Flirting with Disaster
by Mitchell Sprinsky on Jul.15, 2006, under Uncategorized
I meet the other riders (4) and they look very fit. Visions of hammering begin to fill my head. I'm not ready for this. They tell me not to worry because it's a long ride and they need to pace themselves.
We begin along ascent to the first park and climb.
I don't remember their names, but one guy was just getting over a cold. I was able to keep up with him :). The other three were on a pace that wasprobably about 1.5 MPH faster than me. No bother. I'll just keep my pace and methodically make it up the seven mile climb.
We climb and climb. Yup. Must be Colorado. Everything is up.
Eventually we come to a clearing, but not the top. Still another mile or so to go. We're falling farther behind now and the look of death is already starting to show.
That's were things began to change. I was just rolling along and methodically climbing when all of a sudden a rock with legs decided to greet me. I mean, it must of had legs because I certainly didn't notice it prior to it's engagement with my bike. The big bugger (we're talking a good softball size bastard) decided to play with my rear derailleur. As the bike comes to a halt, I look back and see the hard assed bastard laughing at me from the corner of the trail. WTF! As the other riders fade off into the distance, I look down and the munged mess that has been created. The entire derailleur bent like a pretzel up and around the cassette. It lodged itself between everything it could find! It even brought the chain along to join the fun. AAAARRRRRGGGHHHHH!!!! It took me ten minutes in the blazing sun just to un-munge the chain and another ten to unwrap the derailleur. What was left was a chainless bike with a twisted X.9. The others were gone. Lucky for me the death march up the hill provided an easy roll back down to the car.
The bike is now at the shop (no patience to work on it) and surprisingly the hanger did not bend at all. Friggin beefy Ventana hanger!
Tomorrow I will try again to have a nice ride on a trail slightly shorter in distance. I still ended with nearly 14 miles today. But crappy miles don't count.
