Tuesday, June 30, 2009

A Test Of Character

More rain around Houston today. This time of year the repreve from the heat is welcome. It's not raining as I set out for my endurance ride. I depart prepared to get wet.



As I travel down Post Oak the sky is looking ominous, no rain yet. The thunderstorms are side swiping me. I'm getting the cool downdraft air and shade of the clouds without the rain. It's a pleasant evening! A great day to be outside and on me bike. *thunk,thunk,thunk* I get a flat. I quickly change it and continue on my way.

I ramble on... listening to great toons, enjoying the cool evening air. Then I get a massive chain-suck on the hill at Kirkwood. Wait, what? I investigate and find this:



I'm prepared!



But since I don't have a spare Shimano pin I have to fiddle with the repaired link. It's stiff but I think it'll work. It'll have to, because I'm a looong way from home at this point. I've brought my phone. I've also brought my determination. Eventually, I get it and give the crank a spin eager to get going only to discover... something's not right:



HAHA! In rethreading the chain I've somehow fed the chain through the front mech! Yup, repeat the whole chain break process! After about 45min of doddling around with dropped pins, I'm on my way less two chain links...



The link is stiff, but servicable. (You can hear it in that clip) Off I go with my wonky chian... I get less than 2miles up the road and ... Flat el numero dos!



At this point survived a flat, fixed my chain twice, and now I'm stuck again! The best rides are the ones that test you! This is a character test... how will I handle this? Will I get mad? Will I give up and start walking? I contemplate this for a couple of seconds and decide... why not smile!?

Sure, I'm going to be out longer than I'd anticipated. But it's a nice unusually cool summer evening! I haven't even been rained on. I've had some mechanical problems. But I've managed to fix all of them and will get home in spite of them. And I do make it home with my badly skipping chain and only empty CO2 carts! I'm not touching the bike until tomorrow! Certainly putting on a new chian and likely a cassette, too...

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