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i haven't mentioned it so far
but WTF!
you buy a nice bike, fairly expensive, looks nice on the outside
and the dealer SKIMPS ON THE BITS YOU CANNOT SEE
like the tubes
although Specialized sells its own brand of tubes
it fits the cheapest local brand to its bikes
so ...
you're in the middle of nowhere and not only do you get a puncture,
it's a hole right on the valve so you cannot hope to fix it
i used my spare tube on Day 1
and ended Day 5 with exactly the same problem on the valve of the other Specialized-provided-non-Specialized tube
so i spent the first few hours of the morning trying to patch the unpatchable
and the hotel manager and his former chef (who know works in and Indian restaurant in Singapore -- all this I learned in the hours i spent with them) commiserated,
told me i was wasting my time
and offered to take me to the the local bike store where the man could "fix anything"
HE DID
he cut out the valves, patched the holes, cut new holes, inserted rusty old Indian-style valves from disused tubes, and told me that would take me "as far as i wanted to go"
(which turned out to be about 70km till the first one blew, but the second got me another 130km, and i'll continue the tube tale in Udaipur - Day 8)
having left around 1:30pm, i put a half day in, and was lucky to get local information about a govt-run guesthouse about 70km up the NH8
unmarked, and according to a local teacher i met, a secure haven in a dangerous tribal area -- "lock your door and don't come out till dawn"
this is not the government guesthouse but a typical Gujarati GH on the highway,
looks good enough to eat
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