Drivetrain failure
All of these uphill bicycle failures are kind of making me feel fat. My metal replacement for that pedal that broke can probably hold up to whatever abuse I can give it, but I can’t do a whole lot about the chain.
I decided this weekend to avoid the Peachtree Dunwoody Publix by visiting the one on Abernathy instead of the one by Chastain Park. I guess part of this is because memories of it hurting to breathe still have me a little wary of Roswell Road. Abernathy scared the crap out of me even before the wreck, and my usual northward routes give out around Mount Vernon, but I was able to find a way up to the grocery store that didn’t use Roswell Road and only required me to coast down a hundred feet or so of sidewalk next to Abernathy. I had to cut through some residential streets, and they have a lot of traffic calming tools that I found kind of annoying. In addition to the speed humps placed on longer straight stretches, intersections are either implemented as tiny little roundabouts (not to be confused with traffic circles) or a four way stop with a speed hump island in the middle. The speed hump surfaces are all topped with cobblestones, and uneven rocks aren’t really pleasant on 25mm tires. It would be nice if there were a way for bikes to bypass the humps, but I guess that the residents don’t want me speeding down their quiet streets any more than they want cars doing the same. The humps outside of intersections don’t extend to the gutter, and I thought about trying those paths, but I don’t think I could have made it without eating a mailbox or two. In addition to all of this, the roads used another measure I hadn’t seen before: sometimes they’ll take away the lane you’re in and plant a tree in the middle of the damn road and then do the same thing about fifty feet down on the other side. I’m not sure how this is really supposed to help.
I made it through this obstacle course and arrived at Publix rattled but in one piece. The hills were steep but short, and there was no traffic, so I might end up taking this shortcut again. I wanted to shop at a full-sized Publix this weekend so that I could get some spinach. I’ve had vegetables on the brain lately for some reason, so I got this weekend’s dinner recipe from the kind of creepy but informative vegan website that I used the last time I needed to figure out what to bring to one of Moshe’s potluck dinners. My shopping was a pleasure, and I stuffed everything into my backpack (I still haven’t replaced my panniers, though I really hate carrying things in a backpack) and headed back home on the same route as before. I almost got back to Mount Vernon before my chain broke. I wasn’t pedaling particularly hard at the time, so I don’t really know what caused the failure. Atlanta is about 90% uphill, so I guess all the stress of dragging me around against the will of gravity was too much. The pin of the broken link was still intact; it looked like one of the plates just bent and popped off. Of course I didn’t pack my shiny new chain tool, so I had a couple mile walk back home. That’ll learn me.
I guess I should probably get a new chain at this point, but the current chain isn’t worn, so I’m just going to ride it for a while longer and keep a chain tool with me. I pulled a couple of extra links off of the Trek to get it back to the right length, and I got some good use out of that fancy workstand I got for Christmas (thanks mom and dad). I’m not really sure what is implied by the Trek’s chain being barely worn while I tore through the last one on the Schwinn in just three months. I also wasn’t quite able to use Sheldon Brown’s chain length guide—the only article I’ve ever seen on the topic—to full effect since I was half a link off. Oddly, this situation is illustrated in both of his “bad” pictures. I have no idea how you’re supposed to handle it. I handled it by going half a link short since I spend more time in the small-small combo than big-big. If I post in a couple months about replacing my rear derailleur, you’ll know why.
When the chain whipped its way off my bike it apparently did so with enough force to move the front derailleur. The cage wasn’t bent, just angled wrong. That was a pain to readjust, but at least I didn’t need to replace anything. While fixing this, though, I noticed that a tooth or two of the big chainring are messed up, probably from where they hit the road a month or so back. I have another broken bike, and it has chainrings, so I think I know the solution to this problem. I’m going to need some more tools.
I don’t know if I’ve just been forcing it or what, but, since this is America, I’ve up to now been servicing my bike with English Allen wrenches. The 3/16? size fits most every bolt on the bike, and the fenders and rack use a 5/32? wrench. The crank, however, uses an 8mm hexagonal hole, and I can’t fake that. I bought a metric Allen wrench set at Ace today which I hope will satisfy all of my metric wrenching needs. The 8mm wrench is (hopefully) enough for the Schwinn, but the Trek is a different beast. Where the Schwinn has one of those fancy self-removing cranksets (I think), the Trek has the kind with the weird size hex bolt. I have a deep socket set, but, again, they’re only English sizes, and 14mm is bigger than half an inch. Some book I have says that I’ll need a crank wrench and a crankset extractor. I’ve ordered the extractor online (along with new brakes, since I’m close to burning through another pair), but I decided not to get the wrench. Park Tool, who makes most of the bike tools I have, sells a wrench with a 14mm socket on one end and a 8mm Allen wrench on the other, but I already have the 8mm piece, and I don’t like having two tools to do the same thing. I’m going to try to find a deep 14mm socket instead and go from there. I hope I don’t need to buy a metric handle.