Day in, Day out

I need to head to the roof of Maya Pedal everyday!

It's been about two weeks since we've been in San Andres Itzapa and it is still tough to say what is going to happen on a day to day basis. We have been working at the bike shop everyday and each day is a definitely a new adventure. Some days are spent only working on fixing bikes while other slower days are spent on cleaning the shop and sorting through components. There are some amazing things that I've found out while working here. People are very innovative when it comes to finding solutions to problems. In the U.S. if you needed to somehow route your front brake into a cable stop you would go out and buy something like this:

In Guatemala I needed something similar to build up a bike to sell and couldn't find one in the shop. I asked Rodolfo (the mechanic at Maya Pedal) what to do at the end of the day. We ended up leaving the shop for a bit and when I returned he had drilled a hole on the top of the stem that is just big enough for the brake housing to fit, and then drilled a small hole just big enough to fit the brake cable on the bottom of the stem. Instant cable stop with no searching for parts or buying special pieces. Clever, minimalist, and unique, though I didn't take a picture. In addition, this solution provides one less point of failure in the future. There is no chance of the cable hanger bending if your bike falls off the top of a bus (One of the volunteers told me a story where two guys were able to take his fully loaded bike and put it on the roof of a 'chicken bus' while it was moving). I'll try to remember to take pictures of the cool solutions we encounter. Generally, there's nothing a little (or big) hammer, some grinding, or welding won't solve.

Late night help from Negra, the Maya Pedal  adopted chain tool expert

Most days we end up spending about 10-ish hours a day working at the shop. It's tough working where you live as we end up working into the late evening. Even on weekends I'll look for some parts in the parts room or tighten up the cables to finish up the latest bike we're building. We do take small breaks during the day, especially when the tostada lady comes by to offer us a snack. One of the volunteers has started tracking the number of tostadas she has eaten. Considering the amount of tostadas that I have consumed, I don't think I'll keep track of that number :) The food here is pretty amazing. All of the volunteers take turns cooking and getting things from the market (in addition to our tostada addiction). Shreya is going to post about all of that great stuff pretty soon. Stay tuned and come hungry!