Somehow, after the long ride last Saturday, a spoke-holder on the rear hub of my bike broke. I don't know how, but I think it happened in the car on the way home. We'd packed the bikes in the back of a friend's Jetta wagon in a not-too-tight manner, but perhaps the back wheel was up against the back door when it was closed, I don't know because my friend packed the car. Anyway, as we were driving back there was a loud metallic ping, which we all noticed, but since the car didn't fall apart, we thought nothing of it. When I got home and tried to put my bike back together, and saw this:
I realized then what that sound might have been. I believe that this break is non-repairable. Can you weld an alloy like this? I've found out that since the wheel is more than a year old, there is no warranty on it, but it looks like the company has a "crash-breakage" policy that replaces parts broken as a result of some riding trauma for about half the retail cost. I'm still going to take this wheel apart and see if I can find someone to repair the break. Then I'll re-lace the wheel and use it on a spare frame I've got. It seems ridiculous to just toss something like this away, because it's not cost-effective to repair it.
Anyway, I've been going through a bit of ride withdrawel, so today I rode 28 ks on my fixie (42 front - 16 back), which is quite a different ride than a road bike. I rode this in 49 minutes. Boy do I need a different saddle!
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