Wheel trouble

Just as I was about to cross into NV from ID my front brakes started grabbing. Upon investigation I discovered that the rim was bent at the seam. Maybe, I thought, it would be fine. I continued biking and even passed up an offer for a ride into Owyhee and the large city of Elko the next day proffered by a kind Indian gentleman in a white pickup.

By the time I made it to Owyhee proper, however, a small crack had formed in the rim. Disaster, it seemed, was eminent. There was no way that wheel could hold for much longer. I kicked myself for not taking the man up on his offer of a ride. Elko, over a hundred miles away, was the closest place I could possibly find another wheel. I stopped at the only store in Owyhee and bought some peanut butter. Several people came up to me and chatted as I tried to decide what to do about the wheel. A cop I had previously asked about road conditions drove past again and turned sturn. "How long does it take you to go a hundred miles?" she asked. "Well," she continued, before I could reply fully, "there's a hotel here and one in Mountain Home, and nothing in between. It's getting kind of late, just so you're aware." "There's absolutely nothing in between," her partner reiterated.

I found a campsite right outside of town, shielded from the road by willows and right next to an irrigation ditch. In the morning I biked 10 miles to Mountain City, hoping to catch the man in the white truck again. Sure enough, he pulled into town around 8:00am, and drove straight past me. He slowed, however, backed up and offered me a ride again.

Ben turned out to be older than I had thought, and even more gregarious than I had anticipated. He was an 84 year old former heavy equipment operator and truck driver. For the entire ride he regaled me with stories of bronc riding, the Pacific theater in World War II, building dams, hauling stuff, putting up fences and other riders he'd picked up over the years. His wife, Vivian, occassionally interrupted. "Ben," she ordered, "slow down, there's a tractor up there." It turns out Ben had probably not stopped initially because he hadn't seen me. However, between the three pairs of eyes in the truck we made it to Elko in one piece and Ben dropped me off right at the bike store. Amazingly enough, they had a strong wheel that fit. In a couple of hours I was back on the road, having only lost as much time as the ride with Ben and Vivian had allowed me to gain.