Holy moley

OK, things took a turn downhill today.

First, I was late getting on the road because I spent an hour trying to find a cybercafe that would provide printouts of my route. Once I did, it took almost two hours plotting out my route from Brugge to Amsterdam on Mapquest and printing out the pages (at 30 euro cents per page).

Then when I went to go get the bike, I found her on her side. I think someone tried to steal her but couldn't move it because the steering was locked AND I had a chain through her wheels -- the rental place insisted on both.

When I started her, she started and changed gears just fine, but about half a mile later she got stuck in second gear and wouldn't go up or down. The fall must have done something to jam her gearbox.

So I tried to call the rental place, but they're closed until Monday now.

I'm not sure what they're going to tell me because they said that if she broke down outside of France I was on my own. So I essentially have two options: get her fixed here, at my expense, or have her towed to Paris, at my expense. I've been warned the latter could run €700 to €800 ($1,075 to $1,230 CDN, or $900 to $1,040).

I just spent three hours at a gas station where no one who worked there spoke anything but Flemish. Mara Miller tried to get some useful information from them about towing or bike repairs by phone from Amsterdam, but was frustrated that they weren't very helpful.

They did have a steady stream of customers demanding their attention and were trying to run a business, so I was grateful they did let me use their phone to call her in Amsterdam and to try to call Business-bikes.com in Paris (who were already closed for the day). I think they would have liked to help but were very busy and there was this language barrier.

A wonderful gentleman named Wim and his wife Bernadette, who overheard me trying to make myself understood, volunteered to become my official translators. And THEN they kindly spent an hour calling around to try to find a place that could fix her. But Brugge is a small place, so there's a dearth of bike shops. None of the ones Wim talked to had parts for this bike and would have to order them.

The rental place will charge me for the damage from the fall, but that's not the biggest issue. If I can't get her back to Paris, they will charge me the entire cost of the bike.

Seriously.

But I seem to have found some guardian angels. Wim and Bernadette not only insisted on acting as my translators, but talked the gas station into storing the bike inside overnight so it wouldn't get stolen. And then they insisted on driving me back to the hostel. And waited to make sure they had a room. AND gave me their phone number and told me to phone them if I needed any more help.

Seriously.

What amazingly nice people!

Looks like I'm moving into the Bauhaus hostel for the weekend. I'll call Business-bikes.com on Monday and find out what my options are.