arctic-cycler.com

Every Thursday morning in year 8 at school I felt the dread rising to choke me – my woodwork class. The wooden pencil case I made had holes so big the pencils fell through. My dread is similar in fixing my bike, and today I watched as my bike was dismantled for a flight to Pontinak in Borneo. Will I be able to put it together again?

Dismantling the bike

My plans of going to Borneo are now concrete – a flight to Pontinak in Kalimantan where I will meet Clement to cycle to Kuching in Malaysia. There, we will meet Will, who I cycled with in Tajikistan. This will be a side-trip of a couple of months on two islands in Indonesia I dreamed about when I was a kid – Borneo and Sulawesi. But, first, the bike needs to survive the flight. It now sits, dismantled, in a box. I did a bike maintenance course before embarking on this trip – still, the fear of this technical reassembly exercise is present. ☺

Thanks Cak and all his friends in and on the way to Surabaya. Amazing hospitality and help by everyone! And very interesting conversations. You have made my last days in Java (this time) great!