We got out of that one, but had to stay at Hazard after just 90 miles: full details will be in the last week summary blogpost (see how I'm trying to reel you in? Muwahaha).I’ve shied away from writing up my experiences in the Trans Am 2014 for months now, mainly for two reasons: one, I’ve already written a detailed travel log in German and two, I tend to feel like my experiences are not as valid or important. Thankfully the good moments always outweighed the bad □ Steve, who amazingly stuck with me in this incident, exclaimed "Alaina, of all people!" Practically less than 4 days from the finish, to be unable to fix a simple flat tyre because of a broken handle was really something which grated on me.Įxasperated stressful thoughts & eventualities filled my exhausted drenched head, "Now what? Hitch God knows how far to find a bike shop? What if they can't sort the handle, this is such a specific type of axle, so they may say I need a whole new fork!! That could be hundreds of $!"ĭoing anything possible to finish this race can become a black hole of never-endingness: effort, time & money for a split second, I just couldn't be bothered going down another potential road. Horrific conditions near Hazard, Kentucky, & a not-so-cheery Steve, exclaiming how everything goes wrong in the wet (well, I guess you were right, dude), ended in a tear to my front tyre & the inability to repair it because the wheel couldn't come off. "Oh God, if I get a puncture I won't be able to get the wheel off.". The handle would start to detach itself if you spun it to tighten it. Later I realised the front axle (the little tube & handle which keeps your wheel on) was loose, & wouldn't tighten. My dynamo lights & charger would regularly stop working, & I noticed the connector on the front axle would have spun around: pulling the cables off. Right, I can no longer put money in this account. I watched her do it to other people, & read it out loud. I confusingly ended up delivering this sensitive information, & later realising. ![]() Oh yes, to top off the facepalm day of you're now stranded here waiting for a shifter & have to get to another city to find the other parts you need when I checked into a motel, the check-in person caught me off guard & keeping the card machine on their side of the desk, asked me directly for my PIN. ![]() Other poor Prineville souls: Rich & Kenny had accidents so had to scratch □ Finally let me add that I couldn't have been sorted so quickly if it weren't for the help of some amazing people, details to follow, but thank you to The Sandwich Factory, Good Bike Co, & lovely Alan & family in Prineville. I'm also exceedingly lucky this didn't happen in a more remote stretch. So, it could have been a lot worse, but 1.5 days later I was able to return to the road. Hmm 6th chewed cable in my 2 years of cycling. If you want to haemorrhage money, get into cycling! *facepalm* honestly, this was the 4th cassette I'd paid for that month. Obviously the cassette was incompatible, & the derraileur had been mutated a lot, so the only way to ensure a fully safe & functioning system would be to REPLACE THE WHOLE LOT. I will detail the ensuing events in the proceeding race blog, but to summarise, the right shifter had eaten the gear cable, and even once replaced, the shifter would only intermittently change gears. ![]() I made it to Prineville, which indeed has a bike shop: closed on Mondays, of course. McKenzie Pass: a long slog to a cool lava field As I coasted down the huge hills towards Prineville, Oregon, one-by-one I was losing gears, until I was left with two (the easiest two, only good for uphills!), "hmmm this may be unworkable now"! "ok, that's fine, I can deal with that" start of day 3, I had bivvied then woke at 0430 to get an early start & some bigger miles in. "That's fine!" I thought, "lower gears for the knee are the most important thing!".Įnd of day 2, the chain wouldn't move to the three hardest gears. I don't know how they ended up making it work, & neither do they, but importantly (at the time) the chain would now slot onto every gear! The only downside was sloppy shifting: sometimes it would not shift gears, or it would take a few clicks to do so. So, a larger cassette was put on (11-36t), which was incompatible with the other bike components: this meant these mechanics spent 4-5 HOURS tampering with other parts (derraileur) to make this work. Messy situation, but 2 days pre-race I had easier gears put on my bike to give the knee a better chance of not re-tearing.
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