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November 19, 2007
Spitting Rain
While this might sound like a cycling entry at first, and while you may be tired of those, if you can manage to make your way through it you'll find that it's more about life, luck, and love.
Saturday, as you know, I went out for a ride on The Mighty Schwinn and just over a mile into that ride I broke a spoke. What I failed to mention when I first blogged about this was that when the ride started I was in an incredibly-good biking mood. The blog entry for that day was going to be something short that encouraged everybody to buy a bike and get out on it once in a while. Such was the weather, traffic, and saddle-induced butt tingle surrounding the start of Saturday's ride. And then I broke a spoke which led to the evening ride in the dark.
When I picked the bike up from the spoke replacement I also bought a new chain. I've got some sort of clunking thing going on with the bike that may be happening only when the bike is in the second-largest gear in the back. Really it doesn't matter. What does matter are that there are just a few things that can go wrong with respect to the drive train on a bike. I'd already replaced the bottom bracket and I'd had everything else looked at and tightened. The chain seemed like a good thing to buy and the tech, upon inspecting it, indicated I had a lot of extra play in it.
Last night it looked like I was going to get out in time to ride in the daylight. As I pulled the bike out of the garage I remembered I wanted to change the chain and, as it takes about 10 minutes to do, thought I'd get on it. You know how it is: when you buy something new that you think will solve a problem you want to put it into service as fast as possible.
I whipped out my chain breaker, pushed a pin through the old chain, and went to back the chain breaker out. It sort of hung.
Rather than go into all the details, let me just say that twenty minutes later, making use of a giant clamp, a workbench, and a box-end wrench I used to add some leverage to help me screw and unscrew the only moving part of the chain breaker, I had broken it.
No ride Sunday then.
Today I got up bright an early and went into work. It's supposed to be pretty warm today, for November, and right around 10 a.m. it got sunny. It was then I decided I'd take a 1/2 day off to put some time in on the bike. I left work at 12:30 and was home a few minutes later. It still wasn't as hot as it was supposed to be so I decided to clean out the minivan and garage. I also raked some more leaves.
Around 1:30 I got busy putting the chain on the bike (I'd purchased a new chain breaker on the way home). I probably had it on by 1:40. I'm thinking it started to rain at 1:41.
It was just a light sprinkle so and I came in to check weather.com.
You'll notice that on the entire map there are but two rainy-looking areas. The one that was sprinkling on me is the small patch that is on Dublin in this picture. Hilliard is just about where the 270 shield is.
What are the odds?
Well, it looks like the "bad" weather is by me. I should probably get on it.
(I realize the sprinkles I'm getting might be so light they don't show up on radar. I just thought the radar had a coincidental look to it.)
Posted by delmer at November 19, 2007 2:23 PM
Comments
This breaking of spokes is getting a habbit. I keep thinking a tranport bike should solve the problem, the one with 28x2 inch tires i mean...:-)
Posted by: Jack at November 19, 2007 3:27 PM
Bike speak has me confused. It also has me somewhat inspired to get mine on the road in the spring.
Posted by: Sue at November 19, 2007 4:45 PM
You know? I had the same reaction when I finally grabbed a few minutes for a run this afternoon. Looked out the window as I was headed out and saw wet pavement... Just a few sprinkles here though; I think all the really good rain clouds headed for Hilliard.
Posted by: Heather ("Footsteps") at November 19, 2007 5:41 PM
Jack: Good to see you again. I'd considered getting some Fred Flintstone tires -- the solid rock jobs.
Sue: Oh, and it gets more confusing. The new chain did absolutely nothing to fix my noise problem. It is shiny though, and sort of dresses up the bike.
Heather: It cleared up long enough for me to get to Dublin Road and then rained on me some more. Part of the route I take loops me around Dublin Road a second time (and today I went for a third) and it rained on me each time I was there.
Posted by: delmer at November 19, 2007 7:57 PM
I still can't get over biking in November.
^5 to you!
Posted by: Nancy at November 19, 2007 10:28 PM
Life, love and luck, all the ingredients of an epic adventure, except that the broken spoke ruined it for you. Have you considered checking the rear cog set? The noise might be coming from there. Or it might be from a completely unrelated source, like your seatpost. This happened to me once. I thought the clicking noise came from the bottom bracket, so I changed it but the noise was still there. I repacked the rear cog set, changed the ball bearings and everything and the noise continued. Then a biker friend rode my bike and tightened the nut connecting the saddle to the seatpost and the noise disappeared! Hope you solve this soon so you can ride more with the mighty Schwinn!
Posted by: Rino at November 20, 2007 4:08 AM
Mighty Schwinn is acting more like the Gimpy Schwinn.
Posted by: The Phoenix at November 20, 2007 10:25 AM
Nancy: Well, it keeps me out of trouble.
Rino: I've thought about the rear cog and had it examined. It's the original and I might replace it just for fun. I have another thought about the problem but hesitate to say anything as I've been wrong too many times.
Phoenix: I agree. It needs to butch up a little.
Posted by: delmer at November 20, 2007 11:42 AM