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 The wheel has broken again! A few moments ago, I heard a spoke break and by the time I had walked to the city of Laon, visible up ahead on the hill, the wheel would be severely buckled again. This photograph shows the road where it happened and is for anybody who wants to try accusing me of "clattering into the kerb" or any other such nonsense. Just look at it and try to think if there's anything I could possibly have been doing here other than riding absolutely normally. I was going in a straight line at a steady speed and really not doing anything. It's hard to see what I could to to make it less likely for a wheel to break. This wasn't the first problem that the wheel has had today. On the way out of Arras, it got a puncture on the inside edge of the inner tube, caused by one of several sharp metal burrs on the rim. I hadn't had the tyre off before so I don't know if the wheel was made like that or if the man in Arras somehow damaged it. I filed them down and patched the inner tube and it was okay for a while but then I tried putting some more air in to get it back to the same pressure as the front tyre and that blew a hole in the patch. I knew I was taking a risk in using a bike which I hadn't thoroughly tested. The trouble is that there's a trade-off between testing a bike and starting to wear out some of its components before the trip starts. I didn't get any spare spokes in Arras but again, repairing the broken one would require removing the cogs, for which I don't have the tools. I don't think there's any point in trying to get this wheel fixed again. This trip won't be much fun if I'm only ably to ride about 70 miles every alternate day and have to spend the days in between waiting for the wheel to be fixed. I'll stop in Laon and think what I want to do. I really wanted to get on with making some progress today and tomorrow. The weather is improving, the wind is doing sort of the right kind of thing and I've booked two great-sounding hotels for the next couple of nights in good locations and with free Internet access for quite a lot less money than I have been paying for the last few nights. UTC Time: 13:48, Thursday 28 May 2009 Local Time: 15:48, Thursday 28 May 2009 Estimate of longitude: 3° 32' 51.50" E = 3.547638° Estimate of latitude: 49° 35' 23.33" N = 49.589813° Possible error on position estimate: 500 metres | |