busted spoke - bad

Sure, broken spokes are no big deal. Oh well unless you are riding ten year old Rolf Vector Pro wheels... and you bust a drive side rear spoke.

Just at the beginning of my favorite section of the ride. at least i got 26 or so miles of drilling it. a nice big group too. mark N was driving it hard. And just as we get to my favorite stretch - dropping down Elmdale ave, crossing peeptoad pond, BANG fwush fwush fwush - crap what was that. Sinking feeling. Crap. I think i said something that rhymed more with Truck actually. Probably a bunch of times.

Rubbing. tried riding a bit. side wall on the tire was wearing through the paint. I pulled the plug on riding a mile later. Too much wear. No point screwing up the frame.

So. Time for cyclocross, shoulder the bike, jog, walk, jog.

But, the group waited up a couple times, at Mile 27 when i said "i'm walking" I also admitted that my phone was dead, no battery. Super. How much better could it get? Well at lot better. Team-mate handed me his phone, another headed to a co-worker's house on this side of town, and came back and got me. I got a ride in a truck down to 44, walked a bit further down greenville and then got picked up. Headed to the sponsor's HQ. Took the big green monster Mr T van home.

and eventually made it home busted wheel and all.

the lower calorie wasn't so bad. cotton mouth and feeling not great took a toll out of me, as did spending time on the front and then reeling back in attacking team-mates and then keeping the pace high after the re-grouping.

i had been gapped when Mark N attacked my steady hard pace heading up Tourtelot hill, but kept the gap somewhat steady for most of the time, then aaron dropped back a touch, and then nathan did and we zigged over to cranberry ridge and caught them and surprisingly i felt great... then kaboom.

Shouldn't have been training on those wheels. Ah well. I hopefully have a spare spoke for the rear drive side. hopefully bob at bike works still has a Rolf Vector Pro nipple... i should probably add new road wheels to the "over due to replace" list...

kinda of a bummer - there's always next week for redemption... at least we had a bigger crowd today... just not how i wanted to end the ride...

heddwch
-g

oh best part - and probably the jinx- a coupled days ago my wife had asked where the ride went and I tried to explain it and she replied "so i would have no idea where you are if something happened" well I sent her a link to the veloroutes route today. So she might have an idea where we were going. Good job self. Good job.