Sol Entry 11

Nevers. Mid-September.
We were only in Nevers for one afternoon and morning, but during that time we went for a long stroll around a medieval government building, an enormous and breath-taking cathedral, many narrow cobblestone streets and yellowed bridges, a couple parks, and our beloved Carrefour. The next morning my mother and I went for a morning walk, and watched as the city awoke.
After some coffee and bread, we set out from Nevers and rode about 15 kms outward on the highway. We’d just made it to the cycling path, to the farms and cows and mosquitos, when disaster struck. I felt resistance from my wheel, and then a loud metallic SNAP. Turns out the rim of my back wheel had splintered, caught on the wheel, and part of it had been torn right off. We didn’t know what to do. Some cyclists told us the next town might have a shop (about 8 kms away) but we weren’t sure the wheel would make it, and if it didn’t, it would be even more complicated to get back to Nevers. So after much deliberation, we decided to turn back. The problem was, I couldn’t replace the wheel without replacing the gears/speeds as well, which I didn’t want to do because they were great quality. So, I had to find someone to build me a new wheel using my old gears. We tried every bicycle workshop we could find. None of them wanted to repair the wheel. We didn’t know how we were going to work our way out of this one. 
One of the bike shops offered to sell us a used Scott bike for a very reasonable price, and help us ship my old bicycle to wherever we could fix it. After an afternoon of deliberation, test-riding the new bike, attaching the tube of an old frame to the rack so I could tow the cello, and more deliberation, we decided to go for it. So, we spent the rest of the afternoon taking apart my bike and packing it in the suitcase to ship to my aunt in Barcelona. We trusted the man at the shop to keep his word and ship it to the address, and bought the new used bike.