It was a bad start to my first ride since my hip betrayed me on March 22nd. It’s been five weeks since arthroscopic hip surgery and it was time to stop spinning in the garage and hit the pavement.
Ready to go with Betzi in her trailer...hold on not so fast!!
Before heading down the hill from home I took a quick ride up my street to make sure the trike was shifting properly after changing out the 24t granny with a 26t gear and installing a new chain. Long story short…I spent 20 minutes adjusting the front derailleur while all the time Leili was taking pictures and a video. The video I won’t post because I was using some colorful language.
I thought all was well and I headed down the hill. After focusing on the adjustment between the middle chainring and the low one I neglected to test the adjustment between the middle and high chainwheel. The derailleur was hitting on the chainring guard so I decided that I could do without the large chainring for this ride and kept going.
During the ride I had about a 50/50 chance of the chain shifting down to the granny gear without falling off. I can live with those odds. I didn’t want to give up on my ride so I kept going, knowing that I could fix the problems later when I return home. At home I will be able to take the time to adjust everything right.
All things considered I was having a good ride until about two miles away from home the new chain I installed broke. With a couple of well chosen words I got off my chariot and looked at the damage. Luckily there was no damage to the front or rear derailleur. I parked the trike and took Betzi out of her trailer and proceeded to fix the chain. Fixing the chain is easy the challenge comes trying to thread what seams like 100 feet of chain through both derailleurs, tubes, idler and over sprockets and chainring without it getting it kinked and dirty. At home I can stretch out the entire width of chain on a clean garage floor and just pull it through without kinks. I wasn’t about ready to clean the public sidewalk so it took a little longer then usual to get the job done.
When I got home I took care of all the problems and now I'm good to go again. Regardless of the events of the day it was good to get out. I did a slow 10.6 miles with 782 feet elevation gain.
Leili - my official photographer.
