Perhaps, if Rock God was with us, and we could have rooted around in his bag of useful things, we may have avoided having to roll back to tacos on the road. If only we had a q-tip, light solvent, a flask of rye, a 14 mm cone wrench, zip ties, disinfectant, and butterfly bandages; we may have avoided the short ride.
As it were, we headed out of the Knott Lott, B's front brakes at about 24%. From the qualifier start, we continued up the forest road climbing steadily to Sly Park Road. From there a road / trail parallel to S P road took us to Park Creek Road and we dropped the power line trail, back to the Qualifier, and oh! Cappy got a flat. The change was so fast, I didn't even have a chance to get out a snack. On to wedding march and oh! Cappy's chain came off. But this was no ordinary chain drop, like the kind B will do 14 times in an evening. Cappy's tensioner had gone limp. And for all his handling he couldn't coax it back to its rigid position. Everyone wanted to have a go at the mysteriously uncooperative device, but Cappy hovered over it like a hen over its chick. A tentatively workable situation was achieved. We rode on to Rock Garden and oh! Cappy's chain fell off again, and oh! so did B's. After an epic repair attempt was unsuccessful, the same kind of semi-rideable solution allowed us to get back to the Lake trail and turn towards tacos. The first of the seasons campers watched in confusion as we rolled through the campgrounds. Xteric and I had settled into a conversation about jogging, when we rounded a corner and found B off the trail. Safety explained, "B has an injury." It appeared that B tried to clip into his pedal with his shin, resulting in a long gouge. At this point it was clear that we had best just get back to the Knott.
After B steeled himself with a hefty rye, he raided the Knott Hole first aid kit and dispatched to the bathroom. We were all well though our tacos by the time he emerged. He hadn't even sat down, when Mother Rye came to tell him that Booker puked in the store and he needed to clean it up. It was just that kind of night.
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Great post ride write up Nocar. To add a few more details of the ride:
ReplyDeleteTotal distance: 10.7 mi
total time: 2hr 16 min
total climbing: 2900 ft
I'll upload an overview map of our ride below.
Please see the overview profile at:
ReplyDeletehttp://flic.kr/p/bJG1KR
Wow, and the night looked so promising from the squito lot. Looks like SS has become a pain in the aSS. Sorry for the short ride. I nursed my longing for 2 wheels with a large glass of Pinot Noir. Only 7 weeks, 3 days, and 8 hours till I roll the dirt.
ReplyDelete4 fingers deep? My infamous chair incident never resulted in such benificence. Guess I should have puked on the bar. Nice post, NoCar. I could feel the tension in the group as each member was forced to watch the others pull on their chains.
ReplyDelete