Halftime Comes Early (?)

Today was supposed to be an easy day. All day (80+ miles) on the Erie Canal Trail. I had multiple themes I was going to write about tonight. It was a beautiful day and I pretty much had it in cruise control for about an hour and a half. For some reason, I didn’t have my music playing. Typically, on the bike paths, that’s the perfect time to have it up as loud as I want because there’s no traffic. I started to hear this rhythmic sound, like a slight wobble in one of the wheels, maybe causing a disc brake to rub against the rim. I got off and checked the front tire by spinning it and it was fine, no rub. I got back on and started riding again and the noise came back. I got off again and started checking the spokes on the back. I immediately found a broken spoke.

Only as it turns out, it wasn’t the spoke that was broken. It’s the rim. It appears the spoke “pulled through“ the rim and there is a jagged hole in the rim, and the spoke just loose inside the hole. I took a picture and sent it to Cousin Gil. He quickly confirmed my fear that the repair involves getting a whole new rim. The bike is barely rideable without taking major risk of the entire back rim falling apart. I managed to get to one of the ubiquitous Dunkin Donuts in this part of the world, called an Uber, and returned to Albany. The bike will be going to the shop tomorrow morning. If they don’t have a suitable rim in stock, I intend to leave the bike here while they order one. I’ll fly home and come back here after we get back from Germany in about a month. I was planning on riding for a couple more weeks and breaking in Indy for the European Vacation on June 20th. Those plans may be about to change.