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...
