Two Wheel Blogs

Where to start?

Yesterday, I went up to visit 2-old for a little auto crossing, and a little bike riding.

First, we went to the race track to put the hurt on some BMWs that some sales rep friends of mine wanted us to try out. We pretty much destroyed 4 sets of perfectly good tires on a couple of Z4s. I think they wanted us to see how the cars and tires performed and gripped the road...but we quickly deteriorated the demo into a drifting contest. Man, that was some fun stuff! BTW...No, that is not us in the photo...we allowed no photo evidence to be captured of the carnage...and we were in convertible Z4s unlike the hardtop in the image.

When they finally kicked us off the track, we left and went for a bike ride.

So there we are turning a good pace out at Greensfelder on a record temperature day (104 was a recorded historical high for yesterday in St. Louis), and I was feeling pretty good (albeit hot). But it all ended when my chain broke. This is sort of funny....

I had planned to replace my chain monthly (that is about as long as they last for me). The one month anniversary was last Sunday, but I got busy, so I figured I would replace it right before or right after the ride....again I was pressed for time, so I did not replace it *before* the ride.

So my ride ended when the chain broke...then the ride became a "walk" and at times a "coast". I have never broken a chain in this manner...the pin was completely gone from the plates on either side of the link (usually I separate the pin from one plate and distort the opposite plate and the chain breaks with the pin still hanging from one plate). Not that it is all that interesting, it was just something new to me.

So, today, I installed a new chain, a new chain ring (the old one was like a bunch of shark's teeth), and I installed some new grips. I could not resist this Brooks tape I stumbled onto today....sweet.