18F this morning, but the wind was very light so it was a pretty easy commute.

Got downtown and heard screaming as I pulled up to a stop light. A guy was having an extremely loud and explicit argument with someone across the street. I looked across the street and there was nobody there. Mental illness sucks.

I received my new derailleur for my winter bike and installed it last night to hopefully alleviate my chain skipping under heavy load woes. Unfortunately, when I stood up to accelerate from a stop sign this morning it did it again. So my issue remains. I seem to have eliminated the most common causes:
- Chain is brand new (about 60 miles on it.)
- Cassette is brand new (replaced at the same time as the chain.)
- Front chainrings were replaced two years ago and have about 1200 miles on them.
- Derailleur hangar is aligned perfectly (used my alignment tool while changing the derailleur last night.)
- Derailleur is brand new.
- Cables are two years old and show no sign of binding.
- Inspected the chain and don't see any stiff links.

At this point I'm wondering if I have a defective freewheel where the pawls aren't grabbing hard enough? The issue started happening right after I replaced the freewheel and chain, and with everything else checking out it seems that however unlikely, this appears to be the next logical thing to look at.

So it looks like I replaced a derailleur unnecessarily. That's OK though. The old one had lasted 16 years and was pretty well worn out. The new one only cost 20 bucks:



Old winter bike derailleur after 16 years of use.




Brand new derailleur ready to be destroyed by winter riding.