Went to collect my cycle wheel this morning at 11 only to find that Elijah, the mechanic, had completely failed to get the freewheel off. His recommendation was to ride on and trust the other 35 spokes to hold. I was skeptical but seemed to have few options. I did a test ride back to Lumberton, sans bags, which went fine until I went to turn around to head back. Playing with the gears, which were behaving oddly (the wheel had slightly changed shape), I attempted to select the lowest gear in back, only to have the chain go into the spokes.
Returning to town, I checked in again at the campground where I'd left my panniers and returned to the bike shop to see if they couldn't build me a new wheel. Elijah didn't like that idea, so he had a go again at removing my freewheel -- and this time it worked! ...Sufficiently. (He couldn't remove the core unit, but he was able to take off the sprockets, which is what matters in terms of changing spokes.) He proceeded to replace all the spokes I'd mangled with the chain plus the one that started this whole mess, but then it was past six (closing time) and he ran out of time. So he promised it for 9:30 tomorrow, yay!
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