The Rest of the Story...

I am a new roadie and I have not yet reached the point in my cycling career where I can “just ride.” I am constantly evaluating a thousand things: fidgeting around trying to find the “sweet spot” on my saddle (as a horseman and saddler, I am amused that this postage stamp qualifies as a “saddle”!), remembering to hydrate, monitoring my balance, my cadence, my breathing—well, you get the idea…

So last Sunday, whilst tooling along a lovely section of our county back roads, I dropped in behind Jane to accommodate what I thought might be a “car back” and bumped her rear wheel in the process. Indeed, I bumped it briskly enough that I knew I was going to “fall down, go boom!” I did have the presence of mind to disengage (so I wouldn’t take her down with me) before I unceremoniously collapsed in a heap on the tarmac. I went down pretty hard. Naturally, my first inclination was to render first aid to my lovely new Tuscany. Not a scratch—the bike, that is. My body seemed to have acted as an adequate buffer. Oh joy. I was bleeding from virtually every point of contact on my right side, but my gleaming titanium beauty appeared to be unscathed.

I say appeared because, as Jane has elucidated elsewhere on this blog, we were well into our ride the following Sunday when disaster struck quite unexpectedly. Following a thoughtful post-mortem, we collectively developed “The Little Bang” theory: The rear derailleur had apparently taken a hit during my previous fall, thus knocking it slightly out of alignment. It managed to soldier on, doing its job like a Trojan for several rides during the week, but it was definitely an accident looking for a place to happen. When it did finally give way (while I was shifting, of course), it quite literally exploded! Ripped loose from its moorings and torqued into something resembling an alloy potato chip, the derailleur spewed tiny bits of fine Italian metalwork in every direction as the dangling ballast pummeled the spokes mercilessly, actually breaking one. (In the interest of full disclosure, there is some debate as to which came first, the chicken or the egg: Did a compromised spoke break first and cleverly insinuate itself into the already ailing derailleur, or t’other way ’round? Scott Paisley of Blue Wheel Bikes concurs with the latter theory, but hey, six of one…).

Now, this particular route (the Moonshine Mtn./Tatum School Rd. Loop) is quite hilly, so it was fortuitous that we happened to be traversing a gentle stretch of road at the time. I was therefore able to keep the machine under control long enough to roll out of the road, unclip and rather gingerly step—rather than fall—off (as I have been known to do in the past). What a relief!

As of this writing, my lovely Tuscany remains hors de combat. Sigh.

Obviously, I have the “luck o’ the Irish” which, as any historian will attest, is all bad! But having said that, I was able to assist in moving not one, but two box turtles out of harm’s way as they attempted to cross the road. A very good thing! As this was my third, shall we say, “incident” since taking up group riding at the Tour de Madison, I’m confident I will remain upright and accident-free for some time to come (unless, of course, someone, somewhere is poking needles into a little Aden doll…).