...my front wheel hung in there well into the evening and I stopped in the tiny hamlet of Neveklov. In my typical broken Czech, I asked a man in front of what appeared to be an abandoned house where I might find a good restaurant. He pointed to the building and said, "this is a great restaurant!"
I went into what was basically a kitchen with a few tables in it. There were several other patrons sitting at the tables when I arrived, and 'Marta' (the apparent proprietor) threw in some potatoes into a pot of boiling water. Patrons continued to trickle in until about 15 of us were sitting around tables in this poor woman's kitchen - a bunch of local characters and an American with a Czech name who had just ridden in on a bike.
By this time, we were working at least four "slovniks" (Czech-English dictionaries) - my two and two of Marta's (one of which was a huge, mother of all slovniks that she practically had to wheel out on a dolly!).
One older man disappeared for a short while and returned with his guitar and the Czech folk songs began! My "dinner" went far into the night... music, schnapps, beer, rum, and an incredible potato/ham/cheese/garlic/ketchup mush on crusty bread (some of which Marta made without the ham for the crazy American who, for reasons he simply could not explain in the Czech language, didn't eat meat). When we had all finally had enough, Marta wouldn't take any money from me! (I had to hide some under my plate). Several visiting construction workers walked (carried?) me to their autobus - completely decked out for life on the road - and tossed me on a bunk for the night.
Ten kilometers out of Neveklov, my bike finally shit the bed. The derailleur actually snapped in two! There I was, out in the middle of nowhere in southern Bohemia, in need of a high tech Japanese derailleur and a bike mechanic who would know how to install one! First things first. I thumbed a ride with a man who appeared to peddle eggs and batteries. He just laid my bike in the back of his egg truck, right on top of a good 20-dozen eggs.
When we got to the next town, the egg man tried to locate the nearest bike shop. Evidently, there wasn't one anywhere close, but the egg man got the name and address of a guy who was pretty good with bikes...
So, we went to the bike mechanic's home, and his mom was there baby-sitting. The mechanic, Karle, was at his day job in a local factory. Off to the factory, where the egg man, who seemed completely shameless by this point, strutted into the office and asked to speak to Karle. The egg man explained the situation, and Karle agreed to meet me back at his house after work in a few hours. The egg man dropped me off back at Karle's and went on his merry way. I hung out with Karle's mom (who, in what I had come to know as typical Czech style), served me tea and cookies on a tray).
Karle arrived, and needless to say, he couldn't pronounce "Shimano", much less produce one. So he threw a rather low tech Czech derailleur on, and gave my bike a quick tune-up free of charge. Of course, they insisted on feeding me before i left... and the derailleur treated me splendidly for the remaining week and a half of my trip.
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