This Ridelondon thing seems to have a jinx on my bike just before the big day. If you remember last year I completely trashed the wheel. We are into the final weeks before the ride so something bad was bound to happen, and it did. I had planned a very nice ride down to Devon with my brother and all was going well. We had a few of the usual mishaps along the way a couple of punctures and routing issues (apparently Garmin have no understanding of the concept of a “No through road”) but all in all the the ride was great. Beautiful blue skies, sunshine, countryside and the roads were fantastic, we hardly saw a car all day.
Lovely 20% decent coming up
Even the punctures did not put a downer on the day. Although my pump is on its way out (need to get a new one ordered).
The clock is ticking on the puncture change, stop posing and fix it.
He’s getting good at this.
The big issue occurs when I had the chain fly off, going up one of the steep sections. I had changed the chain about 2 weeks back so it was fairly new and had already ridden some 200km on it and it had been fine. Looking at the break, the rivet had given way and the chain was off. No big deal for us hardy cyclists and soon I had removed the 3 bent links and remade the chain with my fancy tool, and we rode on.
About 20km further up the road the chain jams completely on the front ring, and as I was off the saddle climbing at the time, there is nasty noise as the rear dérailleur shears off the back of the bike wrapping the chain in the cassette. Luckily I did not come off but there was a comedy moment as I rapidly had to unclick and get myself off the bike in a hurry. The bike was now a complete mess, and the only option was to freewheel to the nearest pub, call it quits for the day and phone for the team car (thanks Dad)
This is what was left, (the rest is spread over the Devon countryside)
Sheared off and missing on a road in Devon
Next stop – chain reaction cycles , and book the bike in with a mechanic. (expensive month this one)