As far as I was concerned, this was a road trip. Almost entirely paved, according to the dossier, why wouldn’t it be a road trip and hence why wouldn’t a road bike be best? My road bike weighs 16lb and has a carbon frame. I could get 28mm and maybe 32mm tires in the forks. I knew someone who had ridden a carbon bike in Bhutan in the spring, on 25mm tires, so I thought that I’d be fine.I asked KE about their views of this, and the message coming back loud and clear was, “No carbon, Please!” I had a very good Ti frame, frame only, sitting in my basement, having been rewelded after the head had cracked. So, it was factory perfect, even though I’d ridden 25k miles on it. I built it up with new parts, 17lb without pedals, and rode it happily in Bhutan. My only regret was that I’d had to spend the money to build it up, since I still believed that my carbon bike would have been just fine. That was until today.In Palo Alto, I do a ride every day with a group, really an UnGroup because there is no formal affiliation, just a mutually accepted set of unwritten rules, and the ride is known as The Noon Ride. It is my organizing principle. Late by 1 minute for the noon start and I’ll probably never catch up. It forces me to be organized about what I do in the morning, and how I schedule my lunches; I don’t do lunch in fact. It is my religion. Instead of shul, I do the Noon Ride. Instead of therapy, I do the Noon Ride. Instead of having friends, I do the Noon Ride where my friends are people I have never seen in street clothes, and whose last names I have never heard.Since I’ve been back in the US of A, I’ve been trying to get back on my Noon Ride schedule, but jet lag and some lunchtime appointments have kept me away. On Tuesday, yesterday, I hopped on my bike, the carbon bike, and did the NoonR, or at least I did until I got blown off the back like an autumn leaf. Oh, the intensity! I slept for 3 hours yesterday afternoon. Probably jetlag, but the NoonR didn’t help.Today, before heading out at 11:45, I made some adjustments to my saddle and pumped up my tires. At about 11:55, something went clank in my bottom bracket. I stopped on the side of the road and saw something had come apart on the LHS. But, the crank was still turning, and everything appeared to be reasonably tight, so I decided to continue and meet up with the ride. About 10 minutes later, when the ride is looking like this,
I felt the crank wobble badly, so I dropped out and rode to the bike shop.In short, the glue that holds this carbon fiber bike together had failed in the bottom bracket after about 18 months, or 10k miles. The shop is replacing the frame, no questions asked. But, imagine that on the second day of the Bhutan ride my frame had failed. Maybe we might have gotten somewhere with epoxy, but maybe not. Ouch!
