Bad Day on the Bike is Better Than a Good Day at Work

I took off from work this past Thursday to make myself a four day weekend. The plan on Thursday was to get some work done first thing in the morning and then go for a 50-mile ride. I figure I could make it back before it gets to hot... There was the first Darwin thought that I had.

Next up I hit the cobblestones at the end of my driveway and my Garmin Foretrex 201 GPS goes flying off the handlebar and across the road, it goes. I was sure that all the data would have reset its self, but to my surprise, it was still working.

I got to my turn-around point with no issue and I felt that I had made good time. So on my way back, I am on a bridge that crosses the Appomattox River and I hear this plastic sound going across the road. I look down and my GPS is gone again. There is no sign of it anywhere on the bridge. I look over the side and I do not see it. But there is a trail so off I go down to the river. Great, the place where I think the GPS landed is covered in poison oak.

So after just looking around and not getting in the poison oak, I figure I will have to come back in the morning when it is cooler to look for it.

So off I go to finish the ride to get back home and that's when it hit me. The heat! It must have been pushing in the upper 90's but it might as well had been 1000. That Darwin thought that I had in the morning was catching up with me. That last 10 mile was a killer.

That afternoon I notice that it was getting dark outside and I could hear some thunder. Great! The weather guesser on TV is calling for a bad storm. I better go back to the river to find the GPS before the storm hits. Off I go and within 5 minutes of getting there, I find the GPS.



After hitting the bridge and going over the side and falling 15 to 20 feet the GPS was still running and had been running for over 8 hours. Great way to test the battery? I could not believe it!

Saturday, off to do a pre-ride of the Devil's Backbone Mountain Cross course. David is going to ride with me and we are looking at doing 40 of the 60 plus miles. I forgot the cue sheet and had to go back to the car to get it. Not knowing it at the time and this is a learning moment for everyone in blog land. Check the cue sheet to make sure it matches the map. The one I downloaded off of mapmyride.com was wrong! Go figure!

On the way back we were met by 3 dogs that did not like us riding by their house. David is going to pick up the pace to try and make it past them. The owner is in the yard yelling at the dogs like that's going to help. I dismount and put the bike between me and the dogs. This works great until I get back on the bike.

Now I have a shifting issue and about every third turn of the crank, the chain pops like it wants to shift to another gear. This is happening in every gear. After about 3/4's of a mile I get to start working and it's a good thing because I have a monster of a climb to get up.

I get back to the car and I know David has been waiting for me for sometime now. He did not know that I had a shifting issue and I did not know that one of the dogs had bit him. Not bad, but still.

Sunday, is not my day of rest but a day for repair. Come to findout that one of the pins in the cassette broke and that was the cause of the shifting issue. I would like to know what is the normal life cycle of a Sram cassette. This is the second one that I have had the pin break on me.

I am going to try this again next week and I hope I have better luck! But it was still better than a good day at work

Comments

Dan O said…
Wow - that's a tough GPS !!

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