Week 9

Date
March 6, 2016

Distance
100 miles

Strava Link
Week 9

Route Map/Profile

Weather

Ride Report 
March isn't off to the best start. On the 1st my commuter bike was stolen. I can't be too upset because it was mostly my fault. I've been riding back and forth between Job A and Job B, and out of laziness I was leaving my U-lock at Job A and carrying my cable lock around to both Job A and Job B. That means I was only using a cable lock at Job B. Cable locks are good for keeping honest people honest, but they are easily defeated by a determined thief.

Here's the lesson: Don't be lazy. Always lock with 2 different types of locks. That's not to say that U-locks are invincible, but I do believe that I'd still have my bike if I had locked it up at Job B with both a U-lock and a cable like I do at Job A. My bike was locked up on a bike rack next to the main entrance of a busy building. There's a very obvious security camera right above the bike rack. It didn't matter. If you go on YouTube you can find videos of people cutting locks with power tools as people walk right by. Don't get complacent.

I reported the theft to the police, but I don't expect anything to come of it. They said they would look at the security video (there's only a 4-hour window of when it would have been stolen) and get back to me. As I'm writing this it's two weeks later and I haven't heard back from them. That's pretty much what I expected. I'm sure they'll see what happened, but what are the chances they can ID the thief? My bike is long gone by now anyway. The sad thing is that the bike isn't worth any money. The frame is somewhere around 10 years old and the components are a mixture of old parts that I've taken off bikes that I've ridden into the ground. The wheels were actually decent, but nothing special. The tires were the best thing about the bike (almost brand new Maxxis Re-Fuse tires).

Now I was down to one bike. I've had as many as 4 in the past. I had a little time on the 3rd to get a nice little morning ride in. I made it about 0.3 miles from home and my chain broke.

Broken chain

I don't keep a ton of spare parts on hand because I usually have a backup bike that I can ride. I didn't have an extra chain on hand and I couldn't just remove one link out of this chain because there were 3 other links that had cracks in similar areas. That meant there was no riding for me. I'm not too sure what caused the cracks. This chain had a lot of miles on it, but it was still measuring right at 12" for 12 links, so it wasn't stretched out. It's an Ultegra 10-speed chain and there have been a lot of reports of those breaking. None of the 4 cracks happened near where I put the chain pin on the initial installation.

It was annoying way to continue my week, but in all honesty I was pretty lucky that it happened when it did. I was only a short walk from home, not stranded out in Carson City or somewhere like I would have been for this week's century. I could have shortened the chain out there on the road, but how long until one of the other 3 cracks would have broken? Without my commuter bike as a backup the whole century per week goal could have been in trouble for a stupid mechanical issue. Here's another lesson: Do a more careful inspection of your gear when you clean your bike. I had just cleaned my bike about a week before and should have noticed the cracks in the chain. They aren't obvious if you just glance at the chain, but when you look closely they are noticeable. My frame recently went past the 20,000 mile mark. I need to give it a good inspection.

What about this week's ride? To continue with the week's theme, it wasn't great. I started as early as I could, but there was no avoiding the wind. It was a long day in the saddle, but after a disappointing week I was just happy to be out there and I was glad that my bike stayed in one piece and allowed me to complete the ride. How bad can life be if you're still physically able to ride?