if it ain't brokie
We had something of an accident on the way home from the farmers market on Tuesday. No one was hurt, and we determined that the big bike is pretty secure for the kids, even in the case of an upset. The only casualty of the smash-up was my rear wheel, which was bent pretty badly. The guys at the shop say it's too twisted to fix—though I did manage to ride home on it—and a replacement won't be in until next week. Commuting for the last few days of the school year has been affected.
I drove Wednesday, but despite Leah's protestations that it'd be fine for me to take the car again yesterday I knew that my doing so would interfere with Harvey's birthday outing—we couldn't have that! So as an emergency repair I pulled the rear wheel from my older bicycle, which was perfect except for the curious fact that said bicycle was built with the freewheel in the bottom bracket rather than, as is usual today, the rear hub. Which means of course that the rear hub is a fixed-gear hub—albeit one with a five-speed cassette attached. And that means today I premiered what might be the world's first fixed-gear ten-speed.
In the interest of getting places I've pulled some pretty crazy workarounds before; this gambit was nothing so remarkable. The only issue was that I had to remember to keep pedaling. In a regular fixie that's not a concern because the fixed-gear hub naturally makes the pedals move with the wheel's rotation, but on my mutant machine the derailleur removes any chain tension on the bottom side of the chain run. That means that I can actually coast—for a few feet at least, until the chain goes completely slack and potentially gets sucked into the spokes. But that didn't happen, and the need for constant motion was hardly even a problem.
All the more impressive was the fact that on the return trip I managed to carry a banjo and a box holding three four-inch pots (exotic basil plants—my coworkers know what I like!). You car commuters have no idea of the fun you're missing!