Let's sum up my last two rides before today as kind of an intro:
18 mile ride in to work, rear tire goes flat after 14.5 miles. I have no spare, which is my fault, and I end up walking 3.5 miles to work. This is forgivable.
Last ride, 16 miles round trip, front derailleur drops chain at a traffic light, then the rear tire goes flat. Front tire goes flat after I get home.
Today I rode home from work and decided to repair the flats on the Giant and ride to the grocery store to pick up some butter and cereal. I find both flats, replace one tube and patch the other, put on my almost-too-small-to-be-useful Timbuk2 messenger bag, and head for the store. At first, the ride is rather awkward. The bike is slightly too small for me, it's a Large compact frame when my Long Haul Trucker is a 60cm. The not-broken-in Brooks is slippery under my nylon baggy shorts. Once I get to the rail trail though, it becomes more comfortable. I remember how this bike can fly.
All the way to the grocery store with little incident, swooping around the pot holes like an X-Wing in the death star trench run (in my mind only), I reach the driveway and slow waaaaaaay down because there isn't much room to turn in next to a car coming out, and enter the parking lot.
There's a very slight uphill and I have forgotten to shift down, so I'm still in my 50x12 gear. I decide to mash on the pedals and try to build up some speed to downshift, when CRACKLANG!
Great, I think. I've broken a chain. I thought I was done with that. I broke three or four chains no this bike within the first 200 miles. Don't know why.
I look down and am shocked to see that the chain is not, in fact, broken. It's a little less routine than that:
If you're thinking "Hey, that looks like a broken Ultegra chainring!" then congratulations! You win! You don't win anything specific though. I have nothing to gove.
So I guess it's off to a shop somewhere this weekend to see how much it costs to have a chainring replaced. And have the rest of it given a once-over as well.
And maybe go see a priest about an exorcism.
In closing, I would just like to say....yes, clydesdale riders create a lot of power. And people ask me why I like to ride the heavy touring bike so much...
7 comments:
Wow, that is quite impressive! Hope that doesn't cost too much to get repaired.
Chainrings aren't "that" expensive. But seriously, that's pretty impressive! I've broken a lot of stuff but I've never managed to damage a crank at all! I'm a Clyde as well. Good job :-)
Also once ripped the rear wheel out of a mountain bike--scraped enough metal off the drive side dropout that it had to be replaced.
Amazing! I would have never thought a chainring could be damaged in that way. How odd that it would bend out like that. You are lucky those teeth didn't rip your leg.
Tommy, that is pretty amazing. That bike always has been, well, just weird. I remember all those broken chains. Hoorah to the Long Haul Trucker!
After the broken chains when I first got it the bike was great! No problems at all for a couple thousand miles, but now I think it's mad at me for not riding it more.
I'll have to start using it again if the rainy season is over.
Wow. That looks...damaged!
PS - that is the EXACT SAME linoleum we used to have in the upstairs bathroom in my parents house! Hah!
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