CraigB

Interesting, as in "may you live in interesting times."

My wife left me alone today while she's off doing bead/fabric arts stuff, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to take the road bike on what's become our usual Saturday morning ride - from home to the WW meeting, then out on the suburban grid for another 25 miles or so. She's been on her road bike, but up to now I've been taking the Fisher, which has kept us fairly equal in workload. But now that I've replaced the Trek's stem (and brake levers) I thought this morning's solo ride would be a good dry run for taking the Trek on the CIBA ride we're planning to take part in tomorrow morning. Other than a couple of laps around the block to test out the new bar position and the new brake levers, the bike hasn't been ridden in probably 7 or 8 years, at least.

So I'm out on the road after the meeting, not quite at the half-way point, when I decided to quit trying to buck the pretty nasty headwind I'd been fighting the whole time I was going north and west. I turned east to start tacking my way back as the road grid permitted. While I'm still out about 3 miles west and about 5 miles north, I hear an odd sound from the drivetrain, like an old friction shifter that wasn't trimmed and was thinking about shifting on its own - that kind of sound, but a little more subtle. I look around down there while I'm riding and don't see anything amiss, so I keep going. About a hundred yards down the road, the pedals lurch and catch a couple of times, like the chain missed some cogs. I hit the brakes, hop off and look at the chain. The top of it is all slack against the slap guard on the stay, and the bottom is almost touching the ground. Obviously the derailleur isn't doing its secondary job off taking up the chain slack, so I figure maybe it's just stuck. I'll "persuade" it gently by hand, just to get it moving again, and then make sure to lube it when I get home. So I reach down to grab the body, and I can't help but notice the lower jockey wheel is completely gone, bolt and all, and the chain is just flapping there in the breeze. Ah, so that's what that noise was.

I realize there's no chance in the world of finding the wheel and even less chance of finding the bolt back up the road where they and the bike parted ways. I'm a good 8 miles from home still, and no one at home to call to come get me. I'm in my road shoes, so walking that distance is something less than appealing. I think about it and can't come up with any way to MacGyver together any kind of fix. If I just removed the derailleur, the chain would have even more slack in it, and I didn't have a chain tool with me to remove any links to turn it into an ersatz single-speed. So for lack of anything better to try, I got back on the saddle and pushed myself along with my tiptoes. A short while of this and I found I could still pedal, sort of, if I did it very carefully and kept just the right amount of very slight tension on the chain. Too much tension and it would skip all over the place, too little and it would slap against the stay and come off either the chainring, the sprockets, or both, in whatever direction it felt like moving, in or out. And by "too little tension," I mean coasting as well as spinning out.

So the challenge became getting home those 8 miles at a very slow, steady and even pace. Shifting was obviously out, so that meant praying for no rises in the road - too much torque was bad on the uphills and would lead to terrible skipping, and too little meant I was in danger of spinning out or coasting on the downhills. And having to start up from any red lights was tough, too. Those were the worst, especially since they were busy intersections with lots of irritated drivers. I managed to slowly spin up the slight rises, and kept things under control on the downhill sides by riding against my brakes. Somehow I managed to make it home with only a small handful of impatient motorists honking at me, and two or three stops to get the chain back on after it came off for one reason or another. Even when it was on, though, my feet were lurching all over the place as the chain moved around and constantly missed teeth.

Once home I had to jury-rig the rack to the car, since it isn't exactly the right size for it, having been purchased 20 years ago for a different car, get the bike on the rack, and take it to the shop, where they told me that not only was there no chance of having the right pulley wheel in stock for a 20 year old Shimano 600 derailleur, but even if they found a close match in terms of tooth count and spacing, the bolt hole in the cage was stripped anyway. So it looks like I need a new derailleur. They're going to put a Sora on it, along with new cables and housing, and tune it as necessary to make it all run smoothly. They claim a new Sora will work better than an old 600. Maybe they're right. We'll see.

I know it had to be done, but the whole thing irritated me enough that I was sorely tempted to say screw it - just sell me my "weight-loss-reward" bike 17 pounds early. But I didn't. It does make me think maybe I should have gone ahead and put a deposit on that nice Felt Z5 I test rode during the week, though.

The only good things to come out of the morning were a good weigh-in at WW, and the fact that even limping home, I managed a 12 MPH average for the whole ride, though at 16.4 miles, I was about 10 short of what I wanted.

engstrom

Craig, congrats for taking what you had and making it work to get you home! Many people would have thrown in the towel and called friends / coworkers / etc. to come and get them but you HTFU and stuck it out.

And congrats on fixing up the old bike and not giving in to the temptation to get your weigh-loss bike a bit early. I imagine when you do finally get your new bike it will be all the sweeter because you earned every pound.

Seve

I impressed that you were able to make it all the way home like that.
It must have taken a great deal of patience and I suppose a wee bit of good luck , well done.

And I'll bet you thought your were going to have a non-eventful trip.

bradtx

CraigB, When you return to pick up your bike, purchase a mini tool with a chainbreaker and a spare link.

Brad

clasher

I have a tool with a chainbreaker and a quick-link in my spare tube pouch under my seat, hopefully I never had to use it. Congrats on avoiding an 8 mile walk in road shoes, that would have driven me mad I think.

sstorkel

+1 on carrying a chain tool and a spare master link or two. The Park CT-5 only weighs a few ounces and works supremely well...

10 Wheels

I carry these.