It did. The whole electric motor.
This from Graz (yes, Austria already – what happened to Hungary?!) – do you remember that post the other day when I said I wonder what disaster might be about to befall me next? Hoping none would?
After all, I’d just smashed my expensive smartphone, ruined my favourite shirt when twisting it too tight in a towel to dry it, lost my favourite sunhat, got clobbered with fines for failing to get vignettes for motorway use across Central Europe, and I don’t know what else…
Well, how’s about £2000-worth of fancy retrofit electric motor on the bike – without which, given its total weight (70kg in all, or more) it’s the cycling equivalent of my broken Pixel 7 brick? – completely failing?
For that’s exactly what’s happened. Yesterday, after just 400km of use (we’ve had 10,000 km out of its sister motor on the tandem, without issue), my brand new Pendix motor gave up the ghost.
Kaputt, as it’s easier to say now in German than in the Hungarian with which I still struggle, and needing total replacement. With me then stuck physically in deepest, hilliest, Western Hungary.
No need to go into boring details, but with thanks to Pendix in Zwickau in old East Germany where they used to make Trabants, to Nik Heathman at Thorn Cycles in Bridgwater who both built the bike and fitted the motor, and to a rather wonderful bike shop here in Graz, I’ve ended the day already, less than 12 hours after first making contact with them all, with an entirely new motor, fitted under guarantee.
So with Ride with GPS at the ready (my favourite long-distance cycling app which just tells me where to go moment by moment, and usually gets it right), both Pendix batteries charged, and with the sun preparing to hammer down again tomorrow with temperatures up to 35 degrees, it’s back to business.
Five cycling days in, the legs are beginning to feel tuned, the Sitzfleisch (sitting flesh – not difficult to decipher what the German term means) feeling no longer quite so bruised, butt and sun cream at the ready and tires pumped, next destination Villach in Southern Austria, and just a snippet of Slovenia before heading back north towards Innsbruck.
Hopefully.
Pictures below with the wonderfully tattooed Bernhard Kober, owner of Muchar Cycles in Graz who dropped everything this afternoon to replace the motor.
