The bicycle chain is an amazingly device, efficiently transferring power from one direction to another when run over a set of sprockets.
My last bike ride before today’s adventure was commuting to work on Monday. I spent my week at business development activities for my job, partly demonstrating our products at a booth of a local trade show, and the rest of the time visiting a potential customer in another state. After a slowly crazy half-day of travel on Friday, when I was wasting time at the mercy of Delta Airlines, and could have been home for two and a half hours by the time I arrived at home, if only I’d driven instead of flown, I awoke around 7 AM today.
It was another of those days I knew I was going on a ride, no internal debate to enhance my motivation was necessary. I jumped out of bed and got all my stuff together, figuring I’d ride up to meet the group ride leaving Patriot’s Park at 8 AM. It took me a few minutes longer than I expected to get ready and leave, because I got halfway down my street and realized I’d forgotten my gloves. I hammered my way up William Few Parkway to the designated meeting location; I arrived with only twenty seconds to spare, but those rides rarely leave on time so I knew no one had left without me.
I was not greeted at the park by the usual sight of cyclists preparing for the saturday morning ride ritual. No, instead, I was greeted by a nearly-empty parking lot. There were two other vehicles present, and I suspect one of them had been there overnight. The only activity at the park this morning was someone exercising their greyhound on one of the baseball diamonds.
I waited till five minutes after the hour, then headed off on my own. Later in the day when I was dropping my injured bicycle off at Chain Reaction, Phil told me he pulled in to Patriot’s Park at 6 minutes after 8, and that must have been me he saw riding off by myself.
Yes, I did say “injured bicycle.” I had a great ride, and thought a lot about how a nice, hard bike ride is a great way to feel back at home after a quick business trip. 2.26 miles from home I was feeling nicely worn out and looking forward to being home, having a snack, and playing with Elizabeth, when going up a hill I noticed a strange clicking noise. I listened for a bit and thought it was coming from my pedals. A bit further, I heard a louder clunk and lost my forward momentum. I thought I’d thrown my chain, but when I stopped to put it back on, it was broken! I pulled it out of the drivetrain and put it in one of my jersey pockets, then proceeded to walk up the hills and coast down the hills to get home.
Regular readers, all two of you, may recall a recent post where I got two flat tires and had to walk home from that, too. Well, this is the second time in two weeks I’ve had to walk home from a bicycle ride! After how many years of riding a bike and never a major incident? What’s going on here? I should ask my mom if Mercury is in retrograde or something.
So, that’s how my road bike ended up at my LBS for the second time this month, and since they don’t carry campy-compatible chains, I won’t get it back until Tuesday at the earliest, and when I ride tomorrow, it’ll be on the trails!