The sad tale of why my road bike is in the shop...

Commodore asked where my road bike was... here's the story.

A couple of months ago I was in a hurry to grab my bike and head off
for the Tuesday ride downtown to church and asked Ang to grab my bike.
In trying to maneuver the bikes around on our porch (never an easy
task) my road bike got tipped over. I thought at the time that the
only thing that happened in the tip was that my water cage that hangs
behind my seat was broken, but I guess at the same time the derailleur
hanger was bent.

A bent derailleur hanger will throw all of your shifting askew and I
noticed that my chain didn't like being in certain rear gears while in
my small ring up front. So, instead of dealing with it, I just ignored
the gears and spent more time in my big chain ring.

A week ago Sunday, trying to make sure Angela was ready to ride the
next night, we were across the street from our apartment riding around
the parking lot of the prep school. I decided that even though the
chain was skipping, I'd go into the gear anyway and ignore it. Well,
one of the the things a bent derailleur hanger will do is throw off
the adjustments that keep your chain from riding up over the last gear
and into your spokes. I discovered the hanger was bent when that exact
thing happened. All of a sudden, "CRUNCH!" and my bike came to a halt
and dangling like a tightrope walker was my derailleur hanging onto
the chain.

It's still at the local shop while the owner tries to find a Fuji
hanger. None of the other stores in town have one in stock so I
figured I'd let him try and figure it out. In the meantime, I'm
borrowing a friends Specialized, which while not being the same AT ALL
is also a bit big for me. I feel a little more stretched out than I'd
like. It's a nice bike though... just not MY bike.

So say your prayers for "I can't believe it's not Buttah!" that she'll
be back in the saddle again very soon.