We have been pretty lucky so far with mechanical and gear issues. As a summary of our first three months riding (and over 5000km) we have basically had only one tire rupture (and a bit of panic with stupidity of bike shops in southern NZ), one break lever that did not want to come back to its normal position (the WD40 solved that problem) and the dumbest fall that damaged a part of our handlebar.<\/p>\n
If anyone has been keeping tally, our handlebar has been repaired twice since it met the ground in February. Although the first repair was a quick fix and held throughout the rest of New Zealand, we found that the two tack welds were no match against the elements of Tasmania. When we went to repair the handlebar a second time in Melbourne (also called Cedric cycling from a recommended person to another recommendation for 60km around the city on our friend Anny\u2019s bicycle \u2013 each person not able to do the adequate welding and sending to the next one), we found out that in addition to the two insufficiently small welded spots, the first welder had overheated the aluminum addition, making the rod structure questionably thin and weak in some places. We should simply have kept in mind that aluminum and welding simply don\u2019t work together!<\/p>\n
Coming out of Melbourne, with a nicely welded handlebar, top shiny looking, we were sure that the piece would last another month until we got our replacement in Brisbane \u2013 but it didn\u2019t. C\u00e9dric and I left Yackandandah on Sunday in a light rain and were headed for somewhere on Lake Hume. The weather had lightened by lunchtime, so we decided to stop at a park along the way on the side of the lake. As soon as we sat down and started to make sandwiches, Cassie noticed that a slight breeze and with the addition of the gentle slope of the parking lot it looked like a precarious situation for our bike, so she asked C\u00e9dric to check on its stability. About a minute after C\u00e9dric said that everything was fine, another light breeze came down the hill and knocked the bike over. On its weak side. As soon as we picked up the bike, we noticed that once again, the handlebar, the Achilles\u2019 heel of our bike, snapped where it was at its weakest.<\/p>\n