Interim Fork Solution

Short Version:
Beards are good

Long Version:
A noise woke us. It was dark.

The noise grew closer, approaching from the south-east. Through the trees we could see a yellowish glow.

We'd executed some Reaper concealment maneuvres before turning in, and were glad we'd done so as the noise got louder, the glow brighter.

Turns out you can fit a heck of a lot of lights onto a full-size logging truck with trailer when you set your mind to it.

The behemoth roared past the open end of our cul-de-sac like something from a George Lucas film* and then braked hard fifty feet up the road to avoid plowing through the locked gate. Attendant vehicles - oversized pickup trucks, looking tiny next to their mothership - swarmed in the truck's wake. Someone had a key, the gate was unlocked, the convoy entered. The gate was relocked, and we went back to sleep.

When we awoke the second time, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and my stupid fork was still broken. So we ate and we drank, and we broke camp and hit the road. We'd debated whether we should head north-east to Salem or back south to Corvallis, and in the end the great attitudes and expertise and etc of the guys at Corvallis Cyclery, along with the repeated and emphatic recommendations that we really should go south-east and ride at Oakridge** while in the area, won the day, and before long we were rolling through the leafy town and pulling in to park the Reaper right outside the shop.

Consensus was that the fork needed to go back to the manufacturer, but that a stop at the local Specialized dealer wouldn't go astray. So we left Janine's bike being pampered and wandered off down the street. The Specialized store was full of women about to go on a women-only skills clinic, but once that wave of carnage departed head mechanic employed some seriously dark arts of fork illness diagnosis, and eventually concluded that it needed to go back to the manufacturer, but that that couldn't be initiated until Monday (this was Saturday morning), and would likely take 2 weeks or thereabouts before the fork came back to the shop which sent it in.

None of these things suited us particularly well, so it was a downcast pair who trudged back to the Reaper, deep in discussion of options for more riding on a hired bike (too expensive), or more riding on the bung fork (not much fun, and probably warranty-voiding) or a run straight up the Interstate to Vancouver, where we could at least have the occasional shower whilst sorting the thing out. Or buying a new fork, which, although not cheap, could well have been the way to go... had any store in town had any appropriate forks for sale.

In the end we were rescued by a bearded man. Corvallis Cyclery Carl had a fork on one of his bikes which would fit my bike and suit our riding purposes. Given that he has many bicycles, and was about to go away for a few weeks with no bicycles at all, the fork could live on my bike for a while, and I could courier it to him when mine was back from the dead. Hoorah! The trip continues!









* = one of the original, good, tacky-effects ones from the 70s and 80s. Not the appalling, over-produced, poorly-written junk which came out two decades later.

** = Nene was keen, but I was resisting, on the grounds that that was where she poisoned me a month or two back