On a steep descent, my rear wheel suddenly started dragging and scraping. A blown tube, maybe? I hoped not. I had already gone through both my spares.
The tube was fine. For no obvious reason, the wheel had become severely bent and was scraping the brake. I set to work laboriously truing it.
A crowd of men and boys gathered to watch, occasionally murmuring in appreciation, more often chuckling. They spun my pedals and stuck their fingers in the places I was trying to work.
I resisted the urge to shoo them away. Past experience had taught that, to my immense frustration, the crowd would inevitably point out something obvious and vital that I was overlooking. In this case, they pointed out the snapped spoke that had caused my rim to go out of alignment.
I had never fixed a broken spoke before, and I regretted throwing away my bike maintenance manual in Phnom Penh, but this was something I could handle. The crowd wanted a show, so I was all business, pulling out wrench sets, tire levers, and a Swiss Army knife from hidden pockets, and briskly disassembling the bike. From a suitable distance — say, Phoenix — I appeared to be completely in charge of the situation.
I hit my first snag when I realized that the broken spoke was on the same side as the drivetrain. To replace it, I would have to remove the rear gears. I was no longer just setting a bone. I was now removing an appendix.
The crowd became animated at the sight of blood. I pulled apart my rear hub, exposing its greasy innards to the grit of the highway. This was a part of the bike I had never seen before, and one that, as far as I was concerned, was not meant to be seen by human eyes. Bicycle hubs, I’m pretty sure, are manufactured by sterile robots in the vacuum of space.
So now I was performing open heart surgery. I soon realized that the entire procedure was pointless. Taking apart the hub would not allow me to remove the rear gears. I needed tools that likely didn’t exist within 300 miles.
Sensing my defeat, the crowd flagged down a passing bus. A circus troupe of bus roadies leapt from the vehicle and pushed, pulled, and heaved me and my luggage on board. They cleared aside some watermelons so I could have the choice seat behind the driver.
A few hours later, they dropped me on the outskirts of Qui Nhon. The sun had set. I walked my bike a few miles to town.
