Bike Repairs

9/3/26 – Random Success
I'm in the process of applying to get my old people benefits from the government. The first step is to create an account and get verified by login.gov. I entered my information AGAIN this morning and it failed AGAIN. But while researching how to get verified in person I hit the submit button and this time it worked! No change to information. It just worked.

9/4/26 – Low Bridge
Got stuck on the wrong side of the tracks in Northampton. Twelve foot tall Bananabago vs. a whole bunch of eleven foot bridges. My assumption that there would eventually be a way across the tracks proved false and we had to do a u-turn in a farmer’s driveway. Wound up having to go back out of town and on to the interstate.

9/5/26 – The Chain Is Broken
Much climbing on today’s bike ride. As I was climbing the final really big hill it felt like the bike was trying to jump out of gear. I kept adjusting the shift levers, but to no avail. The suddenly the pedals went limp. I assumed the chain had jumped off the gears, but when I looked down the chain was not there. I looked back and the chain was lying in the bike lane like a dead snake.

I found that one of the links had pulled apart. No problem thought I, I’ll just get my chain tool out and fix it. You guessed it. No chain tool. Apparently the last time I worked on the bike I put the chain tool in the tool box rather than my bike bag.

I managed to get it functional and made it home. I then fixed it properly. I hope. I checked the chain for and other problems but found none. Short test ride tomorrow. The chain tool is in the bike bag.

9/6/26 – Wet Fire
This morning it rained on everyone’s firewood. This afternoon they all tried making fires with little success. At one point I thought it got foggy, but it was just all the smoke from all the wanna-be fires.

The new chain arrived today. It’s much heavier than the old one. Hopefully that means it’s stronger.

9/7/26 – Getting Gas
Today was my biggest gas trip ever. I’ve been putting off getting gas. We’ve been doing short trip so I wasn’t worried about running low. Today though we stopped at a Pilot which had the lowest price around plus I get 10 cents a gallon off. Even with all that I would up paying $175 at the pump. Settling down is looking like a good idea.

9/8/26 – New Chain
I put the new chain on and it works great, unless I try to use gears 2 or 3. At first I thought this was caused by the chain being too long. I forgot to match the new chain to the old chain and wound up remove four chain links. This did not solve the problem.

Turns out that when the chain broke, while I was in 2nd gear, the chainring was damaged. Or, maybe the chainring went bad and took the chain with it. Anyway, I had to order a new chainring, It will be here tomorrow.

9/9/26 – Cape Cod
We’ve got two days in Bourne then three in Wellfleet. The sea air is one of my few nostalgia triggers that is almost all positive. I went in to the Bourne Market Basket and they were playing VIDEO KILLED THE RADIO STAR. Time disappeared.

PIX