#244: Ride into Spring / SS works
This morning Andrea and I went up and joined what must have been over 100 others to do the RB’s Ride into Spring ride. MV had a good showing especially in the 75 mile route front group. We move along pretty well as a group especially a few short hills sorted the group into groups of similar abilities. In general, it was good ride, except for one thing…
Dogs. Whenever we ride in northern Shelby County, we start to see more and more uncontrolled dogs out in the yard. As the big group of maybe 30 or so went by a lot of then gave chase resulting in a lot of close calls. The one I didn’t see, was my teammate Chuck ended up running into one out on the course. It happened near the back of the group, so not many saw it. It probably was a spectacular crash, but at such a price. He broke his collarbone and got generally banged up. [Chuck, let me know if there is anything you need. If you do get on the trainer, I have a whole bunch of 2001-2002 VHS tapes of races to watch when you are up for it. Let me know.]
After we all got back to the shop, we feasted on Lenny’s (as is customary) and socialized. After an hour or so of that, Andrea and I returned home. Her plan (which she executed), was to do the Swamp Stomper run (~15 miles) on her quest to get back to ultra-marathoning… including probably a 100 miler this fall.
When she was gone, I pulled my single speed Cannondale down off the wall. Since I rode it last time, I got a KMC Half-Link to shorten up my chain slightly. When I installed it last week, it didn’t quite seem to behave properly… to make it move freely, I had to push the pin most of the way out instead of centered sticking out of both sides the same.
With this, I grabbed an old multi-tool (with a chain pin tool) and headed off. My plan to try the infamous deep gravel of the Greenline. After the morning’s ride, the deep gravel was tough going… I ended up only going from Cully over Germantown Pkwy to the second road across from Shelby Farms. At the point, I had enough of the 250W+ pushing through the deep gravel.
At this point, I rode over into the Farms and started down a trail. After about 1/3 of a mile, it happened, the cranks got light as I left my chain on the trail behind me. Crap! I went back to see if I would be walking 3 miles home. The chain looked okay (except for not being on my bike), so I put it back on and got the pin pushed back in… centered this time. The weird thing is that half link pin connection was flexible… but the part on the master link was not. At this point, I am not sure what I should do. I might go ahead and get a track chain (1/8″) with a 1/8″ (3.18mm) half link… Or maybe my SRAM 8-speed chain is too narrow to use with the 3/32″ (2.38mm) half link. Not from a roller standpoint (3/32″ is the roller width) but the outer plate width. Standard 7/8 chains are 7.1-7.2 mm. 9-speed are 6.8mm, 10-speed are 6.2mm.
I couldn’t get a good measurement on the half-link (couldn’t find the micrometer), but it looks like the width inside the outer plates is 5 mm.. If a chain is 7.2mm outer width and the roller width is 2.38mm then the plate width should be around 1.2 mm. That would be a 4.8 mm inside width of outer plates. My measurement are pretty suspect, but if these numbers check out then it could explain why the master link to the half-link connection is stiff.
