Thank you Hannah Clarke

Thank you Hannah Clarke

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Any cyclist won't believe that this actually happened...

The winter has been treating me well, I'm getting much stronger due to my secret "mountain man" training, and following my training plan as laid out by my coach Eric Batty. Today I had the opportunity to ride with my good buddy Anton before he heads to Arizona for the rest of his winter training (lucky guy!). Winter riding is pretty great, as long as you dress appropriately (last weekend I spent 5 hours outside riding and was almost brought to tears as my poor feet thawed out!).
My winter bike is my classic Gary Fisher Ziggurat from way back! I bought this fine piece of equipment used for $600, and until today she was still kickin! That bike is my original partner, with its long top tube, tight rear triangle, and steep aggressive geometry I loved whipping around with my oldschool geometry and tight bars!
http://www.trekbikes.com/us/en/bikes/2004/archive/Ziggurat

It is an entirely different beast now though. The front brake is probably the original V-Brake, while the rear is a disk brake and disk brake wheel. This was unfortunately a necessary thing to do to the bike as I actually managed to brake all the way through my rim on the way to an exam! Maximum inconvenience, right? Either way, I was only 40 minutes late for the exam, but still had enough time to finish it.

A picture of the zig zag rim, good thing it was the back one!
(strangely enough I didn't even  flat the tube)





To me, that bike represents simplicity; the fork doesn't work, and there are no gears, and you just pedal. The perfect winter bike!

Classic seat, love it so much!


On Today's ride however, something unheard of happened. As I was chugging up a hill in the snowy singletrack (which is quite a trick on its own in the winter, it's a signlespeed, so pedal slowly to keep grip, but hard to keep up with the gear), I heard a snap! and then there was no tension on my chain! Firstly I was impressed with myself (and annoyed) because I figured that I had broken the thick bmx chain that I had on the bike. Then I looked.


I managed to shear through my crankset. This is completely unheard of! There are 50+ year old bikes that are in just fine condition and I did this by riding singlespeed in a high gear?!

4 comments:

  1. you ride it in salt, thats probably what did it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Road salt corrodes aluminum.. Its not table slat.. . In locations that are exposed to chlorides (coastal or deicing salt), the corrosion rate of aluminum is typically 10 to 100 times that of stainless steel.
      http://www.imoa.info/moly_uses/moly_grade_stainless_steels/architecture/global_deicing_salt_article.php

      The road salt solution they use now is nasty stuff.

      Delete
  2. I can understand salt on the rim but the crank is no exception. Other than that wow!!!

    ReplyDelete