With the weather forecast indicating a high chance of thunderstorms, I decided to head out singlespeeding across a local loop. As I climbed out of town, the trail dropped shortly, then made a left turn and climbed steeply. As I rolled around the turn, I hit the pedals hard to keep my momentum and mashed up the hill. A couple of pedal strokes into the climb, my right foot suddenly made a long down stroke all the way to the ground. I looked down and saw my Eggbeater pedal roll across the trail. On the drive-side crank half a pedal axle remained. Snap! I wasn’t upset, though. I would have been pissed having this happen on a ride far away from home. But the old and tired axle was nice enough to break on a local ride not all that far from home. Thank you! I got 5 years out of these weight-weenie parts. They were built into two sets of Eggbeater pedals and always saw high stress singlespeed grinding. I returned home to swap in a pair of steel axles and hurried back to the trails.
With the delay, I was now hitting the climbs midday and it was not a pleasure. It was just too damn hot for my motor. I was sweating buckets. On a geared bike, I would just take it down a notch by shifting into the granny, but a singlespeed doesn’t offer that luxury. It’s either hammer or walk. I was close to turning around. Watching the Tour at home with a cold ice tea was a huge temptation. I didn’t, though. I convinced myself that it would be cooler at higher elevations and suffered through the climb stopping occasionally to give my motor a break and squeeze the sweat out of my helmet pads. I made it, but I was definitely not enjoying it. Heat? Alright. Heat and humidity? Insert a few expletives here! As I got up to 4000 feet things got better. The wind picked up and clouds started covering the mountains. But by that time I had already made up my mind that I’d cut the ride short and skip the Chasseral. When I reached the crest from where the Chasseral was visible the sky had written the same message all over it - “skip it”. A black sky was sitting above the mountains. I hit the downhills to get home quickly and watch the end of today’s TdF stage - with a full glass of ice tea.
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