Bike Woes

Last Thursday on the morning Marin Cyclists Muir Beach loop ride, I was slowing for a stop sign in Mill Valley when my rear wheel locked up. Stopped, got off the bike, somehow my derailleur had gotten tangled up in my rear spokes, snapped one of 'em off. Took the bike over to Sunshine, but their shop was full-up and John said he didn't have a double-threaded bladed spoke. So I wandered into San Anselmo to Paradigm Cycles(formerly Gravy Wheels, I'm not sure what the continuing relationship is there), where they said "our wheel guy picks up this afternoon, we can have it back to you late Tuesday, and while it's here..."

So they showed me that the chain was older than I thought and that I could use a new rear cluster and I knew the tires were going to need replacing sometime soon... well... more money than I'd planned on spending, but knowing that at some point with a used bike I'd be spending it anyway, I picked up the bike yesterday evening and went this morning for the Paradise Drive loop.

Dropping down into the Mill Valley intersection I didn't downshift (sweet derailleur adjustment, the bike has never been so nice in the large chainring), so when the light turned I stood up, cranked down hard while lifting on the handlebars, and the outer chain ring folded.

I rode the rest of the ride in the small ring. When we got to the end and got to "ooh"ing and "aah"ing over busted hardware other people mentioned that they'd seen this happen on small chainrings, but never on large ones. Being a man of experience, I've bent my small chainring before, but leverage on the big one isn't as dramatic, so this surprised me.

I'm now the proud owner of a new "Ultegra" chainring, not "DuraAce" because I wanted to go with strength over weight, and the guys at Paradigm Cycles kept my old one so that they could hassle the folks at SRAM/Truvativ about soft metal in critical parts. Alas, no pictures for that reason.