The Kindness of Strangers- Misadventures of a Broken Derailleur

On our 2023 LEJOG (UK)  tour, we were riding a nice little trail through Winsford Town Park when Bliss called for me to stop. I went back to find that she had run over a stick that popped up and stuck between her rear derailleur. It snapped the derailleur in 3 pieces.  Bad news!

Crazy what a small stick can do!

Amazingly, apple maps showed a bike shop right around the corner. Bliss pushed my bike and I carried hers. Not a bike shop, but a Polish market. More bad news.  We were standing there trying to figure out what to do when a taxi pulled up. He said he knew a guy that started repairing bikes during COVID. He drove Bliss there for free while I waited with the bikes. Only her phone had service, so we had no way to contact each other. Luckily she came back, and said the guy couldn’t fix the bike but he called a friend with a moving truck to come and pick us up and take us to a bike shop in Northwich, 7 miles away. He showed up a little while later, and we used the lift to get the bikes and gear into the truck. The guy asked for a couple pounds to pay for petrol, I gave him more because we were so grateful.

A van with a lift? YES PLEASE!

We arrived at B & G cycles and auto parts. The bicycle portion was run by Colin, a former member of the Scottish national rugby team. The difficult part was that Bliss’ bike had an electronic derailleur, so she needed a new electronic one or to replace the whole drive train. It would take at least a week to get one ordered in. So Colin spent about an hour calling all the bike shops around to see if they had one in stock. It was looking pretty dire so we even considered buying a new bike to finish the trip. 

When we offered Colin money for helping us, he mentioned that he had received so much kindness while travalling in the US for Rugby this was his way of repaying it.

As hope was fading, Colin found a shop that had a bike in for a tune up with the same electronic derailleur. They called the owner of the bike who said he could wait for a new derailleur to be ordered (that we paid for) and we could have his.  GOOD NEWS!!  Colin called an employee, Simon, who was on his day off. He agreed to drive Bliss and her bike to Cheshire Cycles 11 miles away. The car was pretty small, so I had to ride my bike to meet Bliss there. I took Bliss’ phone for the map, so again we had no contact. Simon was a little scary looking, so I couldn’t help thinking what I would tell the police if Bliss went missing. I shouldn’t judge, Simon was great to help us. As I rode up to the bike shop I saw the mechanic riding Bliss’ bike to make sure everything was working right. Perfect timing!

Riding through Manchester was not much fun because of traffic, and we arrived pretty late at our campsite. But considering how many small miracles that happened throughout the day, it was amazing that we only lost a few hours and were able to keep on our schedule. We are very grateful for kind people all over the world.