I missed posting this one for who knows what reason, but today was an eventful day both on the ride to work and the ride home. I started my second day of commuting off nicely and was feeling good passing a few folks along the trail. But disaster struck when I started to descend down the hill at 66. My chain dropped off and I gently tried to flick it back on with the derailleur. It didn't want to go and I tried several times to no avail. Well, when I stopped, I was horrified to see that my derailleur was bent and my chain as well! The derailleur wasn't hurt badly, but the chain was ruined.

The Shimano 10-spd. Dura Ace chain was twisted at a link. This meant that all the links came in at one angle and after the twisted link, they all left at a different angle. It was twisted so badly that pedaling backwards, the chain would shift up and then fall back. I tried bending the chain back into line with the limited tools I had, and even found a guy riding along that had a pair of pliers. Even with those, I couldn't get it fixed enough to really work properly.

As early as it was, no shops were open and so I had to limp to work. Unfortunately, I was under halfway and so I had to ride about 13 miles with this horrendous problem. I was able to ride decently, but applying any real pressure made the chain skip. I was actually forced to walk the bike up the steep litte hill just before reaching the toll road. I did make it in to work, but this really sucked all the fun out of riding today.

I was able to get a new chain at Performance during lunch. The mechanic installed the Ultegra 10-spd. chain and tweaked the derailleur for me. That was enough to get me running again, and I had no issues with the chain or derailleur on the way home.

When I got to Arlington this evening, I took the Custis Trail and then exited on to N. George Mason Drive. I headed North to the hospital to get my stitches taken out. At first it appeared there would be a very long wait, but when one of the nurses recognized me in my biking gear, they put me right through and took the stitches out. I really can't say enough about the staff there. They were terrific. I'm so happy to have had them handling my accident. Everything is healing up nicely.

I finished the ride home going back to the Custis Trail and taking that as I usually would. I was very nervous about riding on N. George Mason. It's a road with cars going quite fast and with no shoulder at all. Riding to and from the hospital on that road gave me chills. But I played things safe and made it home in one piece.

Dist / Time / Avg / Max / Odo
23.3, usual commute, slow with chain failure
~26 miles at 17.2 avg