Laatste Ronde

I’ve been back on the bike this week and was planning on writing about how nice it is to be riding again and how this is the start of the 2009 season. I was feeling pretty upbeat about things. I wasn’t worrying about the fact that a hole in my vision might have ramifications in a cross race — I might not see that rock or root or rut. No, I was feeling good and confident that things would work out well enough for me to be competitive again.

Today I went out for a ride at lunch. The sun was shining and I felt better than average. About 25 minutes into the ride, I shifted my chain to the outside of the big chainring. No biggie. I clicked the front mech and eased my pedals around to shift it back on. Then things went horribly wrong (well, perhaps not horribly, but pretty bad nonetheless). The chain somehow hung up in the rear mech. Of course I stopped pedaling so as not to rip off the derailleur hanger. Too late. The rear derailleur was already in the spokes.

That’s a pretty bad sound — your derailleur in your spokes. The damage: frame, (derailleur hanger not replaceable), chain, and rear derailleur. The rear spokes look fine and the wheel appears true.

Getting home was interesting. I removed the carnage and turned the bike into a single speed. That worked pretty well until it spontaneously shifted into a bigger rear cog and broke the chain. I rigged it again with a better chainline (using part of the chain I removed previously so now I’ve messed with 3-4 pins) and managed to get back to work with only a few more minor issues.

So no more road bike. Le Plastique is done. James, I’m bummed about it. It was a pretty decent bike and I really appreciated the deal you gave me on it. Anyway, I’m paying medical bills so I’ll be on the old Redline for the foreseeable future — a future that may well take me into next year.

Maybe I’ll take up running again. It’s way cheaper.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 1:12 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.