Finesse

This is not something I possess out on the trail whilst riding my bike. I often bang my way down a trail as though I am a four year old banging on the flippers of a pinball machine. This has lead to the untimely death of most of my frames.

I often jinx myself but it normally isn’t on the same day. Since things have been relatively slow at work I typed out the “Reflection” post yesterday and I said:

It has been over 15 months now that I have been solely riding a rigid single speed bike in the mountains and I haven’t died or broken the bike yet.

Well yesterday after I took Shade out for a dog loop. David George and I started a loop when a ½ mile into the ride I said “Man that noise coming from my headset is awful, it sounds like a broken frame.” After another ½ mile I felt the frame sag and there she went, down for the count. The down tube broke in half very close to the steer tube but not on the welds.

I called my boy in blue and I will have the new Husker Blue Karate Monkey in my hands in no time at all. I have become indifferent to breaking frames. In all reality, every bike that is ridden hard enough for long enough will fail at some point. In Pisgah, this timeline is shortened exponentially.

So look for some hiking reports in the near future as it will be a week or more before the bike is built and ready.

Here is my current busted list:

4 Sugar 292 Gary Fisher 29’ers
1 Cake Gary Fisher
1 Karate Monkey – Steel

Late Edit:

Since I posted this and sent an email, I have had three offers for bikes to borrow. My friends are fantastic!! However, I will take non of them up on the offer. I am just not into borrowing bikes. More because I am picky than anything else but thank to all of you who offered help!! I really do appreciate it.

Peace