You have a big problem

In the morning after a really good breakfast we packed our stuff and made our way to the (according to pictures) most promising bikeshop. I showed the guy Anja’s bike and explained the problem, he looked at it, looked at me and told me in a serious way: “You have a big problem!”. Well, thank you for that great advice!! He then explained to me that he does not have the piece in stock and actually a bike with the very same problem – Shimano what’s going on here??? – the only recommendation was to try the other shops in town although not making us to much hope here and then call bike shops all around the area even in 80km away Florence.

In the end this is what we did, we rode to the next store in town, no luck there either, and then stopped in a cafe and started to call and contact store all over the place. While everyone was trying to be helpful, really kudos here to all of them. None of them could help us.

After one hour of calls we then decided that we will stay in Siena for another night, and headed for the camnpground. On the way we stopped in our desperation at a bike hsop for e-bikes only, there again a super nice person who could not help us eiter, but gave us another adress, so we went there. It took us quite a while to find it and despite the info oon google it wass closed 🙁

So all the way back to the camp ground where we set everything up in the meantime there was italian siesta, so all shops closed and we couldn’t do anything anyway to get our problem solved. Actually not fully true I also startedd to call online shops, some in Germany actually had it.

So while we enjoyed to pool on the campsite we came to the conclusion that we had the follwowing options:

1. Stop the tour and take the train home -> Bad
2. Buy a new bike – the first shop had a really nice Bianchi Gravel bike on stock which would hafe fitted, however it was around 3000€ and we would have had to organize what to do with Anja’s actual bike -> Very expensive
3. Order the parts in Germany and have them shipped to a location in Italy meaning either to wait in Siena for a couple of days or to a destination on the route if we would decide to still keep going. -> would somehow work
4. Just keep going -> Stupid
5. Calling the one last bikeshop close to Siena that would open on Mondays only in the late afternoone -> Jackpot

So none of them seemed really appealing,

In the end we were lucky and hit the Jackpot. I called them as soon as they opened and they had a brake lever!!! Woohooo!! Only Shimano Dura Ace series (that’s the ones the pros use for Racing) meaning it would cost a fortune, but still cheaper than the new bike. So we immediately grabbed our bikes put Anouk in the trailer and made us on the way to the shop.

Again very nice staff and luckily they were not too busy and could mount the lever right when we came. The guy asked again if I really would like to buy it, since it was so expensive, but having all the other options in mind, I immediately told him: yes please just put it on the bike!

So in the end all went well, and we were set to go on