Thursday, December 11, 2008

When it rains...water falls from the sky




I did this while starting from a stop on my bike yesterday. Amazingly the chain stayed on the ring for three whole revolutions to get me across the large intersection at Lake and Park Presidio. Simple as that, just muscle-starting on the large chainring and the second-smallest-of-9 gears on the back, and rrriinnnnkkkk I feel metal bending, look down and see this mess. Stopped on the sidewalk, thought for a moment, and switched to the small ring and been riding on that since (now I have to pedal faster to keep my usual speed, sigggghhh). I did bend the ring back a bit with a wrench so that the teeth are not sticking straight out (I feared for the skin of my leg) and ride with my pant leg tucked into my sock for skin-insurance instead of rolling it up. 

Can't find any good reason why this happened on a 6-month old professionally-installed crank set. One thread from 2006 wrote of a local bike shop that said it could happen from hard pedaling and 6 other people spoke up and said it was pure BS. Every other instance of a bent chainring is from accidents or hitting something. Since I've not been in an accident or hit anything, I can only assume it was the half-a-link's width deviation (spread over half of the ring) that's been there for 4 months (don't know how that happened either) and finally gave way under the daily stress my monstrous quadriceps subject it to.

I'm trying to speak to someone at the company about a warranty, but they're 2 hours ahead of me in Illinois and I'm in school most of the day and haven't connected yet (I wonder how we will connect with classes ending, finals coming, and me leaving town in a week). 

3 comments:

Debi Lassen said...

How are you getting around town and to and from school with no bike???? You are right...when it rains....water falls from the sky! Can we help?
Love you!

Ditte said...

You are just too muscular! I'm going to have to show that to Stephan Lovstedt. He might have an answer for you.

Erik said...

Wow, That is wierd!