weakville....

a few months ago i was doing a 60 or so mile hilly ass ride on one of my brakeless fixed bikes. we ended up having some issues with the directions and routed ourselves down this ****ing dice ass road named "chicken coop hill." it was a pretty serious downhill road with some twists and curves and the like. to make it even better, the asphalt was absolute garbage -- worn down and really old with a bunch of fairly recent patch jobs that made it bumpy and generally uneven. so, anyway, i'm bombing this ****ing hill with my friends (all of whom are on road bikes) and all of a sudden i hear a pop and am ****ing coasting. i was spinning my brains off at 35+mph before the derailing and began to pick up speed quickly as soon as the chain jumped. the next thing i knew, i had blown past my friends far enough that i couldn't see them when i turned around. i definitely hit 40-45mph. the road started to twist a bunch, so i had to duck down onto the bullhorn ends to be able to take the bends without going off the road into a tree. it was absolutely ****ing terrifying. eventually -- after what seemed like a half mile -- the road started to go uphill and i was able to slow down and stop. i was shaking like a mother****er.

i was going too fast to be able to pull any sort of bmx-style foot on the back tire and simultaneously maintain any sort of stability and control over the steering. i wasn't rocking a glove or anything that'd allow me to press on the front tire. and, of course, no brake. i still feel no need to rock a brake for city riding, but when i do hilly long-distance rides i slap that **** on there i recall my chain being tight before we left for the ride, but i have a feeling that things loosened up on the 50 or so miles of climbing and whatnot before we hit that hill. that combined with the bumpy-ass "chicken coop hill" factor did me in.