mechanical problems

 So despite the impending visit of Henri, the storm (that's now supposed to come tomorrow), Laura OLPH led nine of us Freewheelers on a ride into the Sourlands. Shed built into the route a place where we could loop back, but when we got to the appointed spot in Ringoes. the weather predictions still said we could make it back before the rains arrived, so we did the whole fifty-one miles with about 2700' of climb.

But the ride was not without incident. As he was loading up his bike, Tom noted the rear tire was flat (at home, the valve had come shooting out when he removed the pump head after inflating it), so he needed to replace the tube.

The rest of us gathered and waited to start.

At the intersection of Mt Airy-Harbourtown & Rocktown-Lambertville, we had to wait for Tom. He complained that his wheel had gone out of true, and it became clear why; he'd broken a spoke. Here's some meatball mechanic trying to get the wheel to spin enough so he could get to a shop to have it seen to:

Many thanks to the excellent Martin Griff for these pics. (He's ten times the photographer I'll ever be, but I still hate the way I look.)

We got Tom fixed up enough for him to get back to Wheelfine to get the wheel repaired (it now sports a single silver-colored spoke), and from there he went home.

We went on to Sergeantsville. (Heddy B and I had an altercation with some bees in the driveway alongside the store, but we could not find a hive that they might have been protecting.)

Peter R was rockin' the excellent socks, above. I'm going back to my pictures-of-socks collection.

That, above, is Bob N's new Cannondale, which he got after discovering that his tire had been grinding at the chainstay and the carbon-and-epoxy matrix was much the worse for wear. The new bike had an annoying click, and after some really wild theories ("Maybe it's the internal brake fluid line tapping against the inside of the frame." I'm really proud of that one; I think I showed real imagination), now he thinks it's the saddle mount.

Freewheelers have bad luck with saddle mounts. Near the end, Laura found that her saddle was loose, and it turned out that one of the bolts on her two-bolt saddle post mount had worked out and disappeared, as had the threaded barrel it goes into. She limped home with the rest of us... and she ALSO went to Wheelfine, where Michael ginned up a solution for her, with sparks and Loctite. 

I don't carry Loctite in my bag. Nor do I have an angle grinder.

But Heddy B gave me an idea for what to do after retirement (which is planned in 89 days, as I write this): maybe I'll do all the mechanical stuff on Freewheeler bikes that they can no longer count on their bike shops to do!