From Ørnes

Prieto was gimpy this morning.

I got up around 5 am to get packed up and on the road early, but Prieto was having none of it. Prieto is my bike. Not every bike of mine gets a name. There have only been two, really: Prieto and Meg.

Meg was the bike that was with me the first time I traveled with all the gear. She was nearly stolen in London, but a little malfunction kept the thief from riding off. She flew a couple of times from the highways in Africa and crash landed ejecting all my panniers, but we escaped being flattened by the bus baring down on us. She even tackled the back roads of Mexico when I first moved there.

She was actually the bike onto which I strapped a backpack and sleeping bag and took off into the woods for my very first adventure. We camped in the mountains between Taos and Angel Fire, New Mexico. I got her used in Taos, in fact. That’s where I was living at the time.

She became such a faithful ride – though not much to look at – that I named her Meg after Tam’s hag in the Robert Burns poem, Tam O’Shanter: “My good mare Meg, a better never lifted leg.”

But Meg is long retired now. She still hangs in the workshop at my parents’ place. She earned a good rest. Now Prieto is with me. He’s a Trek Checkpoint. A generous gift.

I’ve run him a lot. He needed some serious last-minute work on a shifter before I left for this trip. Shout out to the crew at Phat Tire Bicycles, Edmond, OK for doing some emergency surgery on July 4 to get Prieto feeling better.

Today he was gimpy in the back tire. In fact, the back tire was shot and out of whack. I bumped 53 miles to Ørnes just praying the sports store I saw on Google maps had a bike mechanic and parts…and that I’d get there before it closed at 3 pm.

Prayers answered in the affirmative on all counts. God is always gracious with me, but it was just lovely how everything worked out. Stoler, the bike mechanic, had just gotten back from vacation – his first day back!

He took the matter in hand and tried to fix the wobbly fit on the rim, but we both kind of decided the tread was worn thin. It wasn’t going to make it much longer. So I ended up getting a new tire. Stoler put it on, aired up both tires, and Prieto is now feeling like a race horse. Stoler didn’t even charge me for the service, just the new tire. 399 kroners well spent, I’d say.

And the workers at the sporting good store were so friendly. Everyone seemed to be involved, like they cared about getting this traveler back on the road. So to Stoler and the sales people at Sport 1 Ørnes, TUSEN TAKK!

Things worked out so well that I even had a couple of hours before the ferry departure. Just had a cheeseburger and fries at the restaurant that opened two minutes after I arrived at their door. God is good! Today I feel like I’m his favorite.