Rain Ride!
Mike Brown and I set out today to do an expedition size ride today but alas, our attempts were foiled. We started at my house in West Asheville, took Haywood Rd. to 191 and rode all the way to the Arboretum. We went into the woods there and followed the gravel to Bent Creek. We did Homestead->Little Creek->Explorer->Sleepy Gap->??->??->ummm... Mike will have to comment on the route. Anyway, we were going to ride up lower sidehill->479->5000->Trace-> well, then all the way to Davidson River but it didn't work out that way. I woke up at 5:30 to a torential downpour. We got started about 45 miutes later than expected in rain that had lightened up a bit from 'downpour'. We took the road to Bent Creek and got on singletrack where my machine immediately began to malfunction. A slight 'cllllickity click' when mixed with rain, mud, not much lube, and 1 year on the chain soon turned into full fledge chain-suck in the middle and little ring anytime I applied torque to the drivetrain. How annoying is that? Very. I checked for the obvious, siezed chain-link, burred rings, excessive mud, all that. Nothing showed itself as the obvious cause except the fact that my chain wiggles from side to side, my pullies look like amputees, and my cogs look like shark fins. Well, that'll stop a ride. I tried to keep a smooth cadence but that didn't really help so I decided it was time to bail. Mike decided to continue on with a Bent Creek epic, not to head to Davidson, and I limped on home. If I changed into anything other than the big ring I would chainsuck every third revolution of the cranks, even on the road so, I stood up alot and made it home pretty quick!
3 hours, milage and elevation yet unknown, all in the rain.
