Complications

The streets were still wet from last night's rainstorms when I headed out in the car this morning, and so I wasn't too surprised when I arrived at the meeting spot on the Southshore and found nobody there. So, clutching my $1.90 small coffee from Puccino's I set the cruise control for the 24 mile drive across Lake Pontchartrain. The only radio station that wasn't doing lame PSAs or playing classical music at 7 a.m. on a Sunday was already in Christmas music mode, but at least it was mostly rock n' roll Christmas music, so I went hoppin' and boppin' over to the Northshore where we ended up with a group of eight for the team training ride. The weather was unseasonably warm, and although I started out with arm-warmers, they were in my pocket within ten miles. Our group's pace was a bit faster than last week, but as it turned out it would take us over half an hour longer to do the same ride. The first flat came on the way out, on Tung road, and was quickly fixed, so we continued North through Enon, sprinting for the "town pole." The "Enon" sign that belongs on that pole has been missing for about a year now, but we know a town limit pole when we see one. Way out around the mid-point of the ride we cut across from one highway to the other on a little road called Sie Jenkins Road. It's a couple of miles of steep hills and rough pavement, so of course it's always a race. When the lead group got to the end of the road, we made the turn and continued slowly, waiting for the rest of the guys to catch up. One rider was missing. We waited a little longer. Still, he wasn't in sight. So Keith and I rode back to find him, figuring that he'd either flatted on Sie Jenkins or taken a left at the intersection instead of a right. Keith went backwards on the course, while I headed North in the wrong direction in case he had gone that way. After riding for a mile or so with no sign of him, I turned around and met Keith who told me that Dennis had broken his chain.

Now of all the mechanical incidents that can spoil your ride, a broken chain 30 miles from home has to be right up there. The rest of the group was a good five miles down the road by now, but finally Keith got a cell phone call through to one of them and they send Jorge back in our direction since he happened to have a multi-tool in his bag. Meanwhile, I pushed Dennis along for a couple of miles, struggling up the hills in my 21, until we all met up again and could repair the chain.

Before we got back to Enon, we had another flat, and then we stopped at Enon so John could put some more air in his tire. While we were there, we discovered that we'd routed Dennis' chain over one of the aluminum tabs on his jockey wheels, instead of under it, and had to pull out the multi-tool again to fix that. About that time, we noticed Dennis' rear wheel was going soft, but by now we were about fed up with bike mechanic school and decided to pump in some more air and hope we would make it the last 15 miles back to the cars. Along the way John came off the back. As it turned out, Dennis made it OK, but John finished the ride with about 10 psi in his front wheel.

It was a very complicated ride!