What a day…
Flights went OK. Luggage made it. Rental house is nice. Bike arrived. Cat allergies not a problem (yet). Lake is warm. Course looks fair. Seems like it’s all going great, right? Right…
After a nice morning involving a short swim in the lake and a visit to the race expo, I decided to take the Crono out for a short ride along the beginning of the course. Everything was fine for the first 6 miles, then I turned around to head back home and at a small hill shifted into the front chainring. After the little climb, I tried to shift back into the big chainring but it just wouldn’t go. The derailleur moved but not enough to push the chain. The same thing happened a few weeks ago at the end of one of my long rides in Malibu. That time though, the cable actually snapped near the shifter and I assumed that I couldn’t move to the big chainring because the cable had snapped. I brought it to the shop, they replaced the cables and that was that. The problem seemed solved.
Then, it happened again today, but the cables looked fine. I figured it was a minor adjustment and brought it to Bike Barn here in Penticton to have it looked at. I dropped it off and went to register for the race. As I was finishing with registration, I got a call from the shop. “Josh, I don’t know how to sugar coat this…” What?? It turns out that the front derailleur hanger, a little aluminum piece riveted to the bike frame, is cracked through. As a result, it can’t take the strain required to move the chain from the small chainring to the big one. And, the best part is you can’t just replace the hanger because it’s riveted to the frame. See below (or click on it to zoom in) for a nice shot of the crack:
The bike is ride-able without danger, but I would have to choose to ride in either the big ring or the small one for the entire race. If I moved to the small ring, I wouldn’t get back into the big one. That’s do-able, I guess, but pretty much blows. Being stuck in the big chainring going up the climbs could really wreck my race. (To put it mildly.) The same would go for riding the whole thing in the small chainring.
The guys at Bike Barn were awesome and spent a fair amount of time thinking about it. But it was Mike who came up with the idea to see if we could find a welder to weld the crack in the hanger back together. We found a welder and unless I find a better solution, I’m bringing the bike to him tomorrow morning. Assuming that works – and he doesn’t melt the carbon fiber around the derailleur – I’ll bring it back to Bike Barn for adjustment and hopefully be on my way. If that doesn’t work, Chris, the owner of Bike Barn had one other idea, involving jerry-rigging some other derailleur onto the existing one. He thinks it would work, but it sounds less than ideal. Right now, I’m cautiously optimistic. But, c’mon, really? Dammit.
In other news, before:
And after:
Swim – August 27
Distance: 750 yards
Time: 15 minutes
Location: Lake Okanagan, Penticton
Bike – August 27
Distance: 12.6 miles
Time: 40 minutes
Average heart rate: 116
Course: Penticton, near beginning of bike course
Conditions: Sunny and warm, mid-80’s