Skippity Skip

Commutes like Monday’s have an added benefit in that when the wind dies down for the next journey it feels like a doddle. That is what happened on Tue. Compared to Monday when I could barely hear the aeroplanes coming in to land as I passed the airport, or the trucks trundling past over the noise of the howling wind, on Tue I could hear every squeak and rattle from the bike, every rumble and crunch from the road, as well as the birds chirping and singing.

It was beautiful – so on the way home I took the more scenic route away from busy roads. The peacefulness while cruising through back roads lit up only by moonlight and my bike is so calming. It’s a great way to clear the head after work.

Did I mention the noise coming from my bike? The only bad thing about the ride was the crunching and skipping of my chain as it tried to mesh with a worn out cassette. I’ve had a little bit of skipping for a few weeks now so knew the chain and cassette were nearing the end of life.

Having ordered a couple of cheap cassettes over Christmas (from China on eBay), I wanted to run the current ones until they arrived. However, I’m not sure how much longer I can keep going with these. When the chain ages, it stretches with use and there comes a point when exerting too much force on it causes it to miss the teeth on the cogs. This becomes a problem and I’ve had to reign in my efforts with no stamping on the pedals allowed.

Setting off from traffic lights requires more force, especially if there is traffic around as you want to get away and into the flow as quickly as possible. As I was leaving one set of lights, on a slight incline, I was standing up and felt myself lurch forward. The chain had skipped and done so with enough gusto that it had come off the front chainrings. It was very nearly a commuting embarrassment, the slight incline meant I had built up almost no speed and with both feet clipped into my pedals and no means of gaining momentum could envisage myself taking a sideways tumble…

Thankfully I managed to unclip just in time, got a foot down and pushed myself to the pavement to fix my chain. This was near the start of the journey home and I had to keep reminding myself not to wipe my nose for the remainder as my gloves were now caked in oil.

Being clipped into the pedals causes almost everyone to have a ‘moment’ at one time or another. I think I’ve had 3 occasions when this has happened which I may come back to at some point…