Colossal failure

Before reading this, mother, please remember I am complete fine. I have not a scratch on me aside from the endless number of mosquito bites on my arm. Keep that in mind as you coontinue reading. For those of you who care, Rachel is fine too.

So for a while now, I've been riding with a bent derailer hanger. Anyone with bike knowledge can now tell me I'm a complete fool. So, I was still able to shift quite easily, but the chain had a tendency to drop if I coasted too long. This didnt happen everytime, so it wasn't easy to gather what was happening. I went to a couple of bike shops, but it was a repair that would have taken a while and as always time was limited to make it to the wedding in Chicago.

After lengthy observation, I have no real clue what was going on but I am guessing the derailer allowed the chain to hang too loose which allowed me cassette to move when the wheel san fast enough, throwing my chain.

After a while I've gotten pretty good about managing to get the chain back on while still on the bike, but recently the chain was falling off the cogs of the derailer. This means I had to get off the bike to fix it, but Chicago was 4 days away. I just had to make it that far.

Saturday, we were climbing out of La Crosse (Wisconsin has real hills, who knew?). Having made it up to St. Josephs Ridge we were going down to Coon Valley. As the names suggest, there is a difference in elevation. The hill was about under a mile of 8%; nothing bad, but I knew my chain would probably be an issue.

I let Rachel go down first, assuming I would need the space and might be a little dangerous to be near. While I was right, it was a big mistake.

Very quickly, the chain fell off, even though I was going slowly (under 25 mph). I tried to pedal it back on and had mitigated success, but it was not to last. The chain fell off and I could feel it was off the derailer. I spotted a pull off where I could fix and tried to maintain control. All of a sudden, the back wheel jammed up and I started skidding out of control. I managed to remain up right. I unclipped as I neared the pull out, braking the whole time. I put down my right foot, unclipping the other foot as I turned into the pullout. I let the bike slid out from under me, and managed to land standing. The bike, protected by my panniers, came to a rest a few feet in front of me.

Sounds pretty badass, right? Thats because I left out the part where I was freaking out like an idiot.

The chain had wrapped itself between the cassette and my spokes, preventing the wheel from spinning.

There was a 50 foot skid mark behind me. It looked awesome. I wore straight through a new gator skin, so there is a quarter sized hole of nothing and scraped thin area in an inch around it. The derailer was bent, the cogs had snapped, but the body of the derailer, and the wheel had survived well.

While I was trying to get my bike fixed on the side of the highway, only three people stopped. Two were bikers who tried to help me before going to explain my predicament to Rachel (she did bike up a mile and a half to help me). The only driver who stopped was a young guy who made sure I was alright before going on to find Rachel. I even tried to hail down the pickups to get a ride to the campsite that was only a mile and a half down the hill. I like to think it means something that in a region of farm land in a state known for being friendly, only someone of my generation stopped. Take that all you who complain about the young. (Sorry for the rant. Its annoying people ignoring your pleas for help.)

Anyway, Rachel made it up the hill, helped me get the chain free, and tape the derailer to the frame. It was downhill all the way to the campsite, so I put a new tube in. The tube looked like a child crowning out of the tire and maybe made it a few rotation before exploding loudly.

After a long walk down, we ended up camping in the town park. Of course, all the bike shops in the nearby towns were closed on Sunday and I couldn't even pedal a foot. However, Rachel's friend Katy (Snacks), who was in the area graciously volunteered to pick us up.

I took my bike to Ben's cyclery in Milwaukee, an awesome bike that has a theater as a warehouse, which managed to squeeze my bike in for reppairs and got me running. They informed me I had also managed to break my freewheel, but its all good now and we head to chicago tomorrow.