Day off in Macas Ecuador - Part of my Pan American Bike Tour
With my bike needing repairs from the previous day's long ride, I took a day off in Macas, Ecuador to find a bicycle mechanic to fix my spoke and repair some brake blocks.
Bicycle Repairs in Macas
Blog post written June 23rd 2010
After such a long day's cycling the day before, and with the bike needing repairs, another day off was in order.
Repairing a broken spoke is a relatively straight forward task, and one that I can easily do myself, but I like to give to the communities that I am visiting.
I try to avoid being one of these cycle tourists who act as a sponge in an effort to get everything for free, or insist on doing everything themselves.
Everyone has to earn a living, and the guy in the bicycle shop is no different. Two dollars is really nothing to me, and that's what the guy charged to fix the spoke, and to also fit four new brake blocks on. This included the cost of the blocks - Bargain !
When I got back to the room, England were playing football. They looked a little better than they had done in the previous two games, although there seemed to be a parallel competition on pitch as to which team could collect the most yellow cards. I think Slovenia won in the end, although the actual match ended in a 1-0 victory for England.
I was quite looking forwards to the agony of following them through the world cup to end, but it seems it will go on a little longer at least !
I'm still trying to find out about the road ahead, in regards to whether I need to cut back up to Cuenca or can carry straight on through to Loja. I should find out tomorrow for sure when I get to what I hope is going to be a junction town.
Read more about cycling from Alaska to Argentina
Dave is a UK travel writer living in Athens since 2015. With 20 years of firsthand travel experience and over 80,000 km of bicycle touring across six continents, he's been blogging at Dave's Travel Pages since 2005. Every guide is based on places he's actually been.
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