Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Now I remember Why I Switched to Single Speed...

I have been happily riding my Salsa Mamasita during the week and my Spot single speed on the weekends. Well, I was going to switch things up a bit, and race my Salsa at Michaux. That is right, for the first time in 3 years I was going to race gears at Michaux.

So last night I was enjoying a nice spin around White Clay with my friend Barry. Things were going fine, until my chain started skipping a little. I found this strange because the drive train is pretty new. OK it is about 4 months old. Finally while pushing a big gear up a little hill, the chain dropped off the front ring, and my knee slammed into the stem. Now, I know this has happened to all of us. But, I will say this one hurt more than any other time I can remember.

So today I stop by Henry's to check things out. In the end I through on a new chain. This was not the solution, in fact it made matters worse. It seems I have 3 gears I use a lot, and they are wore out. I put my old chain back on and tried to finish up my ride. Things seemed OK, until I hit the steep bridge at the bottom of horse jump at Fair Hill. Wouldn't you know it, my chained skipped and I slammed the same knee into the stem again. This time it almost brought me to tears. I couldn't even turn an easy gear, so I basically pedaled back to my truck on one leg. I am now worried about doing Michaux this weekend. Hopefully the swelling goes down and I can test the knee out Saturday.

Resting, Icing, Compressing, and Elevating,

Cheers,
Buddy

1 comment:

Jason said...

ouch! that sounds like you have a new rear cog in your future.