So, as Max says, we’re sitting in the middle of this sweet little village, waiting for a short guy on a mule to show up. The spirits were high cause the riding was really, really good.
“This is the best riding I have ever done,” I exclaimed to Max, for the 10th consecutive day. “I’d love to be back at Café Caprice so I could celebrate with a cocktail.”
After a bit, the Midge came bouncing down the track on a buttercup-coloured pogo stick and then stopped, about 200m away. We looked. We waited. Midge hopped off Buttercup, circled it a few times, scratched his tiny little chin, and then waved for help.

I sauntered over, thinking he needed some assistance tying the tattered remains of his bags together (at this point they looked like an ancient windsock). But things were sadly not so superficial.
“Ooooooh sheeeeiiit”, said I.
“What you mean?”, said the Midget, knowing exactly what I meant.
“Dood, I’m sorry to say this, but I think this is the end of the road for you. Buttercup has finally rolled over. She needs to be shot.”
After the previous night’s fall the Midget thought his pro-surfing career was over, and now this! It was too much and his bottom lip began to quiver.
The DR was sitting on the ground like a fat Sumo wrestler; back wheel tucked tight up against the wheel arch and bags resting on the ground. The rear shock had snapped and with so little time left there was not much we could do. I imparted all this news with learned, if compassionate tones. What a sad, sad day. A catastrophe, a calamity, a twagedy of biblical proportions.
Buttercup was clearly in pain so I set about creating a screen so we could shoot her with dignity. That horse deserved it. Sadly we didn’t have a gun so I readied myself to bludgeon her to death with a tyre iron. Our plans to smuggle high calibre rifles over the border were thwarted by Max’s lady. Had this not been the case, I would have emptied a merciful round into Buttercup’s guts, then and there. Weaponry absent, I resorted to that which is mightier than the sword, and composed an ode.
ODE TO BUTTERCUP
Oh Buttercup, you trooper
You have been a sensation. Simply super.
Your style and grace is ace.
You have weathered soft sand like a camel (but lets not get carried away).
You have traversed rocks like a dung beetle.
You have followed the single track like a note does a line.
And now your time has come to have your brains beaten out with a tyre iron.
May you rest well in the AfterLife (it’s horrible stuff).
The cry of a distant vulture broke my trance and I suddenly had the bright idea of inspecting the damage. So we lay the bike down and I looked, and we lay it the other way and I inspected, and bugger me if I couldn’t find anything broken. The shock looked fine, the linkage looked fine, the swingarm looked fine. Everything seemed fine except my fatalistic prognosis and the position of that rear wheel. WTF?
By this time, the panda had waddled over. He casually assessed the situation, shooed away the circling vultures and pointed at the rack, about which so much has been said. Now, in the interests of world peace and general civility, let me be clear that I am in no way condemning the (expert-welder and remote-sidestand-switch-fixer) creator of said racks. These racks were, however, very nearly the cause of a very small man not completing a very big adventure. There wasn’t enough clearance for the rear wheel and the wheel nut had got caught inside the rack, trapped like a shetland pony under Kobus Wiese. (Dear Lord please tell me he’s not on this forum?) A bit of levering with a stick rammed between wheel and rack and PING – out popped the wheel.
This was clearly the happiest sound the Midget has heard since his wife said yes (to the bike trip, not marriage). He immediately took off all his clothes and ran around in circles with his hands in the air, squealing with delight. Max narrowly escaped injury in the ensuing stampede (we’ve mentioned that the Midget is not remotely in proportion).
Now, believe me when I say I haven’t hammed this story up one little bit.
Restored to her former glory, and having (almost literally) dodged a bullet, Buttercup whinnied over to some nearby shade to be attended to. We dialled in the pre-load (again), maxed out the damping, and removed the rear bumper component on the expertly welded rack. We still had to bend the racks out further away from the wheel so we lay the DR flat on the ground stood on the bottom piece while Midget used his famous snatch technique to rip the top piece further away from the wheel. This was easy for him because he held the national weightlifting record in the snatch discipline in the early 90’s (narrowly missing out on the clean and jerk to Stringfellow Hawk).
And with that, we were off again! Right after a drink…