Today I had a plan! Have I ever mentioned that a key to an enjoyable bicycle tour is to not get upset if you don’t meet the goal of your plans. I think we all know where this is leading.
The weather is still unsettled at best. The sky is overcast but it hasn’t rained yet. At least it is cooler and the humidity seems like it has dropped also. I mentioned yesterday that I wanted to get through Cleveland today with time to get far enough away that I could get to a camping spot. That spot was in a town called Perry which as far as I can tell is the first camping opportunity on route.
So heading out, it was good riding. It sprinkled just a bit but not enough to even put on my rain jacket. And I got to Cleveland in a reasonable time also.
Maneuvering through Cleveland was pretty easy because there was a great bike path to follow. It went right along the water except getting over the Cuyahoga River (the river that caught on fire in the 70’s). Getting over the river actually brought me right into downtown so I had lunch right in the shadow of Indian Stadium at an Irish Pub, Flannery’s where I had the Shepard’s Pie.
After lunch and heading out of the city, I went by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
The HOF had a great vibe associated with it. Classic rock music blaring outside and lots of very excited people milling around. A carnival atmosphere.
So far, my plan for the day is going well. I had plenty of time to ride the remaining 40 some miles to Perry. Along the way, I passed through the town of Euclid. It is an ordinary town in every way except that by my calculation, it would be exactly 1000 miles to Acadia National Park from there. 3 months ago leaving La Push on day 1, that would sound like an impossible distance to contemplate. Now it seems like the home stretch. Less than 3 weeks of riding to go.
My plan began to unravel in Euclid as well. It started when I noticed that my rear wheel was out of “true” again. I stopped to look for another broken spoke but did not find any more. Then upon a closer inspection, I noticed that my wheel had numerous cracks in it. My wheel was getting ready to catastrophically fail. Not good.
You can see the crack in the rim actually pulling the spoke nipple from the rim. There were at least 7 cracks that I discovered.
I found a bike shop in Mentor-by-the-Lake that was open. They did not have a wheel or the necessary components to fix my wheel but they made a lot of calls around and found a shop that did. Bill Gibson at Blue Sky Bicycles has an entire wheel that would be an exact match for my 1981 geometry. An incredible stroke of good fortune. I had to ride 7 miles to get there and I was out the door within an hour of getting there. An amazing “pit stop”!
The only real problem was that I was not going to make it to Perry and I would have to motel it again tonight.
So my plan failed today. I rode enough miles to have gotten to Perry, but not all in the right direction so I ended up 15 miles short. That is life on the road. But I will live to make another plan for tomorrow!
But all was not lost! I’m certain that you entertained the bike shop owner with all the stress analysis & design details important in creating a high performance wheel…or Not! I find that doing this might lead to the guy’s eyes glazing over. He’d hurry the repair before he fainted from the dreaded “techno-babble” overload.
Hope you bought a lottery ticket that day, you dodged the bullet finding this immenent catastrophic failure before it happened. I was telling some friends today about your rear wheel flat/ near disaster coming down the face of Westlake blvd a few years ago. You kept it upright on a 12% downgrade which is impressive. I still have your destroyed rim hanging in my garage on the wall of destroyed hardware.
Loving your continuing saga, stay safe
I’m in st George utah with Steve Barson and 6 other new friends to ride for a week. Retracing many of the Rockwell relay roads. Hopefully sans the bike rack disaster.
Greg- my turn to say “Stay Safe!” Have a great week riding in Utah.