little things

Little things like a broken spoke can go a long way to ruin ones day.

Friday I was heading out to ride a local trail I have yet to ride when I unload the HiFi at the trail head and hear a rattle...  I'm familiar with such a rattle so I pick up the bike and set it down again to zero in on the culprit - rear wheel, broken spoke, at the nipple.

I'm at the trailhead - do I get a ride in knowing the trail isn't technically demanding and THEN go see about fixing it... or do I do the responsible thing and go get it fixed now - maybe still get to ride today, but more importantly be ready for a bigger ride with Sean the following day.

I hate being responsible.

Utilizing the smarts that are left in my phone (aka I need a new phone) I ascertained the location of the closest bike shop.  I headed right over there to find a strip mall with an empty store in the location of the supposed bike shop.  BLOW ME.

Ok...  screw it.  I decide to head over to the shop that is closest to my new abode - thus a great way to introduce myself to the localist bike shop to my house.  The guys there were great, said he can get to it, but just give him like 30-45 minutes.  Sweet, no problem!!

30-45 minutes later.  "So yeah, I busted like 4 other spokes trying to get this things back up" - looks like they used inferior spokes when they put your wheel together... not the correct gage and all that fun stuff.  So options being: 1. "patch" it up with no guarantee that other spokes won't blow the way the first did.... 2. re-lace the wheel with his preferred spokes.

Ah, the responsible thing.... go ahead and re-lace it.

Another 45 minutes (+), but the result is a sturdy hand built wheel.  (Big question on the horizon - does that mean front wheel needs to be rebuilt as well - of course I know the answer would be yes....  arg)

Frustrating that the wheel had to be rebuilt - the correct way.  Dropped a bunch more money than I had obviously expected.  But worst of all, didn't get to ride.

That evening we had a "welcome to the neighborhood" party to attend.  Which was great - got to meet a bunch of the neighbors and whatnot - but also led to excessive drinking, staying up WAY too late.  End result - missing out on another day of riding on Saturday (Sean had already bailed on our ride).  Sunday I was GOING to ride..... until Annie get's a text on Saturday night from her former boss who happens to be in NC visiting family.

Sunday no chance to ride as we drove up to Greensboro to meet up for lunch.

I guess I should stop complaining, the good thing about no job at the moment is I'm free to ride whenever I want during the week.  So as long as mother nature doesn't decide to throw yet another monkey wrench at me I'll be getting down and dirty on the trails this week.

Poplar is on it's last leg - tear it up out there!!