The Serbian Bike Mechanics Who Rebuilt My Bike for €20

Part of the Andrew Goes Global cycling adventure series covered in the Going Long podcast.

Interview with Andrew Ryan

Steve Shrubsall: Last time we spoke, you mentioned your rear rack broke just before entering Serbia. How bad was it?

Andrew Ryan: Pretty bad. It wasn't one of those things where you think, "I'll deal with it later." The rack completely failed. One of the mounting points snapped and suddenly the whole thing was hanging down and rubbing against the rear tire. The bike was basically unrideable.

I eventually made it into Novi Sad with a temporary fix involving duct tape, zip ties.... But I knew I needed a real solution.

The problem was that it was the weekend and most of the bike shops were closed.  So I started doing what I've done a lot on this trip—walking around a city with Google Maps open and hoping something works out.

Steve: Did it work out?

Andrew: Eventually. But not immediately.

The first bike shop I visited was a large chain store called Planet Bike. I wheeled the bike in, showed the mechanic the problem, and explained what had happened.

He took one look at it and basically said, "No." Not, No, but try this place, come back Monday.”

I remember asking if he knew another shop that might be able to help. He just told me to leave.  It was super odd and I figured there had to be something else making him behave this way.

I walked back out into the street thinking a bit baffled.

Steve: Things improved after that?

Andrew: Dramatically.

A day or so later I found a little workshop. I honestly don't even know if you'd call it a bike shop. It felt more like somebody's garage. Two older Serbian guys were working there. They must have been around seventy years old. Their hands looked like they had spent fifty years fixing machinery.

The moment I rolled the bike in, they decided they were going to solve my problem.

They suggested I go buy some beer for the process.  When I returned with a 6-pack of beer, the repair process began.

And by "repair process," I mean one guy started drilling into pieces of metal while smoking and drinking beer, and the other guy handed out advice. There wasn't a bike stand, so my role was to physically hold the bike upright while sparks flew everywhere.  At one point metal fragments were bouncing off my legs and face.

The drill bit kept dulling, so they would walk over to an angle grinder, sharpen it, and then continue.  Honestly, it was one of those situations where you're not entirely sure if your bike is getting repaired or destroyed.

Steve: Were you worried?

Andrew: Absolutely.

I remember thinking, "There's a very real possibility I'm going to leave here with fewer bike parts than I arrived with." But they were incredibly kind and they genuinely wanted to help.

And that's something I've noticed repeatedly on this trip. Sometimes the people with the least resources are the most willing to give their time and were the kindest.  I met a lot of those people so far in Europe.

After an hour or so they had created a repair that technically worked. The rack was attached again, but I knew it wasn't going to survive thousands more miles, so I kept looking.

Steve: And that's when you found Miguel?

Andrew: Yeah, and Miguel completely changed the story.

I walked into his shop and immediately knew I was dealing with somebody who lived and breathed bicycles. He looked at the bike, looked at the rack, and within a few minutes basically confirmed that the previous repair wasn't going to last.

The problem was that he didn't have a replacement rack and didn't know where to get one.

Then he paused and said, "I know a guy who can fix this’.

Miguel's guy happened to be a metal engineer who lived about 100 kilometers away.  He was available and the two of them spent the next day figuring out a solution for a random American cyclist they'd never met before.

Steve: What did they build?

Andrew: The best description is that they built a rack from whatever materials happened they could find that day.

They were not parts you'd buy from a cycling catalog.  Rather, it was a collection of steel brackets, bolts and other parts welded together.

And it turned out to be really solid craftmanship.

The engineer apparently dug through spare parts and old materials and created a setup that mounted directly to the frame using heavy-duty steel hardware. When I came back the next day, it was waiting for me.

I loaded my panniers onto it and immediately knew it was stronger than the original rack I'd started the trip with. Amazing.

Steve: What did they charge?

Andrew: Twenty euros. Seriously. That's still hard for me to believe.

Somebody drove a significant distance, spent time fabricating parts, helped solve a problem that could have ended my trip, and the total bill was twenty euros.

The rack is still on the bike today and it has carried me across multiple countries since then.

Every time I look at it, I'm reminded that one of the best parts of traveling is the people.

I'll probably never forget the Serbian mechanics fixing my bike, drinking beer and showering the room with sparks and metal bits. I’m definitely grateful for all the goodness I’ve experienced on this trip.