“Ride #36: More Simulated Hills”

I'd intended to do about 28 miles today, my new route was all figured out. Unfortunately, I realized just five miles into the ride - at the same place this happened last time, in fact - that I had a broken spoke, this time on the back wheel. I realized the spoke was broken because I couldn't seem to keep the speedometer reading over 19, on level road or even slight declines. The wheel had warped, and I was riding against the brakes.

So I turned around and rode an exhausting seven miles to Mystic Cycle Center, and Rick replaced two broken spokes. He was concerned that the wheel might be wearing out, because we'd just replaced a spoke a couple weeks ago, but that one was on the front wheel and this time I knew what had caused it: on the previous ride, my front wheel had kicked up a rock which bounced around in the back spokes for a second or two, and I was pretty sure that I'd done some damage.

With all the long rides and equipment failures, the cycling graph looks less than stellar right now, but in fact I can tell that my performance is still improving.

Stats? Well, it's not like they matter on a ride like this, but I went 17.91 miles in 61 minutes, for an average speed of 17.91 miles per hour.