Day 271 / 36

Date: 8 January 2023
Sleeping location: Uwanji Classic Hotel, Tunduma, Tanzania 
Distance (km today/total/total Part 2): 13 / 16782 / 1945
Estimated climb (m today/total/total Part 2): 100 / 145100 / 27100
Cleaning: new; super
Day in three words: Crank remains unpulled

I made coffee and a basic and weird breakfast in the room, having not realised that breakfast was included in the room price,* then popped out for my errands. I quickly found a sewing lady and dropped my shorts off for a more thorough repair than the last time. After that was the issue of my non-driveside crank. 

When fitting the crank at home I seemingly hadn't tightened the crank bolts enough, and early on a creaking sound had developed when I put a lot of weight through the pedal. Despite now tightening the bolts, probably not to exact manufacturer recommended torque but definitely to "a lot", the creaking had remained. I wanted to get the crank off to have a look at what was going on, in case the bottom bracket or crank were being slowly worn away, but for this I needed a tool called a crank puller. Unfortunately I was unable to find any bicycle repair shops despite cycling 13km around town; all I found was two guys repairing bikes on the street, but neither of their toolboxes had a crank puller. When I showed a picture of a crank puller to the second one he took me to a garage and then began showing me a selection of tools which may have interacted with the crank puller, seemingly without grasping that I needed the puller itself and a picture of it would not be able to remove my crank. In the end I decided to live with it until Lilongwe and try to find one, and potentially a new bottom bracket, at a proper bike shop there. 

Whilst picking up my repaired shorts Anne-Claire messaged to say that her and Charles had just arrived in Tunduma, so we met for some food in town then they came back to the same hotel as me and we relaxed for the rest of the afternoon, before a light bike maintenance session and a relatively tasty meal in the hotel's restaurant. I realised that amongst the free toiletries I received with my hotel room was a toothbrush with the following random phrases written on the packet: "Good Doctor"; "new super cleaning"; "Black Brother FIRST CHOICE"; "Dr Super' and "protect love". I kept it to use its new super cleaning on Maggie's drivetrain. 

*Subsequently the free breakfast was also revealed to be basic and weird 


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