Saturday, October 11, 2008

Busted Bikes

This week has been rough on my bikes. It started Monday with a noise in the fork of my Fuel EX7 (2008 model, 900+ miles). Seemed that the fork was bottoming out. I brought the bike to the shop. They confirmed a problem with the fork.

But, they could not find any failure in the fork. With reassembly, the fork performed well. We got some rain so the next time to ride was Thursday. After riding only 3.5 miles, I heard the same noise. It seemed that things were OK as I rode more. About at 7+ miles, the fork started bottoming out. Dropped the bike back at the shop.

So, the word is that the fork needs some kind of fork kit. The fork is a Rock Shock Recon 351. Rock Shock could not tell the shop what cause the failure. That does not give me a warm, fuzzy feeling.

Yesterday (Friday) I grabbed the hardtail (Trek 4300) and headed off to Manawa. I was just getting used to riding back on the older bike (3200+ miles). Sure noticed the hardtail is not as comfortable to ride!

Anyway, after about 5 miles, it felt like I had caught a stick in the rear wheel. When I stopped to look, the derailleur and hanger were hanging from the chain. Not good. Luckily, I was not on the far end of the trail system. But I DID have to "hike-a-bike" to get it back to the car.

I still have the hybrid to ride. If that goes down, I may have to learn how to ride my unicycle!

1 comment:

POLOSCAB said...

You have to quit getting all that big air. Also cut down on the stunts and drop ins. You free riders are hard on equiptment.
I broke the hanger off my bike at the bottom of L&C last year. It was not fun packing it out.