Fair Weather Bikers

Woke up early after a restless night's sleep - I suppose I was worried about the bike. As our ferry to Greece didn't leave until 7pm I decided to find a local bike shop and see if they could do anything with the bike - if only to get us the 250km we had left to get to Kos.

Leaving Daz snoring away, I went down to the reception and ask the receptionist if he could write a note in Italian for me to take to a bike shop. He said he'd have a go, but it soon became apparent that, although he spoke very good English, it was English for hotels not English for garages! After about half and hour we gave up and I thanked him and said they'd probably know what was wrong when I rode up anyway.

Luckily, there was a bike shop just around the corner from the hotel. I found a mechanic that spoke some English and showed him the bike, explaining that we were sailing today. He said they'd be able to do something, and it would be done by 12. I was happy again and returned to the hotel.

When I got back to our room, Daz was just getting up. We then walked to the ticket office to book our ferry - it was about a mile and was quite a pleasant walk as the weather was superb. We booked on the Ancona to Patras ferry, we had to board by 5pm, and then went for breakfast.

On our way back to the hotel, we noticed we could also book the ferry from Piraeus to Kos. Our ferry from Ancona docked at Patras at 3pm - the ferry left Piraeus at 8pm, but you had to board by 6pm. This gave us 3 hours to do 250km, which we thought would be no problem, and booking the ferry in advance would save us time anyway, so we booked it.

By the time we got back to the Hotel it was nearing 12 - so we walked onto the bike shop. When we got there, the mechanic told us he was running a bit late and hadn't done the bike yet. He asked if we could come back at 4pm. I told him we had to be on the ferry at 5pm and he assured me he could do it by then.

To kill a bit of time, we walked back to the ticket office to collect our tickets. This time it wasn't such a pleasant walk as the sun was well up and it was very hot. We also saw firsthand the 'optional' traffic lights in operation. Traffic was queuing at traffic lights at a very busy junction where 6 roads met. We heard a moped coming at quite a pace towards us, expecting it to start slowing down at any moment. It didn't. It came flying past us, between the queuing traffic and straight through the red light. How it got across the junction I do not know, but it didn't slow at all and carried on as though nothing had happened!

By the time we got back from the ticket office it was around 2pm - I decided to go and see how they were getting on with my bike. When I got to the bike shop it was closed, locked up with my bike inside! Oh well, I thought, closed for lunch. Nope, when I returned at 3pm and 3:30pm it was still closed. At this point I was flapping a little.

We both went back at 4pm and they were just opening up. The mechanic came out looking glum and told me they were not able to fix it. He said they'd put a copper gasket in and fastened the collet using a locking nut on the good stud. This should at least reduce the noise. They only charged me 30euros, basically one hours labour, which I thought was very good. I can think of a few garages in England that would have fleeced somebody in that situation.

I rode the bike back to the hotel and was suprised the find the bike wasn't bad at all with the one locking nut, there was some blowing, but not much. We loaded the bikes and rode to the ferry.

Once on the ferry it felt like a weight had been lifted. We were, at least, going to make it to Greece!

I had been making a lot of phone calls during the last two days, asking people for advice on what to do (thanks Dave!), and my phone battery was getting very low. One thing I had forgot was my international adapter, but as we were sat in the bar we heard some English voices. I went and asked if they had an adapter I could borrow. It turned out they were driving to Rhodes, doing a similar thing to us, if in a little more civilised way; stopping in hotels, using GPS for navigation, laptop with DVD player for entertainment, etc. We got on like a house on fire and Daz and I spent all night with them, getting very, very drunk in the process!