The problem started last week. On a ride last Monday my rear cassette shifter became possessed.
It wasn’t an effect of Halloween - that was two days prior. But as I was pedaling along I watched the shifter move itself forward, dropping into lower and lower gears. I pulled it back and watched - and felt - it pull itself forward again. And, of course, each time it did, the gears dropped and pedaling got harder and harder.
This is an especially undesirable situation when one is, say, trying to ride away from a pursuing canine.
You know - hypothetically speaking.
This resulted in my literally having to hold the shifter in position for the remainder of the ride. I did a web search for something like “bike shifting by itself”, and discovered a new term for my lexicon: Ghost Shifting
It’s fun to learn new things, and comforting when a phenomenon is well enough known to have its own special name. As might be anticipated, all resources suggested that my ills were likely to be found in the derailleur and/or the shifter cable. An inspection of the derailleur found that a) it had clearly been a while since I’d cleaned it (eww); and 2) it was mucked up with corn husk:
Corn Husk. Really.
It is harvest season in northern Illinois, after all, and corn is king here. While I haven’t been riding through the fields - I swear - the discarded residue of maize carcasses blow all over the open prairie during this time of year. I briefly hoped that all I needed to do was clean this bit of detritus out of the sprocket (and yes, clean the damn thing for once) and I would be good to go.
I was not. So I pulled the cable and looked at it, and some of the wiring in was broken. What’s more, releasing the tension on the cable appeared to cause it to spring up in the shifter as well.
If there are leagues in terms of cycling repair, I was rapidly reaching the point where I was out of mine. I gave some thought to ordering a new cable, and researched them a bit online, but I did not want to be in a position to discover that I couldn't do it properly after already waiting out the multiple days for it to arrive, and be still longer without my machine to ride. I threw in the towel and made an appointment to take it into Meads Bike Shop in Sterling, which is my localest shop that sells trikes.
This turned out to be the right call. With the thought that they would just need to replace the cable, the folks at the shop indicated that they should be able to get it done and back to be the following day. But a phone call shortly after lunch the next day indicated that a spring was broken in the shifter. Even if I’d successfully replaced the cable myself, I would not have fixed the problem. I was glad it was at the shop.
The dark cloud to that silver lining was that, like it is for many things in our pandemic-ridden times, shipping times for bike parts are uncertain. It looks like my Expedition may be out of commission for a couple of weeks waiting for parts to arrive. And this put me on the horns of a dilemma - what do I ride?
I was not always a bent rider - for most of my life I’d been upright on two wheels, with my longest-term companion being my 1987 Cannondale. But while I still keep it in the garage in a semi-prominent position, frankly, the last time I rode it - which was the last time the Expedition was in need of repair - was a miserable affair. It was the only time I can remember wanting to just get a ride over with. My neck was sore, my tuches hurt, and I was up in the wind the entire time. Honestly, it seemed hard to believe that I used to ride like that on a regular basis.
It’s possible that riding trikes has spoiled me just a bit. A tiny, tiny bit.
But as I was standing there in the garage, looking up at the Cannondale, I realized: we do have another trike.
Now, I’m not a complete idiot - I actually already knew we had another trike. The Catrike Pocket was my first trike, purchased used in the spring of 2017. But while I knew it was there, I had given it to MLW and re-sized it for her; and it was no longer mine.
So I went inside and told her my tale of woe - the Expedition wouldn't be ready, it was going to take a week or two to get the part, the thought of riding my road bike was causing a deep chasm of darkeness to open up in my heart... the usual sort of thing.
Even though I don’t deserve it, sometimes she is nice to me. Before I even got to asking if maybe, just maybe she’d let me, she up and suggested that I use her trike. It might have been just to get me off of that deep chasm part, but in any case, I now had a trike to ride!
So a little time with the chain and the boom adjustment, and I was back on the road.
Something Borrowed…
…Something Blue
The thing is, I don’t think I’ve ridden the Pocket since I got the Expedition last summer. I am not an “N+1” bike person. I prefer to live with a single machine and get to know it well, building that relationship over time. While I had very much enjoyed riding the Pocket, once I’d gotten my new machine it was time to move on with that relationship.
I’d forgotten a bit about the differences between the two. The Pocket is smaller and lighter than the Expedition, as would be expected by the name. The difference in size was immediately apparent when I went to put it up on the bench to adjust the chain - it’s just easier to pick it up and move it around. Given that there is only about a two pound difference between the two, I suspect this is more of an artifact of size than weight - the Expedition is definitely a bigger machine in all dimensions.
And it’s also clear on the road. It’s not faster (which I already knew) - the difference in gearing and rear tire size prevents that. But it is a much more immediate machine. Direction changes are instantaneous, the mirrors, which are on top of the handgrips, are much closer (and they suck, compared to the B&M mirror on the Expedition; I already knew this too, but I’d forgotten how bad it was). And you feel more of the road. None of this - except the mirrors - is a bad thing. Just different. If I was doing a car comparison, the Expedition is more like my Outback - fast, but stable and capable - while the Pocket is more like a British Sports Car or a Miata. I’ve made the latter comparison before, but I’d forgotten how apt it was.
I was especially reminded of this in one brief moment when a dog startled me coming out of a yard, and I steered out of the way. The change in direction was immediate, so immediate I was briefly up on two wheels, which apparently startled both of us - me and the dog. I’d done that many times in the Pocket in the past, but most of the time it was on purpose... and it’s much harder to do on the Expedition. They look similar to one another, but each machine is definitely it’s own experience, each enjoyable in its own way.
More importantly, though, I’m back on the road, and it’s not on a f#%king upright... umm, I mean, my beloved Cannondale.
This does have me thinking also - maybe I need to break down and get a chain gobbler. That would make future versions of this event far less dramatic (it’s a deep, deep chasm, you know). The next time the Expedition is out of commission I could simply move the boom and go, without needing to engage in chain surgery to do so, and reverse surgery to put it back into position for MLW.
This is exactly what they are made for, of course. They are not exactly inexpensive, but they are definitely cheaper than getting a third trike as a spare. Which also secures my status as not an “N+1” person. Right?
Right?
Ok - time to ride!