I slept in a little again. I think I woke up around 7:45am. Before rolling out of bed I texted Cat to see if she was awake, and to see what the plan for the day was. The night before we had made tentative plans to take a bike ride, and I just wanted to check to see if it was still on. She invited me over for coffee and breakfast, and I told her I'd leave the bike house in about 20mins. The forecast called for rain, so I wore appropriate attire, but the morning was blue skied and sunny. After getting ready, I rode the half mile over to her place and could see the clouds in the distance.
We chatted over coffee and toast, and we also discussed options. The plan was to ride up to Pinos Altos, about 10 miles north and around 1100ft higher in elevation. Seeing as how I love the air up in the pines it sounded good to me, but ultimately I just wanted to get my legs moving since I was planning on sticking around town for the day. We had both remember that Cat left her van out on highway 180 the day before, so we changed plans to ride out about 16 miles to where her can was, then drive up to PA and ride bikes up there if the weather held up.
The ride to the van was easy. The first 2.5 miles were up hill, but the rest of the way was mostly down. The conversation made it go by quick and I was happy to get a morning ride in. At the van we loaded the bikes in and head up to Pinos Altos. Along the way it had started to sprinkle, but the ride up was still beautiful. Cat had grown up in the area and was a great tour guide giving me fun little facts along the way, like showing me the intersection where another local cyclist had hit a deer while riding his bike. Although we skipped the riding because of the rain, I was happy to make it up that way and see the area. That little trip pretty much ensured that I would make plans to return to the area and check out more of the Gila Wilderness.
Back in town we were both starved so Cat treated me to lunch at Don Fidencio's, a local burrito spot where you can get a lot of bang for your buck. We also had a great conversation, and I was super grateful for meeting her. After lunch she went home to finish a report she was working on, and I headed to the bike shop. We exchanged contact info and agreed to stay in touch.
At the local bike shop, Gila Hike & Bike, I met another really awesome person named Dave. He was working at the shop but we ended up talking for a couple of hours in between the occasional phone call and customer visit. Everybody seems to know each other in the Silver City bike community, and Dave introduced me to everybody that came into the shop. At some point Dave closed the shop for a few minutes and we went back to Don Fidencio's where I got another burrito. I just feel like a bottomless pit, even on my days off. Dave told me about the community bike shop, Bikeworks, which would open around 5pm. Having seen similar community shops in Portland, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Barbara, I was curious to check out what Silver City had to offer. It wouldn't open for another couple hours so I went to a local coffee shop, Javalina, and worked on the blog.
It had been raining most of the day in Silver City so I was kind of pleased that I decided to stick around, as opposed to riding all day in the rain. While I was able to make a little progress on the travel journal blog (it feels like two steps forward, two steps back with this thing) the sun went down, and around 6pm I headed over to Bikeworks.
Bikeworks is located on top of a fairly steep hill. I thought it was a kind of weird location, but honestly nothing seems out of the way in Silver City. When I walked into the giant warehouse I could tell right away that this was one of the best community bike shops I had been to. It was bigger and better than the Bike Kitchen in San Luis Obispo and even better than Bici Centro in Santa Barbara. There were 8 different stations each with their own set of tools, a section that was still being built for welding, shelves full of well organized parts, and even an upper section full of tires, wheels and tubes. The space was provided by the city so there was no overhead for rent, and other funding was provided through grants and donations. As a result, Bikeworks tried to give back to the community trough an earn-a-bike program as well as offering free help with bike repair.
Dave gave me the full tour of the space and although there was still a lot still coming into fruition with the place, it was still a really great space. At some point we got to talking about my bike, and I mentioned a problem with my rear derailleur. Dave seemed all too curious about the problem and we set my bike up on the stand to check it out. He showed me how to lube my cables and then we took the rear derailleur off to find out if the arm was bent at all. Before we could do that I needed to true the rear wheel. I had tried (and failed) to do it while in the bike, but now with the proper tools it was making much more sense. I feel like I could've drove myself crazy trying to perfectly true the wheel, and after getting it plenty good Dave just made a few adjustments and it was great. After that we used a tool that checks to see if the derailleur arm is bent at all, and it seemed like it may have been a little off but not much, so we bent it back into place. We put the derailleur back on and Dave showed me how to adjust the settings. We still couldn't get it working perfect, and he noticed the chain seemed a little loose. Finally we checked the chain and it was very stretched.
You run a risk simply replacing a chain as stretched as mine was. With a chain stretched a lot it's possible that the gears on the rear cassette may have become spaced as well, so replacing the chain sometimes means also replacing the cassette. If you don't replace the chain you run the risk of the chain breaking, especially on an uphill...and that could leave you stranded. I decided to take the risk with replacing the chain, and that cost me $16. I tested the bike out, as did Dave, and everything seemed alright. Luckily the gears weren't slipping, so it appeared that I would be alright with the cassette that was on there for now. With that said, I may have to replace it sometime down the line.
In the end, I had learned a lot about my bike. It was great having Dave, who is such a wealth of knowledge when it comes to bikes, to help me work on my bike. Wherever I end up living I really want to find a community shop like this one, and spend some time down there volunteering and learning as much as I can about bicycles. I'm super grateful to Dave for showing me a few things and helping me with my bike. He ended up staying later than usual just to help me out, and even more than that he just seems like a genuinely cool guy. I'm pleased to have met him and I was super happy to have my bike running smoother. Having fixed the problem in the rear derailleur, I was now curious to check out the front one as well as see how true the front wheel is. I guess I'll save that for another day.
On the way back to the bike house I picked up some salad and ice cream. Ben had made some pasta, so for dinner we had pasta and salad. Everybody was out in the living room of the bike house, and they all seemed super happy that I had brought ice cream to share. As we ate and chatted, I could see how living in that house would be interesting, because it just seemed like such a tight circle of friends. From the art and puppetry projects (the whole upstairs was designated to projects), to the rants by city council member Jamie, to having random touring cyclists like myself always passing through, I could definitely see the appeal. Not too mention how completely comfortable I felt there, and how welcomed everybody made me feel.
After going back for seconds of both dinner and ice cream I headed to bed. I was planning on getting a late start out of town because I wanted to stop by the local co-op grocery store to get a few things. Once again I retired to the guest room and laid in bed. I thought back on my day and felt very accomplished. Silver City is a cool little town, and I never expected to meet so many awesome people there. It was cold again in the unheated room, but I fell asleep easily and looked forward to getting back on the road the next day.
Miles: 23 miles outside and around town
RRD: A camouflaged left hand glove
-D
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