Sunday was shaping up nicely for a long ride in the sunshine testing out the recently discovered turn-by-turn navigation capability of my Garmin Edge 500. A 60 mile route was easily created on ridewithgps.com and saved to the Garmin.
I set off and was alerted to every turn with a beep and a little directional arrow and street name appearing on the screen - unfortunately this was, more often than not, right at or just beyond the junction! Not to worry though as one of the other screen views shows the distance to the next turn and an arrow pointing the way - this worked much better.
Things were about to take a turn for the worse though. At 31 miles in I pulled out to overtake a parked car in a quiet Suffolk village when there was a loud "twang" followed by a lot of rattling from my rear wheel. My heart sank, this was almost as far from home as I was going to get on this ride and I knew, from previous experience of this, that the bike would be barely ridable.
Yes, a spoke had snapped. For those unfamiliar with this scenario, on a wheel with 20 spokes this basically means there aren't enough spokes left to keep the wheel true so you have to open the quick release on the brake caliper and rotate it slightly to allow the now severley buckled wheel to pass through the brake caliper. As an added complication it's more than likely that the tyre will now rub the frame on the chainstay.
The people who were getting into the parked car were sufficiently concerned with the noise to come and see whether I was OK or not and whether I needed help. Also at that time a group of cyclists appeared and also insisted on helping. I had already cable tied the broken spoke to the next spoke and was contemplating how to get home - or more accurately how slowly this would be. One guy from the group helped to adjust some of the spokes to try to pull them in from the other side but on a wheel like this they are too far apart to allow for much adjustment after one is lost.
So there was only one thing for it. The humiliation of riding at less than 10mph towards somewhere with a mobile phone reception and waiting for my wife to come and collect me. The next 12miles were miserable. It was the warmest day of the year so far and there were more cyclists out than I have ever seen on a ride. Needless to say I was passed by all of them and I bet they were thinking "all the gear no idea" as they passed me in my full lycra and Ti framed bike barely making progress.
Below is a picture of the wheel taken when I got home you can see the broken spoke and the sidewall of the tyre worn away from rubbing on the frame. This is the second time this has happened on this wheel and I'm sure it's the same spoke as the wheel rubbing is in the same place. All in all I've lost confidence in this wheel. I'll get it fixed but I don't think it's up to F2F, I can't afford to have this happen on a 4 day 350 mile ride. Luckily the last time it happened I contacted Easton and they sent me 5 spare spokes for each of the 3 lengths required for front and rear.
So, do I use the Shimano wheel from my Allez for F2F ? This hasn't given my any problems in the last 5 years or so. Or do I get a new rear wheel that's a bit more robust and heavier ? Need to do a bit of searching to see what's available at the right price I think. Either way I don't think I can take the risk with the Easton.
Mike
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