Day 35: Somotillo to Nagarote

79 miles

Clearly, disaster has struck. This is not a post I ever wanted to write. In terms of mechanical issues, this is the worst case scenario. I have managed to crack my frame. The frame is almost unrideable. Although I rode 50 miles on it today after it cracked, riding in it was incredibly dangerous and only done as a last resort. I will need to find a new bike to ride.

I woke up feeling excited and confident to be on the road. I love Nicaragua. The natural beauty of the volcanoes and lakes here are breathtaking. The riding is also relatively easy as there are very few hills. Most of my route through Nicaragua stays along the lakes. It also looks like I was going to have really good weather and no rain for the first time. I hit the road at about 4:30 well before the sun came up. I made my way through some low lying fog as the sun painted the sky, pink and orange to the south my first big volcano of Nicaragua, Volcan Casita! When I biked here in June, Volcan Casita erupted while I was biking by. It was quite a treat. There was no eruption this time, but the volcano but still just as beautiful as I remembered. This part of Nicaragua, and most of Nicaragua in fact is quite rural. Nicaragua has three big cities, Chen, Leon, and Managua. Other than that, a lot of the country is sparsely populated. I think Nicaragua is the least densely populated country in Central America. I made my way past large cow Fields and the occasional collection of houses. There is a lot of firming in this region of western Nicaragua and there were a lot of men on bikes riding to the fields for the day. I made my way past the riveted slopes of Vulcan Casita, and begin winding my way towards Managua. My plan for the day was to make it to Liberia Costa Rica, effectively crossing Nicaragua in one day. Even more momentous than that, today is Day 35 and Liberia is my halfway mark for this entire trip. It’s not hard to do the math on that. if I could make it to Liberia for the night, I would be on track for a 70 day completion of the Pan-American. The current record is 84 1/2 days, supported. Maybe I was getting too far ahead of myself. The universe wanted to bring me back down to earth.

As I rode along, I started to zone out a little bit on the quiet roads. I was reaching down to grab some food. I wasn’t paying attention to the road and the next thing I knew I was on the ground. I’d run straight into a massive pothole. I was a bit dazed. A second before I’ve been riding along at about 30 miles an hour and all of a sudden I was on the ground. I picked myself up and looked at my bike. It felt like I was waking up from a bad dream. Frame had a huge crack at the top of the downtube. I immediately knew the bike was broken. There is no fixing a crack like the one that I incurred. I dragged my bike to the side of the road and sat down with my legs dangling over the edge of the bridge I was on. I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know how to feel. I was beyond, any rational emotion. My first thought was “this trip is over.“ I clearly remember saying at the beginning of this trip I can fix pretty much any mechanical on my bike, but if my frame is cracked, I’m screwed. It’s true, the frame is pretty important when you’re trying to ride a bike. In Nicaragua of all places, is incredibly hard to get a new frame. I immediately contacted TIME Bikes, my sponsor company. I made it very clear that it was 110% my fault the bike had broken, but the team at TIME was fully behind me. They immediately started working on a way to get a framed to me. Unfortunately, it just is not feasible to get a frame to Nicaragua in a rapid timeframe. Especially since times distribution center in South Carolina was hit particularly hard by the hurricane, just a couple of days ago. I have to find a new frame from somewhere. It’s hard to really capture my thoughts in the moment. This trip has been so important to me for so long. It’s almost incomprehensible to me that I was stupid enough and careless enough to jeopardize my dreams in this fashion. I looked at the hole and my negligence. How could I have ridden into this thing. It’s an entire crater in the road. Nobody is perfect, everyone makes mistakes, but this had been a huge negligent mistake. I still don’t understand how I let this happen. I was incredibly mad at myself, rightfully so. I want to return to an attempt to capture my feelings in the moment of the accident in the coming days, but right now I am still processing it and do not have time to fully recount where my mind was. I knew it was incredibly dangerous to pick up my bike and keep riding, but I don’t know how to do anything else. I grabbed my bike and kept riding. It was shaky and dangerous, but I limped along slowly making my way towards Managua. I was about 80 miles from Managua when I cracked my frame. There was nothing to do today since I would not make it to Managua in time to get a new frame even if I was able to find one by some miracle. I knew my trip wasn’t over as long as I retained confidence in my resilience and determination. If I wanted to give up, it was easy option. I could have gotten a plane ticket home from Managua. However, if I wanted to keep going, I knew I could find a way even if it looked grim in the moment. Of course I want to keep going. There is no path for me but forward. I may have made a huge mistake, but I’m not letting this kill my dream. There is no way. I don’t know how, when, or where I will find the solution to this, but I will.

I rode on to the town of Nagarote for the night. I took all day to get there, stopping in Mapasillo for several hours to regroup. I stopped at roadside stands to buy Quesillos—the staple of Nicaraguan cuisine. They are essentially a stringy pancake of cheese covered in marinated onions and bathed in a crema sauce of some sort, all wrapped up in a burrito. I love them, but only in moderation. I should’ve been more upset and torn up, but I’ve had so many hardships on this trip that I’m beginning to be numb to the setbacks. It’s actually quite remarkable. My mind is changing in fascinating ways. I wonder how lasting my de-sensitivity to issues like this will last. Does it just exist in the context of this trip? Or will I return home to be unbothered my things going wrong in life? Will I be this resilient in everyday life?

I met my first Bike packer since Alaska. To put icing on the cake, I got a flat tire while I was riding towards Nagarote. The bike caught up to me and stopped to chat. I threw in a tube and we set off together. His name is Felix. He is from Germany and is also biking the Pan-American. However, he is biking this route the correct way. He has been out here for a year and three months. He has taken breaks in incredibly interesting cities and regions. He’s on a steel Mountain bike and has been doing a lot of off roading. He spent so much time in Mexico, he got a Mexican girlfriend. He then rode on to Guatemala before turning around to break up with his girlfriend. Then he turned around again and kept going south. It was incredibly refreshing to talk to Felix. It was the first conversation I’ve had with someone For longer than five minutes since I talked to my fellow bikepacker, Tim, in Alaska. Felix spoke English, which was an incredibly nice change.

I found a hotel in Nagarote and went to bed awash with anxiety, but also, not as much anxiety or anger as I thought I might have. I have no idea when or even if I will be able to continue. I think it is possible for me to continue if I really want to, but I have to really want it. I have to work for it, I have to be confident in myself and the people around me. I also have to get a little bit lucky. It’s fair to say that I’ve been very unlucky in many respects. I don’t think my Frame cracking was unlucky that was just me being stupid. However, I’ve been very unlucky in other ways throughout this trip. However, it’s not really fair to say that I’ve been unlucky. Just by virtue of being out here I feel like the luckiest person in the world. I do not know what the future holds. I can only keep dreaming. I hope I never stop dreaming. Tomorrow truly is a make or break day. Fingers crossed.

Since I am publishing this entry at the end of day 36, I want to provide a very quick update on my progress. The day after this entry (Day 36, October 5th), I rode into Managua and found a frame. I have managed to transfer all of my parts onto the new frame with the help of Bicimania, Managua’s premier shop. I left Managua around 5 o’clock in the evening of October 5. I have since ridden 30 miles on my new bike and it is working very well. More updates to come in a journal entry for tomorrow. I hope to begin journaling once again. I have added a journal entry from day 30, but it is not feasible for me to write entries for 31 through 34, but I have gone through and added pictures from these days.