The guy at the local bike shop — I should say My Guy, since he’s always the one that draws the short straw and has to deal with me — says it isn’t an alignment problem that keeps me from shifting rings on the front of my bike. This explains why I could see no obvious problem. My front derailleur, tells me is frozen.
“Do you sweat a lot?”
Do you mean, do I ride in the heat of the day a lot? Yes.
Turns out all the sweat goes right there into the derailleur cage, where the hinge can rust out over time. Which is why, right now, I can only ride in the big ring. (Which is usually where I ride, anyway.)
Maybe I should stop riding in the rain so much, too then.
“No,” he said. “Just the sweat. The salt.”
Rust. Tastes like victory.
And the cost of a new derailleur. And not being able to ride until next week.
Because Amazon can ship you something from across the country in a day, but in a bike shop it will be Tuesday before your part comes in. No matter, I’ll miss one day of riding and, hopefully, it will be ready by next weekend.
On the upside, we did stand over a Trek time trial bike. And I picked up a carbon fiber Trek with state of the art electronic groupo just to feel what 15 pounds felt like. It felt like about $10,000. How anyone could ride something that expensive without fear in their eyes is beyond me.
And I coveted a Colnago. It was a beautiful machine. (It looked like this.) So beautiful, and significantly less than the Trek. We had a moment, me imagining slinging it left and right as I stood out of the saddle, the Colnago knowing I could never handle the ride. So beautiful.
Good thing my Felt was downstairs. It doesn’t need to get jealous. Can’t afford a new bike. It “only” cost two or three grand.
Also, upstairs was this poster:
That was for Bo Jackson’s Bo Bikes Bama tornado relief ride last year, and a shorter tour this year. He’s raised more than $600,000 in those six days in the saddle. Still sad I couldn’t talk any of my media friends into letting me cover it for them.
But Bo rides a Trek, and Trek loves Bo. And he signed his left thigh. In the reflection off the glass frame you can see part of another Trek in the background.
The Yankee rides a Trek, hence she knows Bo.
Also, the DMV this afternoon.
We have a satellite office, and the people there are nice and courteous and they know their business. Still, this late in the month, it took an hour to weave through the line. I was going to ask “How did we do this before smartphones?”
Then I remembered: I used to take a book.
But everyone was pleasant and in a good humor. Many folks took a friend. As good a time as any to catch up. A lot of people ran into people they knew. Medium-small towns have those advantages.
I’d rather go to our DMV than our post office — where I have also waited an hour in line.
Also, when you park in a parking space that is for employees only the DMV staff will run the tag and call you up to the desk to move your car. And you get your space back in line. Two people had this problem while I was there.
I might have been one of them.
We went for a run late this evening on the nearby bike and running trail. It is three miles, round trip. I got out a little ahead of The Yankee and, as it got dark I stopped and waited for her so I wouldn’t be shuffling along by myself in the twilight.
This was a mistake because it turned into an all out sprint at the end. I was not prepared for the last 200 yards. But I did break the tape. And by tape I mean spiderweb.
That wasn’t nearly as exciting as I thought it would be.
I’m concerned I’ll soon come to enjoy running.
I do not know what is happening.
Things to read which I thought were interesting while standing in line at the DMV today …
Three bears and one tough hiker
Special Space Camp graduation: 200 vision-impaired students from 25 states, 6 countries
Got a great weekend planned?
Sweat? Hmm… didn’t think much about that. Also, I still want to ride with Bo before it’s all said and done. One day, I swear.