According to Google, the shop opened at 10 am; I got there at 10:05. The lead mechanic – and, I found out later, owner – already had a bike he was working on, but the phrase “I was on the canal trail from Buffalo when…” was enough to get my bike on the workstand within moments. I told him what had happened the night before. He shook the rear wheel side to side, quickly got it off the bike, and started taking it apart.
He was moving so fast!
A few moments later, I had the news. The bearing race was pitted, and the axle was
bent. Now, the bearing race I had known about – I put in new ball bearings before the trip. But a
bent axle? “Easier and cheaper to just replace the whole wheel,” he told me.
I browsed around the shop while he set to work. The repair section had knowledgeable, courteous staff. About 10 minutes after I got there, another rider came in, this time with a recumbent in the bed of a pickup truck. The owner told him that his bike would be after mine – in about 15 minutes, and would you like help getting the bike down from there? The bikes for sale were from at least half a dozen different manufacturers. I mentioned to the woman at the sales counter that in Philly, it was rare to find a bike shop that wasn’t directly owned by a manufacturer these days. “They try that around here, too. But this is OUR bike shop, mine and my husband’s. We sell Treks, but we don’t belong to Trek.” So, gentle readers, if you’re ever in need of a bike or bike repair and you’re on the west side of Rochester NY, I heartily recommend The Bike Zone on W. Ridge Road. I could have done a lot worse.
Once the repairs were done and I had a new wheel on the bike, I had a decision to make: should I continue to try for Albany?
- I was on the west side of Rochester. Fairport was 20 miles away, give or take. My intended stopping point for Monday, Seneca Falls, was 70 miles away. There was no way that bike with those batteries would get me 70 miles in one day. Even if I could charge on the way, the batteries charge at 2 amps max. They do not play well with fast chargers.
- Beyond Fairport was – not much. Palmyra was 35 miles away from the bike shop, give or take; Newark was 42 miles, and Lyons was 47. I wasn’t finding much in the way of hotels at any of those towns. (As I’m writing this from the comfort of my home, I’m finding one hotel in Newark that would have been within reach of the bike shop, from which I could have ridden to Syracuse in a day.)
- My biggest concern, though, was that something had happened that made the axle bend. If the underlying problem was that the bike just didn’t like having that much weight on the rear, did I really want to set out again? Next time, the trouble might hit when I was far from a bike shop, and even farther from a city where I could rent a car to get myself and my bike home. My “bail-out” towns were Rochester, Syracuse, and maybe Utica. I had run into trouble 2 miles from Rochester – maybe I shouldn’t risk another ramble.
- The deciding factor may have been something that the mechanic/owner mentioned while we were chatting as he was working on the bike: Rochester was hosting a jazz festival that week. There would be free outdoor performances every night.
By the time my bike was ready to ride, I had come to my decision: I’d get a hotel in Rochester for a few days. During the daytime, I’d explore around the city, and at night, I’d go to concerts. Not the trip I had planned, but not a bad fall-back.