Another Day, Another Spoke

Today's stage didn't get off to an auspicious start.

Narrow, winding, secondary road was the plan.  Turning into dirt, then very narrow dirt, was not.  Especially after several non-trivial climbs.

I'll tee off on Garmin here for just a bit.  It overlays the "magenta line" on top of map details.  That means you can't see route numbers, if any.  It has no idea of road surface, or if it does, it isn't telling.  And because it overlays roads, you can't tell if the road is major, or a goat track.

I use the Garmin route planner for daily stages, Ride With GPS for long range planning.  Garmin won't divulge any businesses, or road surfaces.  On the other hand, it won't, without a great deal of fighting, let you plan a route where bikes aren't allowed—which is both not always readily apparent, and important.  In contrast, RWGPS is perfectly happy to plot a prohibited course. 

Consequently, there is a lot of faffing about between the two.  

And, occasionally, even at this late stage, getting fooled.

Hence, the eight mile detour into the NH wilderness, before discovering the best course to be sucking up our losses and backtrack.

Not a mile before that, on pavement so newly laid it hadn't yet gotten its center stripe, and smooth as a baby's bottom, I heard another spoke break.

These bikes weren't cheap.  The wheels are 48 spoke, which should easily tolerate light riders and moderate loads on paved roads.  Breaking four spokes as soon as we did is a major foul. 

Almost everything that commonly goes wrong on a bike can be handled with a few tools, and, at worst, mild regret at not having a work stand.

Break a spoke?  For that, a passle of tools, none particularly portable, are required.  Break one spoke, and there is enough redundancy to prevent anything more than a bit of wobble (minor left-right deviation).  If a second goes, you might end up with something resembling a taco shell.

Which is all the reason to not have sucktastic wheels, so sucktastic that bikes a third the price avoid having them.  

Fortunately, at the end of the day, the detour didn't cost us much time, the weather and scenery were pleasant and very pleasing to the eye, and there was a bike shop a mile and a half from the hotel that installed a new spoke in record time.  

When we get home, those wheels are getting dumpstered, and I shall fire off a stern letter to Yamaha.

Rant complete, here are our latest crimes against the photographic arts:

Sixty-three miles, of which only 58 actually counted.  Fifty-four still to go.

I'm not making any bets that all the spokes will make it.