Bike Repairs

The desert in the west of Argentina is beautiful and as the name suggests does not get much rain due to the shadow effect of the high Andean peaks. The only reason that there is any population and agriculture around here is beacuse dams have been built on the few streams that run down the eastern slopes of the mountains to catch the spring and summer run-off and irrigation canals direct the water to vinyards, olive grooves, and vegitable farms ( I don´t know where the veggies go cause we sure don´t see much of them). But get more than 50 kms from these irrigated areas and it turns to arid scrub. From a distance the green scrub can look soft and pretend to offer shade but up close prickels and thorns are everywhere, even on the bugs.

Camping in the desert sure takes its toll on the old bike and other camping equipment. I have had no less than 15 flat tires (Al bout 10 flats) and I still have some slow leaks that I cannot find. Just moving onto the shoulder of the road puts you in jeopardy of a flat cause all of the little scrub plants have thorns. Worse yet pushed my bike into the brush to set up camp cost me 3 flats and a nasty thorn through the sole of my sandals. Even got a puncture in my water bladder for my camel back.






I trid to get some new tubes for my tires in San Luis (last town we were in ) but one bike shop was closed for 2 weeks for summer vacation (what kinda bike shop closes in the summer, why not take a month off in the winter when you wouldn´t loose sales) and the only other bike shop in town was not surprisingly out of inner tubes and could not get any more until next week because the factory that makes bike inner tubes was on vacation for the month of January (some crazy kinda commerce in this country). Fortunately I have lots of patches - actually these new kinda patches that we brought from Canada are great, no glue needed, you just sand the area of the puncture and apply the pre-sticky patch.