soloCUBSparade III

Unfortunately, my rear wheel broke at some point yesterday. The hollowing wind may have silenced the noise of a usual broken spoke for a good while. Not too far from civilization, I brainstormed a way to somewhat secure it so it wasn’t just flopping around. A pre-glued patch mended the floating broken spoke to another. I rode to the nearest town and rode in around 6:30pm. This is where things sprinted downhill. The closest bike shop was 10 miles without any posted hours online nor reviews. My reserved hotel room was 40+ miles south with horrendous headwind remaining.

There were hotel options 5-10 miles from where I was, but do I trust riding on a broken bike? Do I trust riding a broken bike at night? If I stay in a hotel, will this bike shop be open on Easter? Are they able to repair a broken spoke?

I weighed my options and decided to not risk incident nor further damage to the bike and stranding myself further away from civilization in the dark. The decision to cancel the remaining hike of my soloCUBSparade and arrange teleportation home was made. My hotel reservations were non-refundable. My Amtrak ticket was refundable after a fee.

To recap, I went pretty far in a few days as quickly as the elements allowed. I may not have completed, but wow, did I overcome difficult obstacles. I’ve gained knowledge, as well, to better prepare my next bike hike:

Do not make hotel reservations. Make sleeping arrangements on the road.
Bring battery backup.
Carry backup water, always.
Do not get caught up in tinkering every single road while losing sight on the bigger map.
Always bring rear lighting.

soloCubsparade I

Check out “soloCUBSparade I” on Relive!

Relive I

soloCUBSparade II

Check out “soloCUBSparade II ” on Relive!

Relive II

My Garmin died 37.4 km prior to my arrival. I used Strava to map it out exactly. Ride II totaled 192 km (roughly 120 miles), 796 m (2,612 ft.) elevation gain and I’m going to guess around 12 hours of ride time – 14 ish hours of elapsed time.