Long Live The New King!

RIP: my Turner 02, bought in 2000 and ridden hard ever since; it bit the dust two weeks ago while I was on vacation. (I was riding with friends in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, climbing the Moose Alley trail so we could turn around and descend,  and suddenly it sounded like a stick in the spokes --- but it wasn't a stick it was the frame leaning on and rubbing against my knobbies.) Snapped the seat tube right in half just above the shock mount, instant trash and I was lucky I was going up instead of bombing down the trail, had nothing worse to deal with than a long walk back to our cottage...

Luck or foresight led me to buy a spare of the exact same frame five years ago, Doug's slightly-damaged frame from when he had some UPS mishap and they just bought him a new one. I left Vermont a day early, retrieved the frame from storage and dropped off the whole job at Cutters, and took off for Knoxville to catch up with Anne and Emmi.

But the Knoxville visit is another story; we got back from Knoxville last weekend, and I picked up my "new bike" after work on Tuesday. Anne and I hit the towpath for a short ride with Debbie, but that didn't count as a maiden voyage: I brought it to work Wednesday so I could take it to Nockamixon after work, only to realize I had a dentist appoint that afternoon. D'oh!

Tried again Thursday, and things worked out a little better: I was at Nox and on the bike by 6:00, and was off to a good start when -- PRANGGG! scrape scrape scrape... The tiny spring holding my front brake pads apart got entangled between the pad and rotor, and my only choice was to take the front brake out of the game. No biggie, it wasn't the best but you can ride like that, and I finished my ride, but now I had to track down a new set of brake pads. Yesterday I went on that quest and came up empty-handed, so I mail-ordered a bunch of them (just in case), and resigned myself to road rides until my package arrived. Then, Doug made a late-night phone call (OK, text), and invited me to ride this morning. Sorry, can't go, no brake pads...what, you have a pair of pads that fit my brakes? CU 2morrow kthkbye!

Early morning at Doug's wrestling with recalcitrant bike parts, then a pair of broken glasses (Lori and Krazy Glue to the rescue), but we finally were on our way. Long climb up the mountain and feeling like shit, until we met Scott and Mark, and when I stopped I realized my front wheel was hardly turning. OK fixed that, then it got worse again before the pads settled in -- it really wasn't my day.

But, the bike is back in the game, and it feels awesome.