Got up this morning at 5am and was packed and ready by 5:45…just waiting for daybreak to get going. Went to the hotel lobby and they didn’t start serving breakfast until 6, so waited around for that — ate and hit the road at about 6:20. I wanted to get in a good 85-90 miles today and try to close the gap on Steven and Rob some more, but mechanical issues blew that plan.
Today was nothing but up and down — steep, slow, gut wrenching climbs followed by short fast down hills then immediately more climbing. In the 71 miles I did today I climbed more than 5,000 feet—that’s a lot for 71 miles.
During and early part of the ride today from Daleville, I was on a pretty busy road with concrete truck after concrete truck passing me—not fun. Got to where when I heard them coming I would just pull over and let them pass. I soon found out they were headed in and out of this huge concrete plant — Roanoke Cement — that, judging from the size of the place must be supplying all the concrete for the state of VA….the pic doesn’t do it justice. After about 8 or so miles I turned off the busy road and things got quite again—nothing but mountains to climb, running streams to listen to, and honeysuckles to smell.
These were harder earned miles than yesterday, but I was still making good time—feeling great. I stopped at one gas station for water and orange juice at about 20 or so miles, then my next stop was in Christiansburg for lunch and to check out a dinging sound coming from my rear wheel. I ate at a pizza buffet there and heard from Rob and Stephen that they were 30 miles ahead of me—that was good, I was gaining, but the noise from my rear wheel had me concerned. When I looked at it after eating, I saw that I had, not one, but two broken spokes on my rear wheel—not good. The climb into town there was a bear and I think that’s where I broke them—some of those inclines were steep enough to pull me out of my bike seat and set my quads on fire by the time I was able to sit back down—as steep as anything we have seen thus far.
Fortunately, my wheel was still rolling pretty straight with just a little brake pad rubbing as it rolled (of course, need something to make this more challenging, right? :-)), so I was able to keep going to a bike shop in Radford.
Made it to Radford and was looking for the bike shop and a local cyclist came by and had me follow him to the shop. Got there and got my spokes replaced—killed about 90 minutes—then headed out again with the goal of trying to close some distance between me, and Rob and Steven ahead of me. Well, the spokes were replaced, but immediately I noticed my gears weren’t shifting properly….I couldn’t get the gear to stay on my large cog on the back. I figured I would stop and try to adjust—tried it, but didn’t work. So, I was a bit frustrated and decided to just push on—now, I couldn’t use my lowest climbing gear and still had killer climbs ahead of me. I’ll tell you, when you are climbing one of these monster grades and know you have a lower gear that would make it easier, but you just can’t shift to it—it’s a little disappointing 🙂
But, I decided I would though it out and try to make it to Draper 18 miles away — that would put me at about 80 miles—a very good day, considering everything. I got half way to Draper to a little town called Newbern and saw a Quality Inn off to the right, so I stopped at a rest area beside the road with a table under a shade tree and found on my maps there is a Mercantile in Draper with cabins that I think caters to bikers/hikers. I called the number and no one answered, so I decided instead of risking going there and having no place to stay, the Quality Inn here in Newbern looked fine.
Checked in here about 5:30pm and spent an hour and a half working on my rear wheel. To spare you a bunch of technical details, the problem really isn’t with gear adjustments—it’s that my rear wheel isn’t true (it has a wobble in it as it spins). When the wobble comes by the chain on the top gear, it tries to push it off the gear—hence, why I can’t use the large cog on the back wheel and can’t get my lowest climbing gear. After closer inspection, I see at least one of the new spokes isn’t adjusted properly and is bulging toward the outside of the tire. After fiddling with it and trying to get it adjusted with no luck, I finally “temporarily” fixed it by putting a tie-wrap around it and the adjacent spokes, thus pulling it in and away from the chainring. Took it out for a spin in the parking lot and seems to be working like a charm.
So, I’ll give the tie wrap fix a try tomorrow and if it works well between here and the 9 miles to Draper (where there is a bike shop that won’t be open when I get there early in the morning) then I’ll just keep going and chance it. If it’s causing me problems, then I’ll kill time in Draper waiting for the bike shop to open.
Ended the day by eating Mexican food again at a place right by the hotel.
An interesting day—but feeling great.
As an FYI, I don’t fault the bike mechanic for this issue. There are a million things that can go wrong with a bike when you are touring, so you had better be able to work on your own bike and fix things. He did me a big favor by replacing the two spokes—they were on the hub side and it takes special tools to replace those which I didn’t have with me. Also, I’m far from an expert bike mechanic—I was able to figure out this problem and come up with a workaround, primarily from the mechanical knowledge and common sense I gained from my brother Jim Hyndman (rip) after working on cars, boats, lawnmowers, and everything else while growing up. For those of you who may be reading this and thinking of touring; if you are not mechanically inclined — or even if you are — wouldn’t hurt to take some basic bike maintenance/repair lessons before setting out on your journey.
Update: communicating with Stephen—the Annapolis Engineer Professor—and he told me to check to see if the spokes were crossed. Bingo—that’s exactly what it is…hard to see unless you know to look for it. Now, I have to decide if I’ll try to uncross them myself tonight or ride on it the way it is with the tie strap for 9 or so miles in the morning and wait for the bike shop to open—choices, choices 🙂
