As I mentioned yesterday, my morning run went okay, but not great. It was hard and I suffered. Then in the afternoon I was out having a great old time on my shiny new S5 and then this happened.
That is what it appears to be, it is a very snapped chain.
Up until this moment it had been a fairly frustrating ride anyway. I was getting a lot of movement in my gears, such that when I put the power on I would occasionally get a bit of a slip. The session I was doing involved a lot of out of the saddle strength work and a slipping chain is definitely not what you want when you are doing that sort of thing. It didn't stop me doing the session, but it was always at the back of my mind.
I just sort of assumed that the slipping gears was because of the whole new bike thing, ie cables stretching etc and that the rear derailleur just needed tweaking. It got annoying enough that in the end I stopped several times to try and do just that. But no matter what I did with the derailleur I just couldn't seem to get the gears to sit pretty. Finally in frustration I pulled over and gave the derailleur a solid talking to (and a proper look) and it was at that point that I noticed that one of the links of the chain was about half open and it was this that was causing the chain to skip. Unfortunately at that point I was still about 15km from home, so I gave the broken link a bit of a poke, jumped back on the bike and tried to ride gently. That lasted for about 500m before the link gave way completely and I took the above photo.
Once the chain went I didn't really have any choice but to call in the cavalry and get a pick up. It also gave me a chance to perfect my 'glide bike' technique, which is essentially like riding a scooter, but on a bike. It is surprisingly quick.
On the bright side up until that point the ride had been going well. As I said above the skipping chain had been frustrating and it felt a bit like it was holding the bike (and me) back a little bit, but looking past that and the potential of the S5 is clear. It is going to be a quick bike. Even with the frustrating chain issues, and some unfriendly winds, the ride had been a fast one. I am looking forward to a bit more time with it.
I have just dropped the bike off to the guys at Churchill and they described it as a 'massive chain failure'. Apparently the bikes come from the factory with the chains already fitted, so it looks like it is probably just 'one of those things'. The link that failed was the joiner link, and so I suspect there may have just been a fault when the chain was originally put on.
Luckily as far as I can tell there was no additional damage to the bike. When the chain finally gave way I was going pretty slowly, so it didn't flick up or get wrapped around anything, it just sort of fell off. So that is a positive.
I should get the bike back this afternoon and hopefully after that I will be back to smooth sailing.
In terms of non bike related training, it was down to the pool this morning for the Friday morning Swim Smooth session. Funny old morning, with the weather reminding us all that it had noticed that Summer had ended. 15 degrees on the way down to the pool with a particularly chill wind blowing. I grabbed a jacket out of the drawer for the first time this year and didn't regret it for a second. The change in weather has brought out the usual snuffly noses and scratchy throats, so something to keep an eye on, definitely don't want something like that graduating to a full blown cold.
Friday mornings at Swim Smooth is threshold day and today was certainly that. Plenty of work done at the limit, which is just how the session felt. In fact by the end of the session I was past my limit and I blew up a bit on the last effort (in my defence it was 600m long). Still doing the work at the upper end of your speed range is a fairly important ingredient to any training you do, so sometimes you just need to suck it up and hurt. Whilst the session broke me a little inside, I take heart from knowing that I failed swimming at speeds that a little while ago I wouldn't have been even contemplating.
This afternoon I am doing absolutely no training and instead am going to my daughter's school to camp on the oval with her as part of the Dad's and Kids Camp out. Should be a bunch of fun, except that I need to cook, which doesn't typically end well. It will mean a slightly later ride than usual in the morning, but that is a small price to pay.
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