From the smog to the smog – changing sprockets on the road

(Photos of the diary entry can be found at the end of the text).

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At 6:00 a.m. we are woken up by our arm computers. As I’m on the balcony loading equipment into the bike trailers, two lights spiral through the darkness and graze a few houses and stalls in the narrow alley below me. “The driver’s already here!” I shout to Tanja. With his help, the panniers, trailers and bikes are quickly carried downstairs and loaded into the van. As there are only two seats in the passenger compartment of the old vehicle, the man has placed an old office chair on the loading area, where Tanja makes herself comfortable. Shortly after 7:00 a.m. we leave our youth hostel, which has provided us with a lovely home for the last few weeks. “Great, the roads are still empty,” I say happily, but just ten minutes later we are stuck in the morning rush hour traffic jam. Meanwhile, Tanja checks the smog index on her smartphone. “Only 170 micrograms,” she says. In the first light of the morning, the air actually seems to be a little clearer than in the last two weeks. After an hour we reach the outskirts of Xi’an. “I don’t believe it,” I snort, pointing to a dense wall of exhaust fumes in front of us that has a firm grip on the land. “Is it because of the power stations and industrial plants outside the city?” “Probably,” I say, feeling the anxiety spreading through me. In order not to show my growing concern, I keep quiet. The speedometer counter shows 40 kilometers covered. So we still have 20 km to go. Hoping that it will be better where the driver puts us outside, I doze off. Then we leave the highway, turn onto a country road and the rusty brakes squeal on a wide stretch of hard shoulder. Tanja and I look out of the window. “It looks terrible,” she says. “Yes.” “Do you want to ask him if he’ll drive us another 20 km for an extra 100 yuan (€13.91)?” “Do you think it will look better then?” “Maybe. And if not, we won’t have to cycle too long through this unhealthy soup to reach Huayin.” “Okay, you’re right,” I say and try to explain to the driver what we want. He nods, smiles and agrees. As soon as we have turned around and are back on the highway ramp, I get an uneasy feeling. “I hope he doesn’t think he’ll get an extra 600 yuan (€83.48) instead of the agreed 500 yuan (€69.57)?” “How so then? You clearly wrote down that he would receive 500 yuan up to this point and another 100 yuan for the additional 20 km,” says Tanja. “I don’t know what makes his Chinese brain tick, but he might have understood that he could get an extra 600 yuan from us,” I reply, dig the note out of my pocket and explain our request again. Our husband brakes on the driveway and shakes his head. “I want 1,100 yuan”, (€153) I hear, stunned. Now we are standing in the long curve of a highway ramp and discussing money. I’m not sure what’s more dangerous, the smog or standing here on the edge of a highway ramp in diffuse light. “We should call Tina. Maybe she can help us,” Tanja thinks, types the number into her cell phone, explains the situation and hands it to the driver. It only takes a few moments before our chauffeur returns the phone to me with a friendly grin and agrees to pay the extra 100 yuan. “Sorry to have woken you up so early. You really helped us. Thank you very much,” I say. “You’re welcome,” breathes Tina’s drowsy voice through the small loudspeaker.

20 km further on we stop in a gloomy village. “Doesn’t look good,” I say pointing at the fog, which isn’t fog at all. We unloaded the van, arranged everything on the sidewalk and gave the man 600 yuan. (83,48 €) Because he doesn’t renegotiate, I give him another bottle of beer that we don’t want to cycle. After refusing several times, he says thank you and disappears into a nearby restaurant to have breakfast. We routinely load our bikes and couple the trailers to the bikes. Some people from the nearby simple stores watch us with interest. It is unpleasantly cold at minus 3 degrees. Suddenly our chauffeur comes back and gives us a Chinese sandwich and some dumplings. Whether he has a guilty conscience or was happy about the gesture with the beer, we will never know. The fact is that he is giving us something to eat at this sad moment. We say a big thank you and eat it hot and hungry. Before the driver leaves us here at the side of the road, he explains the direction we need to take, organizes two mugs of hot water from the store opposite and says goodbye.

45 minutes later, the time has come. The Riese und Müller trucks stand loaded with taut trailers on the side of the road. A group of onlookers follow our start. “Ready!” I shout. “Ready!” answers Tanja. I shift into third gear, swing over the center bar and start pedaling. Just one meter further on, the bottom bracket jams. With luck, I avoid the fall. “What’s wrong?” asks Tanja, who was almost rear-ended by my abrupt, unforeseen stop. “I don’t know. I can’t kick,” I reply, looking down to understand what’s blocking me. “It’s probably just jammed,” I say and start again, but am immediately stopped again. Then I notice that the chain on the Bosch motor is pulled over the cogwheel from bottom to top. This statement makes me feel hot despite the cold. “It must have something to do with the sprocket,” I explain to Tanja. “And now what?” “Maybe I should have replaced the sprocket on the engine as well? Maybe the new chain no longer fits on the old sprocket? If I knew that, I would feel better. “But why does the fault only occur on your bike? Mine is running fine?” “Your load is a little lighter. I weigh almost 30 kg more than you and Ajachi isn’t exactly light either. I think the sprockets on your bike are not as worn as on mine, where the shark teeth have built up more and are getting caught in the tighter links of the new chains. If I hadn’t thrown away the old chains it wouldn’t be a problem now. They would at least get us to Huayin. I could then deal with the repair there. Unfortunately, I’ve never changed the drive sprocket myself and just the thought of trying to do it here on the road makes me break out in a cold sweat.” “Do we have spare gears for the drive?” “Yes.” “Then you’ll manage to change it,” Tanja encourages me, whereupon we unhitch Ajaci’s trailer, unload the bags and put the bike on the sidewalk. Then I get the necessary tools and a new sprocket from the trailer. I use the crank puller to loosen the crank and take a close look at the drive gear on the Bosch motor. “Aha, the Bosch wrench has to go on here to loosen the gear. Shouldn’t be a problem,” I think. In fact, it is much easier to loosen than the gear on the rear tire. 20 minutes later, I carry out a successful test drive. The chain purrs over the drive sprocket without jerking. Confident that we can really set off this time, we load up my bike again.

“Ready!” I shout. “Ready!” answers Tanja. I shift into third gear, swing over the center bar again and start pedaling. “Yupieee!” I rejoice, because it goes without a hitch, as if nothing had ever happened. However, the joy soon fades, because out here too, one power station follows the next. Due to the poor air quality, the mountains to our right are only dimly visible. We actually wanted to escape the smog of Xi’an, but it doesn’t seem to be any better out here. Unsurprisingly, the smog blanket is said to be as big as Spain. We cycle silently through the desolation and reach the village of Huayin after almost 40 km. We quickly find our hotel right at the crossroads. As soon as the equipment is stowed away in the freezing cold room, I go into the lobby where our bikes are parked and change Tanja’s drive sprocket…

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