Mountain Biking can wear you out. In fact you can get delirious after an epic ride.About a month ago, my buddy Mr. Hoole was riding the Tahoe Rim Trail. He rode with a group of people that didn't know the area real well, and ended up making it a lot harder than it should have been. They were tired and hungry.
After the ride they went to Lake Tahoe to get some food. Mr. Hoole was starving. And I mean starving! So much so, that he forgot that his bike was mounted on his roof rack. Scott entered a parking garage at one of the casinos and heard a loud SMACK! Mr. Hoole was quickly pulled from his famine induced delirium, and had the rush of sudden realization of what had just happened as his bike fell over and smacked the side of the car.
When he told me about the incident later that night, I was convinced the bike must be ruined. He brought the bike down to my house, and to my astonishment, only the left dropout on the fork was broken! I could not find anything else wrong with the bike.We decided to let me fix it...the repairs being within my scope of skills and arsenal of tools. We found a good deal on some Manitou R7's, so we ordered the new forks.
I got the bike back together, and cleaned it up. I had to scold Mr. Hoole for the condition his drive train was in too. I scraped and scrubbed off so much grime!We both agreed the R7's were an improvement to the appearance of the bike. Scott still needs more miles and tuning to get a full evaluation of the forks though. Stay tuned...
1 comment:
I did the garage/roof rack thing this summer with my '96 Stumpjumper, which I use as commuter bike. The back crossbar of my rack crumpled and the steerer tube failed at the fork crown, allowing the bike to slump backward and save the frame. Still a major downer, but way better than ruining a great frame.
Sometimes you get lucky. And that's a very sweet thing.
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