2021 mileage: 3925.8
This morning's ride was a frustrating one, capping off an unusually light week of riding. I am accompanying the U of M oboe prof at our church tomorrow in a performance of an oboe solo I wrote in 2018. My piano part is very technically demanding, so I've been keeping the riding light this week anyway, in order to conserve both energy, and time to practice. And as well, we're dealing with the hottest sustained stretch of weather this year to date. So I did a brief (problematic) ride on Monday, a more respectable one on Wednesday, and otherwise haven't ridden.
This morning I set off just past 8:30 to ride the Packard/Platt Square (13.6 miles), and got 3 miles into it when disaster struck. After coming down a sizable hill, I picked up speed and evidently gained some slack in the chain, which caused it to come off and get wrapped around the rear axle and the back tire somehow, as these pictures show, yanking me to an abrupt stop. After studying the mess for a moment, it seemed clear to me that this was a problem much better to deal with at home, so I texted Michelle to come pick me up, and once we got home I put the carrying rack on the car and came back to pick up the (locked) trike.
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After getting it home, it was such a mess, I confess that I felt total uncertainty over what my course of action should be, but I contacted my friend Dan Cogan, who has helped me out of many technical issues in the past. He was free to come over, and upon arrival, he was staggered, saying, "I've never seen this before!" But digging in, he was able to extricate the chain mess, and then determined that the derailleur (the mechanism that shifts from gear to gear) was bent. After asking my permission, he bent it back, and then, after things seemed to be OK, I took it for a brief trial ride around a loop of our complex (about half a mile). Dan was amazed that it had worked, even to a degree, but emphasized that I need to get a new derailleur put on. That will wait until Monday, however, since at noon it is already a sultry, humid 85° with a heat advisory.
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