Darth Zadar

Darth Zadar
In Croatia.
We went to the first real bicycle shop that we have seen since the United States and asked about getting a SRAM shifter to replace the broken one decorating Shannon's bike. They didn't have SRAM, didn't stock SRAM, and though the friendly but useless guy on the phone at SRAM told me to go ahead and find a local bicycle store and just ask them to special order the shifter, this guy was not willing to do so. He helpfully asked, "how much time do you have?" Not much. He suggested what I had in my heart to do anyway which was to switch Shannon's bike over to Shimano and call it a day. A much better day. So we shelled out a small truck load of Kuna and had ourselves a set of Shimano shifters and a Shimano derailleur. He was also a sweetheart, like most welders, and grumpy bicycle shop mechanics tend to be.
I installed new shifters and derailleur but could see that the derailleur hanger was still badly bent and Shannon would still be facing some bad shifting, annoying and frustrating. I decided to go against everything I knew and try to bend the hanger just a bit. It didn't take much force at all and it broke off in my hand, quite heart brakingly. I decided to just install new brake pads on her bike and then go drink a beer. Boo and hoo were all that I could think. That and about what our new plan might be now that we may need a new plan. A ferry to Italy came to mind.
We went around today to all four (miracle!) bicycle shops in town, Zadar, and each in turn told us that they did not have that part. Of course they didn't because Shannon's bicycle is not on that any of them sell and as far as I can tell is the only Bianchi cyclo-cross bicycle to ever have visited the Balkan states. One guy, a grumpy sweetheart, said that if we couldn't find the part at another shop that he knew a welder who could weld the bits back together for us. It turned out to be our only option. We took a cab to the fellow's place and he welded it back together in about twenty minutes. Sweetheart.
I put the derailleur hanger back on the bike, then the derailleur and it was of course at least as bent as it had been before. Part of me was tempted to try to bend the hanger, again, but I fought that insane urge and just got the shifting going as well as I could. I then spent time working on both of the bicycles and some on the trailers in hopes that we can avoid any more disasters for a few days.
We are leaving here tomorrow sporting almost all of our gears, on toward Italy, hopefully in a few days, and on to track down the Giro d'Italia.



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