Left the house this morning on the bike. At Westminster Hwy & No. 1 Road I stood up and accelerated away from the intersection when suddenly the chain derailed. WTF? I pulled onto the sidewalk. Was it the derailleur? Was it a broken chain? Was it a loose link? It took me a minute to realize what happened. The screw connecting the rear rack to the bike frame had come off the bike causing the rack stay to jam onto the rear sprockets.

Since I did not have a replacement screw on me, I pulled the rack out of the sprocket and cycled home for repairs. Found a bolt which would fit but it was a bit long so I added a nut as a spacer, a bit of Loctite thread lock and voila, back in business. Seeing as the screw had to have been loose for this to happen, I decided to check the other side of the rack. Yup, it was loose too. So I applied some Loctite to the screw and reinstalled the rack. Could have been worse.

Called into the office letting them know I would be late. As I headed out to begin the commute again, a strong headwind came up impeding my progress. I arrived to work late. Oh yeah, for whatever reason, a lot of cars stopped to wave me across intersection and such today. I'm so glad to be alive.