Pedal to the Metal

I’m riding a bike in East Timor!

I’m riding a bike in East Timor and I haven’t hit any pigs, goats or dogs yet!

I’m riding a bike –

This was approximately the moment when my pedal flew off.

We were riding back from Areia Branca, a popular beach just east of Dili which probably doesn’t have any crocodiles. We’d spent the afternoon chatting on the Beach, laughing at the Portuguese guy who does his yoga exercises at the water’s edge, and lolling about in the bath-temperature water.

It was time for the bicycle ride back to Dili. As a non-bike rider, I was elated to have made it down to Areia Branca in one piece. At my cautious pace, it’s about a half hour trip, mostly winding along beautiful coastline. You share the road with some taxis, motorbikes and 4WDs (the UN ones hurtling towards you are the scariest), as well as families of goats and pigs, and the odd dog.

My ridiculously cheap ‘mountain’ bike (I say mountain in inverted commas as I’m not sure my bike would actually be very keen on mountains) was going pretty well, until the pedal flew off. After I retrieved said pedal from the middle of the road, decided to ignore my bleeding ankle, and established we couldn’t get the pedal back on – I was feeling pretty fed up. Then one of the locals asked us what was going on and before long we had a little crew of helpers (we were fruitlessly searching for a tiny black piece of plastic that had flown off my bike in another direction). A bag of spanners materialised and a local woman screwed the pedal back on.

Thanks to the handy locals, we were soon on our way again and eventually made it back fairly uneventfully (the road was practically closed with people filing into the local cemetery to pay their respects on All Souls’ Day).

My bike is now in bike purgatory downstairs, locked up and hopefully considering how it can be more bike-like and reliable in the future. 

Yes, life in Dili is tough - Areia Branca