rykoala

The events leading up to my commute home were interesting. You see, on Monday afternoon, my chain broke about half way home, and I had to get a ride because I didn't have my chain tool with me to repair (shorten) the chain. So I shortened it that night, and adjusted my derailer while I was at it. It shifted MUCH better. But the chain seemed to be skipping pretty badly on my way into work on Tuesday. Well I know the chain to be old, and the cassette, and new ones are on the way. I continued in to work. I checked it over on a break, and everything looked ok.

My Tuesday commute home never came. I work as a system admin, and a server went down. Instead of leaving work at 4:30, we weren't done with the server until 2am Wednesday morning. I crashed on the couch in the office. My shift starts at 7:30am. My boss says its cool for me to go home a couple of hours early. So at 2pm I pack up my stuff and get out of there. At this point I've got just enough caffeine in my to be shaking a little, and from only getting 5 hours of sleep. I don't handle that well.

So I get on the bike, and begin my commute home. The chain is skipping REALLY bad. I figure I'll just fix my single speed road bike when I get home (blown tube) and ride it in on my next commute, while my new chain and cassette are on their way.

My chain had other plans.

I was about a mile from my house, when all of the sudden I heard a VERY loud "BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM" and then the noise stopped, and I heard the ping of metal hitting the ground. I had already hit the brake by this time, and had now stopped. I put my bike on the sidewalk and looked at it, and the derailer was all over the place. Broken in two, with one of the cage plates missing altogether. Yes, it had gone into the spokes. The chain was almost wrapped double around the cassette cog, obviously broken.

Oh, and since I hadn't charged my celphone in two days (the charger is at home only), it was dead. I had no spare change to call for a ride. I hate walking. So I went to work fixing the bike.

I had learned earlier in the week that I had better start carrying my chain tool, and so I did have it on me. I dumped all my tools out of my pannier pocket onto the sidewalk, flipped my bike upside down, and started work. First, the chain came off. Heck it was half way there already. Then the derailer, or what was left of the old Deore piece, was taken off. A wire tie held the cabling out of the way. A quick check of the wheel showed that I had some slightly bent spokes, but amazingly the wheel was only a little out of true. Out came the spoke wrench to re-true the wheel. No problems there.

My attention shifted to re-sizing the chain and reinstalling it. I have horizontal dropouts on my Rock Hopper, and so converting to single speed was no big deal. I sized the chain on the 48 tooth ring, and picked a gear that got me "close enough". The only limitation was my brake adjustment. I didn't have a wrench with me that I could adjust the pads with, so I had to work within the constraints of the brakes which made it a little more difficult.

Satisfied that the bike was rideable, I packed my pannier, put my helmet and gloves back on, flipped the bike over, mounted the pannier, and then I mounted my newly single speed steed and rode home. The bike is surely different as a single speed, but I am up to it. I suppose when my new parts come, I'll leave it as is and just save up until I can afford a new all-metal derailer to replace the broken one. Or who knows, maybe it'll stay a single speed for a while.

If you got this far, thanks for taking the time to read my tale. I couldn't not share it with some of the only people who'll really know what it means to commute on a bike!

Take Care,

Hawkear

Good work on getting your bike up and running to get home. Some people carry quarters for payphones around for situations like this, but a little know-how and tools can go a long way.

James H Haury

Bravo!

ofofhy

That's the beauty of a single-speed to begin with.

Edit - No derailers to worry about.

BostonFixed

He was riding the gearie because his singlespeed had a broken chain from monday!

ofofhy

Huh? And then after he fixed his chain, he adjusted his derailer???

EarlT

Sort of supports the saying "if it aint fixed - it's broken" (seen on many fixed gear bikes). Riding fixed, there are definitely fewer things to go wrong. You are absolutely right that a singlespeed bike has a different feel - fixed gear even more so. You might want to give that a try. I did, about a year ago - been on my geared bike twice since then. Fixed is the way to go IMHO.
And bravo for your handling of the situation!

BostonFixed

Whoops! I blew that one.

rykoala

My singlespeed had a blown tube unfortunately. And I do love riding my single speed roadie. I just don't commute with it every day, the wheelset isn't as strong as on the rock hopper. Plus, I wanted to keep the rockhopper geared so that I could do some touring this summer. I have a spare derailer or two, and the parts will be coming this weekend, so I'll fix it back up as good as new.

Thanks all for reading and sharing my adventure!

halfbiked

How far is your commute that you carry all those tools all the time? Nice work on the roadside repair. Though I would have walked the mile & fixed the bike at home, with beer in hand...

rainedon

I had a crash on some black ice back in mid february that tore up my rear derailleur. I had some old fixed parts around that I threw together just so I could get back to commuting. That was about 775 commuting miles ago and I'm still riding fixed and I've never been happier. No cables + no derailleurs + one chainline + minimal braking = minimal maintenance and no headaches.

Don't get me wrong, there is still a place for gears in my life, but if I'm not on a group ride, I'm rocking the fixie.

rykoala

Like I said, I HATE walking when I can ride. I commute 6 miles each way, which isn't all that far. But, the tools altogether weight way under a pound, and I have the room in my pannier, so its no big deal to carry them. I feel safer being able to fix such problems.

Once I have a stronger wheelset for my single speed, or if I lose about 50 pounds, then I'll be on the singlespeed for sure. For commuting, its FAR less problems, I agree.