Oct 30 - twang !

25 miles to go out of 133 on my New Smyrna Beach to St. Augustine Beach Permanent. It had been a very windy, grind-the-miles-out kind of ride. I was standing at a traffic light, just started up and "twang" ... and I was rolling funny. Thinking that I'd gone over something and gotten a flat, but not stopping since I was in the middle of the intersection, I looked down ... no flat.

Hmmm. Getting off the bike I rolled it frontwards and backwards and there was a spot where it was hard rolling. Staring at the rear wheel, everything looked ok. Hmmm. I thought that something had happened in the hub ... duh. I've never broken a spoke before when riding ! It was a front wheel spoke and as soon as I looked at the front wheel as I rolled the bike forward, I could see the extreme wobble. The tire was rubbing against the fork.

Two options, and I probably picked the wrong one. I could have simply replaced the spoke, since it broke in the middle and I had spares with me. I wouldn't have even had to take the tire off. Once I got started doing a good-enough-to-ride true with the spoke missing, though, I just kept at it. I got the wheel pretty straight but of course there was a humpty bump as I rode along -- damn this uneven pavement :) -- but I made it home without further incident.

The first hour of my ride was in the dark, having left before 7am. Naturally I had my rando bike with lights etc. The wind was brutal, coming from the ENE, and I thought that I would have a little boost going home but that was not to be. By then it was purely from the east and the gusts kept me bouncing.

The ocean was wild with the strong wind. There were lots of people in Flagler Beach simply standing and watching the ocean. It wouldn't have been a good boating day !

I didn't stop for lunch, other than the chocolate milk at mid-point. I did stop at the DQ as my final Control and then soon after getting home we headed over to the SYC. It was the last day of the month, from that standpoint, since they are not open on Monday, and we hadn't yet used any of our minimum for the month. We actually have to go to the Tiki twice to spend our minimum, which isn't difficult to do. As usual we had the best burgers in town and we ended up joining Jean and Judy from next door as well as two friends of theirs.

Another day done ...

Onward !