This could have been a real disaster but seems to have ended as a minor inconvenience.




We were down "Old Chevy", a track near the bottom of the forest when climbing a steep hill the back wheel jambed. It was only about 3 or 4 km walk to Planet Bikes where we spoke to Lorelle who suggested Dave Fisher. Amazingly he lived at the end of the street where we were staying in Lynmore. Dave had his son Craig pick us up and felt he could fix our bike.






I stripped it down and dropped the back section to him that Thursday afternoon.







The next mooring I returned and Dave had inserted perfectly fitted sleeve into the chain stay. We checked the wheel alignment and unfortunately the stay was too long. After a considerable amount of work we removed the rear part and filed down the break. It took a few goes but eventually we got it perfectly aligned and Dave glued it pack together.



That evening (Friday) I returned to see the carbon sleeving being finished. He had used finely chopped carbon strands in the epoxy to fill the joint then wrapped unidirectional carbon tape around the stay. When I arrived he was wrapping a plastic film about 15mm wide around the repair to remove air bubbles and leave a relatively smooth surface. That evening he would remove the plastic film tape and sand back the join and apply a second skin of regular wear carbon.





The next morning (Saturday) I picked the repaired bike up and it had even been silver painted to match the aluminium. Dave recommended that some of the suspension bearings may need some attention as well as the rear bottom bracket. A really nice repair job. A total cost of NZ$150 and a chance to meet a genuine, very friendly craftsman.