the broken spoke, broken chain ride

the broken spoke, broken chain ride, a photo by rOcKeTdOgUk on Flickr.

"C" had a broken spoke in her back wheel, so as a recovery ride after the weekends road trip i popped into my local bike shop for a replacement, they sorted me out the correct length spoke and nipple and i was away to loop back to home. but disaster struck and i started a climb, the chain borke into about 3 pieces! still i could just shorten it and carry on.....only....crap, out of the 3 multi tools i own 2 have chain splitters and guess which one i had with me? bugger! well, i'd just have to use the power link and singlespeed the bike and get home that way, trouble was there wasn't even enough chain to allow the wheel back into the rear dropouts. so the choice was to scoot/walk 6 miles home or 3.5 miles back to the bike shop, i chose the latter. riding a bike without a chain is awful and more difficult than it looks. i finally made it to the shop where thankfully they didn't take the piss too much and replaced the chain for me. so, there are obviously lessons to be learnt from this ride
ride 160
19 miles (and about 3.5 walking!)
total 3000
commute 809