Day 43: Rest day in Baker City, OR

Today Brian and I had breakfast at the Sweet Wife Baking restaurant, which was really good.  They served great pastries and traditional breakfast with a flair.  I then went to the Trailhead bike shop where Devin replaced my chain.  He had never seen a failure quite like mine.  I had the chain checked for wear back in Pueblo CO and it was fine, so I am surprised it went from fine to broken so quickly.  Touring is hard on chains and wheels.  It is not uncommon to replace a chain once or twice in a TransAm journey, and I have heard many stories of problems with cracks in the back wheel (including Brian’s).  Most riders split the weight between front and back racks.  The bike will shimmy on downhills if you put all the weight in the back, and it is hard to manage if there is too much weight in front (the handlebars always want to turn and the front wheel roll when it is stationary).  Consequently, about 60 of the weight of gear is on the back.  Add that to the uneven distribution of body weight towards the back, and it is no wonder that problems usually occur with the back wheel (cracks at spoke holes, broken spokes, worn tires, etc). 

Baker City has a friendly, small town feel.  The town was founded in the late 1880’s so it has a lot of history related to the gold rush.  The signature landmark in town is the Geiser Grand Hotel.

Geiser Grand Hotel

There are nice shops, restaurants and bars along Main Street.

Tomorrow we will tackle what may be the hardest day of Part 3 of my TransAm journey.  Our destination is the town of John Day, which is 81 miles and 3 mountain passes away. We chose John Day because there are little or no services on the next stretch of road, and we no longer have tents to camp.  We plan to get a sunrise start to avoid heat and wind.  

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