We got off early from the shop and decided that we needed to get ourselves out for some exercise. We had decided on doing the Sweetwater loop, even though it was 90 degrees out. We hopped on our Burley tandem and rode on down River Road. It was definitely nice and warm, but as soon as we turned into Rio Nido, it cooled way down. Well, to make a long story short, we broke our chain part way up Sweetwater. It was in one of those corners where you are probably pushing around 24% or so. Anyway, a broken chain wasn’t any big deal, so I took out a link and put it back together, but when we took off again, the chain started skipping around like crazy. It turned out that we had badly bent the easiest 3 gears on our cassette. We couldn’t use the 4th one down either since the 3rd was bent into it. I figure what happened is that when the chain broke, it came over the top of the cassette, and since there was no chain on the bottom of the ring to balance things, it just bent it over. We did the same thing many, many years ago shifting into the big chain ring on the top of Old Caz. Claire wanted to keep going on, or at least give it a try, but pushing a 30×17 gear up a 20% grade was not in our power. So, we turned around and rode back down and then did a little ride through Armstrong Redwoods before coming home on River Road. Here is a link to our loop. Getting home sooner than we had expected did allow us the time to sit on the deck and enjoy some beverages while the sun set.
