While some of you were out riding wonderful empty roads up endlessly high mountains and across endlessly flat plains and along endlessly lovely coastlines, I just rode my commute again. But today was different.
I left the house 20 minutes earlier than normal hoping to get a good start to the work day. I rode the Gazelle so I could zip along quickly and indeed I zipped through a bunch of green stoplights (golights?). The temperature was cool and the humidity was way down, an ideal later summer morning in New England. All was going just grand when 4.8 miles from the house and about 11 to go I notice a problem with my chain. What the' ? The cage spring on the 1st-gen Cyclone RD had broken and the chain was flopping loose.
Now what? There were several bike shops in the area but ain't none of 'em open at that hour. Do I turn around or keep going? Either way I'd have to be able to keep pedaling. So I shifted to the large ring and sprocket to consume as many links as possible and rode on. Twice I tried shifting to the second largest sprocket but both times the looser chain ended up jumping around so I resigned myself to running without higher gears. The worst problem was getting started at stoplights because whenever I'd rotate the crank backwards to pick up a toe clip it would throw the chain onto the BB, but I managed.
I rode about 7 miles and all was going just grand until I heard a curious thumping coming from the front wheel. What the' ? The front tire had picked up a big screw. But surprisingly it still held air, about 140psi! I was afraid that if I pulled the screw out the tube might rupture through the hole. So I rode on. I got about another mile and a half when it finally went flat.
That's when I discovered that though I had my pump and patch kit I did not have a spare tube or tire irons. There is no way I can get those tires off those rims without irons so I just walked the rest of the way to work. Total time home to the office, 2hrs.
In the serenity of the office I patched the tire; it needed two patches and still had a slow leak. Then I worked out a solution to the derailleur.
I had to ride home on a single-speed, and stop to put air in the tire every 30 minutes. But I made it. All in a day's work.