Well, yes and no. It was off the chain, but not in the the good way. Argh…
Saturday, I took off on a nice bike ride. It was to be 2 hours. I was excited to have that much time, no back pain, just feeling good about myself… feeling carefree! I was rolling along on the Comet feeling like I was Lance or Eddy. I was FLYING! Then I look down and see a leaf or two pass me … ruh-ro… gonna be a hard trip back. Oh well, wind makes a man strong like bull… It must have made me instantly strong or something.
I pull away from one of the numerous road crossings, stand up and all of the sudden I know there is a bad thing in progress. There is no more resistance on my pedals… I am slowing … crap, I just broke my chain! Mother of pearl!
Fortunately, my mother-in-law was at home and was able to come get me as I was 10 miles from home and no way to rig this back together. You see I had used a Connex link (master link) that I was told “it will work fine…” by a rocket scientist at Free Flite Bike Shop (my former employer). Free Flite needs to get their mechanics trained on these things as they bascially screwed me. In research after the fact, Shimano chains are 6.1 mm wide. Campagnolo chains are 6.3 mm wide. You *CAN* use a shimano master link on a campy chain, but if you do you will be left calling for a ride. The bike had issues with that link from the get go. I meant to get a new one, but it was working … working it’s way to destruction. The .2 mm difference cased enough friction on the side plates to cause failure. Oh well… no crash, no injury, no big deal in the big picture, just a minor annoyance. The bike is all back together with another chain.
In other news… the in-laws were in town for the weekend. Lots of good stuff going on. Bed fixin, bbq eating, round the house working, blade sharpenning, football watching, kid playing, running on the trail, salsa dipping, festival of speed announcing… good stuff! Makes it a tough to get up and head to work. Such is life.
That’s all I have to say about that…