Welcome fellow Mountain Biker to a Bristol and South West based blog containing local routes, rides and reviews. Brought to you by locals to the area with additional publishings from further afoot. Hope you enjoy.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

One of those days, my poor forks

I'll keep it brief peeps. Awoke friday morn. Knackered from riding to and from work and working my ass of and riding jumps until it got nearly dark on thursday. Got myself together and climbed in my car. Reached over to the glove box and snap........the opener handle thing snaps off. Leaving me with no sunglasses or music and thinking to myself. Mmnnnnnnnn, gonna be one of those days EH!. Get to work and head off in the van with my workmate to do a hard days work. Which was put off due to some other dudes not completing their work in time for us to start ours. Spend £100 on car tax, wait around and head back to the yard trying to get out of mental first gear. Which happens when I get stuck into a bit of fabrication. But I can feel myself flagging cos of the previous days adventures. So I finish at 3 and head home. Looking forward to spending some time in North Devon with some chums and a days ride on Exmoor. Now if I could only get that new chain to stop slipping. I'd be alot happier. The cassette is what 6 weeks old and barely worn. Jockey wheels are fine. Must be my big ring. Looks a little worn. I have a little tweak with the bike to see what I can do with my experience, (a couple of years) to no avail and much confusion. I know I'll ask my LBS and see what they say. "It does look a bit worn.....yep a couple of the teeth are a bit pointy" fine I'll have a new chairing please, no need to fit it, I'll do it at home. Right this will sort the bastard out. Fiddle, fiddle ring fitted. Slip clunk YOU C*#t. At this point I'm a little wound up, tres hot and tired. To add to my grief my rear mech had lost all of its tension, leaving me with a slack chain. Can really I be arsed. If I can't trust my bike and I'm tired what's the point. I text my mate to say that it's off for me at the weekend, whilst kipping for a few mins he texts back to say. "Get stuffed and sort it out, go on come". Being the guy who wont go down with a fight I sprung out of bed, put my shoes on and went in my car to my folks place where I knew I had an Sram X-9 rear mech which I could rape. With that in the bag I set off back to the flat and made it about 10 meters. Out of fuel. On the way to the garage no less. I endure a hot walk of only about 10 mins each way with spending a fiver on a green vessel for the fuel which I will never have to use again. Can this get any worse. A quick diversion to Waitrose buys me a pizza and some beer for much needed fuel. Back at the flat I rob the parts off of the X-7 that I need and fit them to the better of the two mechs, the X-9. Still no joy (mental strike one, right two more and that's it), right, old chain (which snapped on me a week ago which doesn't slip but is too short) with some links from the new one. At this point I have been home from work for about 6 hours, running around trying to sort out my damn bike, on a very hot day no less. With the chain length correct and powerlink snapped together. I take her out for another spin, putting some force onto the drivetrain again as before when it slipped. No chainslip. Gears work fine. ALL IS GOOD. So I ring Mr Angell "mate it is all fixed and working fine, I'm coming tomorrow blah blah blah blah blah, UMM...................I'm not coming". "WHAT, why?". My forks are snapped. SPEECHLESS. "What , where" . "On the lowers, where the two allen keys bots are, both sides".
So I stared at a wall after that for about an hour, drinking my beer, thinking why did I even bother trying and how the hell have my forks broke. And I didn't go in the end. That was my Day on friday the 30th of july. May such luck never grace me again. There's only so much a biker/mechanic can take.

Fox have kindly told me that the will replace the lower legs of my forks under warranty this once, out of the kindness of Bob Fox's heart.

Just a short ramble one this time folks.

Angell I will post the vids of you on the Mendips as soon as I can get them off my now bust camera.

Think you had a worse day than mine, reply with a comment and let it all out.

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