The noise a bike makes when the chain goes off the inside of the block
and jams, bringing the mech into rapid and catastrophic contact with
the spokes. Result: one snapped spoke, one bent rim, one siezed mess
of chain, mech and wheel, one bent hanger and M5 screw, a
comprehensively nurdled rear mech and one thoroughly twisted dropout.
It took about 15 minutes of hard graft with chain tool, spoke key and
a handy discarded rail key[1] before the bike was rendered rideable,
albeit with the back brake left unhooked.
I can afford to be sanguine about this incident, plainly the result of
woeful maintenance and ignoring the warning signs, because (a) it was
a nice day and [mainly] (b) it was not one of our bikes, but that of
some random bloke we passed on the Phoenix Trail[2]. Last seen
proceeding at a stately pace on the third sprocket, from which I had
advised him not to try changing under any circumstances due to the
comprehensively nurdled mech.
In other news, Pete is getting along really well with gears now, he's
taken to them much quicker than Michael did. He can make it up most
modest hills even with poor surfaces. He rode the full 15 miles from
Thame to Princes Risborough and back, and his little legs did not give
out once, although mild bribery was required at one point.
We particularly enjoyed the signal seats - seats which flip up and are
linked to a stylised signal at the top of a pair of steel posts. Seat
down, signal at Danger, seat up, signal at Clear. And the animal
sculptures on poles were pretty good, too. Lunch at Mia Capri Italian
restaurant in Thame, highly recommended (but not cheap; there is a
pizza place next door which looked cheaper but I fancied the fresh
pasta).
I also missed my opportunity to tell the bloke from Sustrans that the
loose gravelly [censored] with which they have taken to covering their
tracks is a work of Stan, very offputting to novice cyclists and a
[censored] on road tyres.
[1] One of these:
<url:http://www.trainweb.org/railwaytechnical/Bullhead%20Track%20closeup.jpg>
[2]
<url:http://www.sustrans.org.uk/webcode/Mappage.asp?bResList=1&xMapCoord=-0.971641&yMapCoord=51.745717>
- click the letters along the route for pics of the Sustrans
sculptures and things.
Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University