’m Ukrainian and it’s good what you’re doing (he’s only around 25 years of age, I think if he were my age he’d have given me a hug). Anyway looking at the portion sizes, compared to what I’d asked for (plus the free cake) I think he said his “thank-you” with the food / drink. He (Vlod) and the young lady working alongside him both fled to Germany at the start of the war.

Early start tomorrow, breakfast is at 07.00

Thank-you everyone for your invaluable messages of support and encouragement - they all make a huge difference. Night, night all.