Sunday, May 28th, 2006
I was thinking about having t-shirts made that say PUSSIFIED but my wife thinks that would be profane.
Opinions?
(sent wireless via T Mobile MDA)
UPDATE 5/28/06 10:23pm: Clearly, I should have defined the term. It’s got less to do with being in a relationship and more to do with not showing up for the big Saturday ride…I don’t want to name names, I just want to hand out t-shirts to those who deserve it. You did not do the big ride with Scotty Quad? You are pussified.
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Sunday, May 28th, 2006
Cosmo provides an update on the Race to Replace.
In all honesty, this announcement from the sponsors and organizers of the Race to Replace confirms my worst and most deep-seated fears about the event. At best, it’ll be a feel-good farce, crowning some preselected pro rider (the rules make no prohibitionary statements against professionals) and at worst, it will be a complete and utter circus of mangled bikes, scortched flesh and shattered dreams that will spawn countless cautionary anecdotes for worrywart mothers to pass amongst themselves like drunk coeds at a frat house, thus ensuring that an entire generation of Americans is raised without ever throwing their leg over a road bike.
I would love to watch this event. It would be nothing short of absolute hilarity.
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Sunday, May 28th, 2006
It was a great day for a big big ride…and FSA wrecked it for everyone. Thanks FSA, thanks for wrecking it.
Scotty Quad needed a bike as his was in for warranty inspection/procrastination/hopeful replacement. So I offered him one of my bikes to use for the day so he would not have to use his heavy cross bike for a 6 hour ride. He came over early this morning to get things all set up. It was a pretty quick job, just changing out the saddle and we were ready to go.
The only issue was the real wheel. I had an FSA RD-80 wheel on there as Scotty Quad did not have a Campy compatible 10 speed wheel. I expressed some concern about the durability of the wheel, as the matching front was in for repair after I broke a spoke on it during a Gopher Wheelmen ride last year.
Scotty looked at the wheel, I looked at the wheel, we looked at each other, shrugged and set off to meet the ride. And I did not think about that wheel again for about 3 hours.
We were half way between Delano and Watertown when someone announced that they had a problem. Everyone figured it was a flat tire. Then we heard the call “broken spoke!” and a feeling of dread rolled over the group.
A flat tire, while being a pain in the ass, is quickly solved. A new tube, maybe some reinforcement placed in side the tire if there is damage to the tread, pump pump pump and you are back on the road. Broken spoke is another story. As soon as I found out that it was Scotty Quad who broke the spoke I knew it was going to be bad.
A broken spoke takes the tension off the rim on that side of the wheel usually causing the wheel to go out of true and rub on the brake pads. Most of the time you can open up your brake quick release lever or just loosen the caliper, wrap the bad spoke around a good spoke, and you’ll be ok. But when you are using some hooptie low spoke count wheel a broken spoke can cause the wheel to go so far out of true that the tire rubs on the frame. And standing on the side of the road, between no where and no where else Minnesota, that’s the situation we found ourselves in.
I felt terrible. You know those situations where you think something might go wrong, but you don’t do anything about it and then the very thing that you were worried about actually happens? My bike, my wheel and now we are all standing around trying to figure out what to do.
On a traditional wheel you can use a spoke wrench to over tighten the opposite spokes to pull the rim back over. But this fancy FSA wheel uses internal spoke heads so there would be no road side adjustments. Cat 6 DS had the idea to just bang the wheel on the ground and try and bring it back true enough to get the wheel to pass through the frame. So we all stood there and watched DS smack this wheel on the ground as cars passed by, drivers watching in amazement. Billy D even laughed that those drivers probably could not figure out why DS was so angry at that wheel.
After half a dozen swings DS was able to get the wheel straight enough to get back on the bike and Scotty babied it into Watertown. The hope was that we could find a hardware store that sold a socket wrench to allow us to adjust the spokes on the wheel and make it sound enough for Scotty to ride it home. We struck out at the auto parts store so Scotty called for a ride and told us to leave him there.
No one cared for the idea of leaving Scotty behind, especially me, but he was insistent and we were soon back on the road. I told Scotty to give me a call when he had been picked up so I knew that he was ok and about a half hour later my phone rang. Scotty had found another hardware store, purchased a needle nose pliers, made some adjustments and was back on the road heading for home. We must have taken a longer route than he did, or he just tore up the road getting home, because he was standing in my drive way when I finally got back home.
So 90 miles, 6000 calories and 6 hours later the lesson learned is don’t ride FSA wheels unless you want to find yourself stranded a long way from home relying only on your MacGyver skills to get back.
Click for larger images of the offender.
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