Dan broke a spoke.

We were out riding Saturday, hitting Lake Roland at Robert E. Lee Park. We were blowing down Bellemore Road in North Baltimore, a super drop. I mean, you’re running at 25 mph pounding the brakes, and you get back up 10 more miles per hour inside twenty yards if you let off the brakes. It’s not a drop for a problem. Toward the bottom, something sounded like it bounced off of my bike, my helmet visor and my glasses. Dan turned around. We stopped at Falls Road, and I wanted to touch my rims, to see how hot they were. Dan said he thought he snapped a brake cable, that something shuddered through his entire bike. I was like, “Yeah, you hit me with a rock!” I was thinking of how crappy the situation would have been if it had hit me in the tooth. We stopped for coffee drinks, hit the lake, chilled, cleaned out our brake pads and got moving.  A nice, relaxing ride.

Dan’s wheel was wobbling and hitting his brake arms. What the frikk?

We decided to walk the four miles home, rather than risk an injury or further damage. Dan was afraid that the heat of the descent warped his rims. I thought maybe he snapped or bent an axle. I mean, I can true a wheel like a sumbitch (for not getting paid to do it and having very little experience, that is). But I didn’t have any spoke wrenches on me.  We got home fine, though, and all was well.  I ate half a pizza for dinner.

Talked to Dan Sunday, and he found the problems. Bent axle, but also a snapped spoke. It was still attached to the nipple (huh huh huh), so we didn’t see it. No prob! We hit the shop, bought a spoke and went about getting it on. The freewheel was being a bee-otch and had to go into the bench vise.  The lockring tool had to, that is. That took a while. But then it came off, got cleaned up, Dan put the spoke on, and I got the wheel nice and trued up.  Working on bikes is a hell of a lot of fun.

Also, I was introduced to Lava Soap. Awesome.

[Also for Photo Friday: Professional.]