I Had A Little Accident

I was just riding along, minding my own business, and bam...a stick jumped outta nowhere and attacked my bike. It grabbed my chain tensioner and ripped it off (breaking the derailleur hanger and shredding it in the process.)




And it broke my chain.



The worst was that it didn’t stop there. The tensioner lodged in my new rear wheel, bending the shit outta some spokes.



Damn.

The next day, I took my rear wheel to The Cycle Path for some emergency service. They were kind enough to replace the broken spokes and true the wheel, and did it with a quickness (I picked it up later that day.) They also sold me a new chain that I heard was “bombproof.”



I don’t normally use anything other than SRAM chains, but it was all they had. I tried to put everything back together, but I forgot about one thing.



Since I had no tensioner, I had two options. One was to find that “magic gear” using a half link, and the other was to pour syrup on shit to make it pancakes. I opted for the latter and made the most out of my busted up tensioner.



It worked fine for the most part. I had one little issue, but this is only temporary anyway.

This showed up Monday.



I had wanted to try this tensioner for a while, so I was glad it showed up. I don’t like it at all though. While I have complained (mostly to myself) about the Surly Singelator, this new-fangled spring tensioner is kind of a pain in the ass. The tension is way too high, and there is no way to adjust it. I have a few days to get it right before the Winter Series, but I’m starting to wonder if it will ever work. I thought single speed was supposed to be easy.

Well, my ass was saved again when Little Miss Sunshine brought this home from The Cycle Path yesterday:



Go with what you know, right?

I decided to change it up a bit this time though. I swapped out the “push down” spring with the “push up” one, and it made life a whole lot easier.



Skip-free and perfect tension. Now I’m ready to enjoy the single life once again.


At least all of my broken shit is fixed now. Big shout out to The Cycle Path for fixing my crap in a hurry (and providing me parts to replace other broken crap.) Go see Mark and Mike sometime and give them your money. They truly rock.


You know what else rocks? A new deal going on a DeFeet. Right now, you can save 40% on their long-sleeved UnD-Lite base layer. All you have to do is enter the coupon code KEEPDRY and you save instantly. Hurry up though, because this deal ends on the 15th. DeFeet base layers are the best, and they will keep you dry and warm when you ride (or run, walk, skip to the doughnut store, etc.)



I have one, and you should get one too.