Yesterday, the weather was completely reasonable… so I rode my bike to work. The ride in was nice, if a little damp in places from the still melting snow. I am sloooow, but since I haven’t really been doing any cardio, I’ve got nobody to blame but myself. The ride home was also slow, but a little more interesting. During my long climb up 1998 near my home, I noticed the plows had pulled a lot of the mid-road reflectors out of the road and flung them far off onto the shoulder. In fact, there were sections where 10 out of 15 reflectors had been pulled out. If you haven’t noticed one of these, it’s a H shaped chunk of steel, about 8 inches long, 4 or 5 inches wide and 1.5 inch high, with a reflector set in the cross of the H. They’re usually recessed into the road a little bit so that jus the reflector stands proud and is visible in headlights (I don’t have a picture of one of these… I will try to provide later).
So after my long slog to the top of the hill (MAN am I out of shape), I turned onto US-27. This is the busy part of my commute… I don’t really care for it much, but it’s all of a mile and a half or so. Well, I’m staying well right so I don’t get killed when I see someone in my helmet mirror who doesn’t look like they’re going to give me any space at all. So I’m hugging the white line and watching them more closely than I should when WHANG. I hit something with my wheel, and the bike jolts and I feel something hit my foot. Insert fruity language here, as I’m sure I’ve got a flat now… it was quite a big hit. So I pull off and start wondering if I should just call the wife… I’m all of a quarter mile from the house. I go back to see what I hit and, sure enough, it’s one of these reflectors. I pull it out of the road to prevent other people from losing tires (they’re somewhat sharp at the points of the H), look over the bike and notice no flat tires, so I just start moving again… determined not to let the little incident ruin my mood. It takes me a few minutes to get back into the flow of traffic and once I do I go to get up on my big chainring as there’s a nice downhill right there where I can really build up some speed.
Hmm… the Chain isn’t shifting up onto the chainring nicely. It’s on, it’s off, it’s on, it’s off… I look down and, plain as day, the chainring has a BIG bend in it. Big enough to see while pedaling in traffic and just looking down with a glance. The language at this point was somewhat more than fruity.
So now I’m without a working bike until I can take my baby up to BioWheels and see if they can find an exact match. I’m quite pissed off, actually… stupid bastards hurt MY BABY. I’ve developed a probably unhealthy affection for my bike… but that’s another post. Suffice to say, I’m all angry and sad and hurt now. If only they picked up the giant chunks of steel… or if only I had been riding out in the lane properly so people would have to pass me. I guess that’ll teach me to try and be considerate.
