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11-03-02, 07:28 PM
This is my tale of woe about a commute a couple of months ago in early August. Thankfully, now it is a fading memory.
Normal morning commute, another warm, muggy, central Virginia morning. About 1 mile from work my route crests a small rise, and slopes down to an intersection with a busy, 4 lane highway. Just after cresting the hill, slowing for the intersection, my cranks jamb, the rear wheel locks up, and slides about 4 feet to a stop. It's about 6:30 AM, and my brain still isn't nearly ready to deal with more than the mildly non-routine.
I dismount, pull my bike over to the edge of the road to see what's up. My chain has jumped the freewheel and wedged itself tightly between the cogs and spokes. I monkey around and try to free it with a stick to no avail... this is going to get greasy. I grab the chain with my hands and free it after several hard tugs. The chain is broken where one sideplate has come off the pins, but the other sideplate is still holding. In the process of coming to a stop, the chain has also cut completely through two spokes and damaged several others. The wheel now resembles a Pringle potato chip. I lift the chain back over the freewheel, wedge the loose spokes where they won't cause problems, and open the cantilever brakes. The plan is to coast/push the bike the rest of the way to work, which is okay, since at this point it's 90% downhill. I remount, coast down to the aforementioned intersection, and eventually cross. The tire is rubbing the seat stay, but it's not intolerable. For a while. Not long after continuing my coast down to work, another damaged spoke breaks and the wheel will no longer rotate. I stop and try to figure out what to do. By inserting the axle cock-eyed in the drop-outs, and tightening the QR lever enough to hold it there, the rubbing is reduced to a barely tolerable minimum. Somewhere between there and the end of my coast, the chain came completely apart and fell off. That's okay, I never wanted to see it again. I pushed the bike the final 1/4 mile into work. Thanks to the delays, coworkers were beginning to arrive by then. Almost as embarassing as the time I wiped out in the parking lot (turned too sharp on wet pavement). [insert blush smiley]
By way of post-mortem, I think what caused the sequence was chain failure, since I hadn't adjusted my shifting recently, and at that location in my ride I'm normally shifting to a higher gear anyway. The rim was warped beyond repair (a beloved MA-2, no less), so the rear wheel had to be replaced. Fortunately, I still had the original 7-speed rear wheel that came on the bike (replaced because it didn't have a hook bead, cause of another distressing failure... the dreaded blow-off). The rear casette had worn to the point that it "auto-shifted" with the new chain, so it had to be replaced. Two of the chainrings were worn enough that they were replaced too, as a pre-emptive preventive measure. Also had to replace the very greasy handlebar tape.
I guess there are two morals to this story.
1) Prior to this, I thought I'd been taking decent care of my commuter. WRONG!!! Don't neglect your commuter.
2) You know those dorky plastic disks that go between your freewheel/cassette and the spokes? It went back on the bike when I replaced the freewheel. They don't weigh much and they can prevent a "world of hurt."
Normal morning commute, another warm, muggy, central Virginia morning. About 1 mile from work my route crests a small rise, and slopes down to an intersection with a busy, 4 lane highway. Just after cresting the hill, slowing for the intersection, my cranks jamb, the rear wheel locks up, and slides about 4 feet to a stop. It's about 6:30 AM, and my brain still isn't nearly ready to deal with more than the mildly non-routine.
I dismount, pull my bike over to the edge of the road to see what's up. My chain has jumped the freewheel and wedged itself tightly between the cogs and spokes. I monkey around and try to free it with a stick to no avail... this is going to get greasy. I grab the chain with my hands and free it after several hard tugs. The chain is broken where one sideplate has come off the pins, but the other sideplate is still holding. In the process of coming to a stop, the chain has also cut completely through two spokes and damaged several others. The wheel now resembles a Pringle potato chip. I lift the chain back over the freewheel, wedge the loose spokes where they won't cause problems, and open the cantilever brakes. The plan is to coast/push the bike the rest of the way to work, which is okay, since at this point it's 90% downhill. I remount, coast down to the aforementioned intersection, and eventually cross. The tire is rubbing the seat stay, but it's not intolerable. For a while. Not long after continuing my coast down to work, another damaged spoke breaks and the wheel will no longer rotate. I stop and try to figure out what to do. By inserting the axle cock-eyed in the drop-outs, and tightening the QR lever enough to hold it there, the rubbing is reduced to a barely tolerable minimum. Somewhere between there and the end of my coast, the chain came completely apart and fell off. That's okay, I never wanted to see it again. I pushed the bike the final 1/4 mile into work. Thanks to the delays, coworkers were beginning to arrive by then. Almost as embarassing as the time I wiped out in the parking lot (turned too sharp on wet pavement). [insert blush smiley]
By way of post-mortem, I think what caused the sequence was chain failure, since I hadn't adjusted my shifting recently, and at that location in my ride I'm normally shifting to a higher gear anyway. The rim was warped beyond repair (a beloved MA-2, no less), so the rear wheel had to be replaced. Fortunately, I still had the original 7-speed rear wheel that came on the bike (replaced because it didn't have a hook bead, cause of another distressing failure... the dreaded blow-off). The rear casette had worn to the point that it "auto-shifted" with the new chain, so it had to be replaced. Two of the chainrings were worn enough that they were replaced too, as a pre-emptive preventive measure. Also had to replace the very greasy handlebar tape.
I guess there are two morals to this story.
1) Prior to this, I thought I'd been taking decent care of my commuter. WRONG!!! Don't neglect your commuter.
2) You know those dorky plastic disks that go between your freewheel/cassette and the spokes? It went back on the bike when I replaced the freewheel. They don't weigh much and they can prevent a "world of hurt."