Off The Chain

From Oaxaca I rode east toward Chiapas. The only thing standing in my way was Tehuantepec, an area prone to the extreme Tehuano winds. With a storm generating gusts up to 70kmph, it would have been foolish to attempt a crossing, so I killed a few days at "Don Taco's," which is named for the owner's bichon frise, Don Taco. As the storm waned, I went for the crossing, which was still a bit spicy.

A copse... a grove... a horizon of mango trees signaled my arrival in Chiapas. By this point, Hobbes was like 2011 Charlie Sheen: looking decent but more troubled than we ever knew. The hole in the exhaust pipe had grown larger than the one in his septum, the chain was looser than his grasp on reality, he wouldn't start in gear, the handlebars were wobbling due to a bad steering column bearing, and the mysterious fuel starvation issue persisted. I limped into San Cristobal de Las Casas where I found Esau, a mechanic specializing in large ADV bikes. He didn't speak English, but luckily Juan was there to translate my litany of issues.

Esau's haruspication took all of ten seconds as he peered over the handlebars and pointed out that the clutch microcontroller, which is a thing I totally knew existed, had been yanked out. He could rewire it, weld the exhaust, and order a new chain, but it would take a week to arrive. The fuel issue would remain undiagnosed, and the speed wobbles were tenable.

I didn't want to lose a week, so I ordered the chain to a shop in Veracruz and we removed a link from the existing chain. I didn't need a translator to understand when Esau said "you've got 600 kilometers until this chain goes tits up. Go straight to Veracruz." See, removing a chain link is like cutting off a broken finger. Technically your finger isn't broken anymore, but everything is not fine. Either way, it takes someone handy to pull it off.

Breakdowns and impromptu repairs sound romantic, but they sap your morale. When it's problem after problem, you lose faith in the machine and are relegated to main roads. With more than 60k miles, Hobbes is not always winning anymore, but as long as I change his tiger blood every 3k miles, he should live to see many more seasons.