Never Leave Home Without It

Wednesday, I left the house, on the Faux Surly, at 5:20 A.M., as usual on my commute to work. The morning air was crisp, and I was enjoying the ride despite a nagging fatigue which has haunted me for the last month to month-and-a-half.

As I climbed the steep hill on the north side of Leetsdale Avenue, I felt/heard my chain make a "ping" noise. I hoped that I had just imagined it, but then, it happened again. My thoughts strayed to the time that I was climbing that very grade and broke my left crank arm, which caused me to crash in a rather spectacular fashion.

        The hill I was climbing. Look at the tops of the cars on Leetsdale, and keep in mind that I am only about 50 yards past that street. It is a steep pitch...

 

"I hope that doesn't happen, if my chain breaks, or something...", I thought to myself.

Just then, of course, my chain broke. Luckily, I think that the anticipation of such an occurrence made me somewhat ready for the sudden lack of resistance on the pedal, and I simply coasted to the side of the road, chainless.

"Well, hell," I thought. "I wonder if the connector link gave way."

Nope. I inspected the chain, and found that it had broken about a foot away from the the connector. So, I got the multi-tool out, opened up the chain-tool portion of it (never leave home yadda-yadda) and set about repairing the chain.

Once the repair was complete (less than 5 minutes after the first "ping", I continued on my way to work.

 Lifesaver

I got to work just about on time, and went about my day, happy that I travel prepared.

That afternoon, on the way from work. I was crossing Leetsdale, once again (at the pedestrian crossing by George Washington High School), when,,, PING.

Yep. The damn chain broke, again. This time,  the link next to the connector link broke.

I usually don't run more than 8 cogs on the freehub, simply because I don't really trust the thinner chains used with 9-speed and up. Everyone pooh-poohs that, but... the Faux Surly has a 9-speed cogset and chain. And, I have never broken the same chain, twice, on any other drivetrain. Coincidence? Maybe...

But: Twice! On my commute, not on a gnarly mountain bike ride.

I have a new KMC chain on the way to replace the SRAM chain which broke (twice!). Hopefully, that will fix the problem.

At least I had my chaintool with me. Never leave home without it!

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