Day 16 Union City UPDATE

This is just a quick update at 4:30pm, Friday. We were just going to go catch a movie, and had no sooner started peddling than April's brand new derailleur hanger snapped. I'm not sure how on earth this could happen; when she went down this morning she fell on the opposite side....

The photos illustrate the problem, and show April with her "charm" that we may have to try to straighten to limp us along.

I'm in the middle of trying to fix this problem, and it'll be interesting as there are no bicycle shops in Union City. In fact the closest shop is Bicycle City in Jackson where we had it fixed YESTERDAY. "...And then all manor of misfortune befell us" -Herb Heintz, Kinbrae.

Stay tuned...

So to update you on the problem: We called back to Bicycle City in Jackson, TN and they said they'd call us right back and they NEVER returned our call...nice. Well, I called Dave Sears, a first-class wrench at the Ski and Bike Shop in Grand Forks, ND (one of our sponsors and our home bike shop). Dave found the part number and the locations of several dealers "close" to us. The closest dealer was Bicycle World in Paducah, Kentucky 60 miles away.

Andy jumped at the chance to put on over 100 miles in a day and immediately volunteered to ride to Paducah this afternoon and pick up the parts; I ordered 2 derailleur hangers. Bicycle World of Paducah is leaving the parts in the mail box, and Andy will pick them up, spend the night at the motel 6 in Paducah, and then cycle back to us in the morning. I'll repair the derailleur and then we'll head out. Tomorrow morning we're heading to Hickman, KY to catch the ferry to Missouri. We'll be getting a late start, but we should be able ride through the afternoon since the high temps are only going to be in the mid 80's in Kentucky instead of the mid 90's in Tennessee... great!