It’s been an interesting couple of weeks. I went camping, my partner got heat stroke (she’s fine now), I went to a training class, and now I’m back at work, still house hunting, and currently a bit wet. It was drizzling when I left the apartment, so I threw on my poncho (which is ripping down the front, good ol’ cheap poncho) and biked to the train. Two hours later, my pants are still a little damp, but nothing I can’t live with.
Yesterday, however, the chain on my bike came off. Or de-spoked. Whatever. This happens from time to time, I’ve been told, and unless it starts to happen regularly, is not a very big deal. I found uot when exiting the train station downtown. I hopped on the bike and went to back-pedal, kicking the pedals to where I like them to start biking, when I realized I wasn’t getting the sort of resistance I was used to. I looked down and blinked. The chain was off the spoke!
I remembered, when I was young and had a beach cruiser you pedaled backwards to brake, the chain once fell off, and I remember my father telling me there was always a special link in the chain you could pop open to refit the chain. But I thought ‘There’s no way I should have to do that! If the chain could fall off, there must be enough slack to thread it back on!’
And I was right! Having thoughtfully packed a hand-towel, I pulled it out and began inspecting my bicycle. Sans internet, I was left to my own brain-power to deduce that the trick lay in putting the chain across the top of any of the rear sprockets. Then, very slowly, I man-handled the pedals so the chain clicked back into place. Less than a minute later, the chain was back on and my bike was working.
My hands? Well, after a solid 5 minutes of scrubbing at work, I still had some grease under my nails, but none on my clothes (hand towel, for the win!), so I decided it would just be a great way not to chew my nails for a day or so.