Day 3 - Frankfort to ???
Where to begin..
Today was the distillation of all the things a tour can be, all at once.
Some days nothing really notable happens. You just ride some miles across empty back roads and dart through one stoplight towns, punctuated by one or two moments that give you pause.
Then there are days like today where everything happens all at once…
The Beginning:
Frankfort is situated at a series of meandering bends in the Kentucky river. Being the state capitol it has a considerable amount of historical structures. It was an enjoyable ride up until I had to climb up the escarpment looming above the city on the opposite bank.
I would later learn that many locations in Kentucky are loomed over by these imposing and impressive ancient sandstone conglomerations which, because they are more resistant to weathering, stand proud above the ordovican, silurian, and mississippian limestone shales.
Geology aside, I had to climb up 600ft out from river level. For much of that climb the grade was between 6-10%, but with only the lowest assist I was able to muscle through to the top.
The End:
After climbing up to the fertile plateau above I stopped for a breakfast of Clif bars before moving on.
As I went I felt a weird resonant vibration starting to form from what I thought was the front wheel of my bike. So I pulled over to a local church which had a bench and started investigating.
Given that I had my wheels custom built, I assumed that perhaps the wheels were coming out of true and that the vibrations were from a wobbly front wheel. So I checked the front spokes. One one or two felt slightly under tensioned. So I almost skipped checking the back wheel.
I ran my hand across their surface listening for the dull harp-like thrum. My stomach turned when one of the spokes simply gave way in my hand. A single broken spoke is bad, as it could indicate a great many potential problems. However this spoke was broken near the neck where it meets the hub. I’d never seen that kind of break before. Most frequently I’ve seen them break near the nipple at the rim, or occasionally along their length, but never here.
I pulled my bags off and begand to feel around the wheel. Two. Three. Four… Five broken spokes. I was dumbstruck. I’ve had wheels fail from three broken spokes — granted this is a 36 spoke wheel and those were 24 spoke wheels. Five spokes is dire.
So I called my wife, Rebekah, and let her know what was going on. I had one spare rear spoke in my bag, but no tools to even attempt to repair it.
After a minute or so I was completely calm. This is just a problem that needs to be fixed. Beka and I discussed some options. It was clear that repairs had to be made and so we searched for bike shops that might be able to do this work.
Even though Frankfort is the state capitol, it had literally zero bike shops. The closest shops are in Louisville. Whearas I was going mostly Northward, Louisville was mostly westward from my location. I quickly planned out a route as Beka started calling bike shops in Louisville.
I knew the bike was still somewhat roadworthy, and I new I needed to pull as much weight off the back wheel as possible and baby it forwards. So I took the sealine pack with my camping gear and strapped it to the front of the bike, leaving the panniers (saddle bags) in place, and hopped on the bike to make progress towards Bagdad, the next small township over, with the hopes that AAA could pick me up and transport me to a bike shop.
As I was leaving the parking lot I received a call from a gentleman, Bob, who lives in my intended destination of Madison, IN. He had been contacted through the salvation army that I might need a host for the evening. I told him my situation and thanked, him but that I will need to divert to Louisville. He understood and offered back up assistance if things got dire.
While this is all happening a truck pulls into the church and another gentleman steps out and hails me down. I greet the man and end the call with Bob. I shake the man from the truck’s hand. He introduces himself as Greg. I explain the situation to him and he offers that after a brief meeting in the church he could take me up the road a bit, but not as far as Louisville. I thank him and put his number in my contacts in case I need a rescue. Before I left out, he and another gentlemen prayed over me for safety. It was a welcome and touching gesture, and I took it with the gravity with which it was offered. Greg was resolute to offer help if needed — in effect to be the very answer to that prayer if needed.
Before he went off to his meeting and I went off to Bagdad we took a picture.
From there I slowly worked my way to Bagdad, making only about 10mph, trying not to stress the back wheel at all.
Initially the countryside was quite hilly and closed in, but eventually I reached the absolute top of the escarpment, and then descended into the plateau, where the trees gave way to expansive farmlands.
Bagdad
Bagdad is about as bucolic as you could imagine. A set of turn of the century brick shops surrounded by feed silos and a few offshoot roads towards houses. The sort of kink in the road township you may have seen in Fried Green Tomatoes.
Here I sat on a bench in the full sun and investigated AAA towing options before quickly finding out that while it was an option it would cost upwards of $370 due to mileage to Louisville.
In the meantime Beka had been dilligently calling around to bike shops and had been in touch with a gentleman named Jeffery from mid-town bikes in Louisville. He had connected her to a larger shop just across the river in Clarksville where he knew a man named Bob who might be able to fix the wheel the same day if I could get there quickly.
So we called back and forth trying to figure out how to get to Clarksville. Beka and our friend Stephanie (the wife of Matthew) suggested Uhaul as an option. And wouldn’t you know there were Uhaul trucks in Shelbyville about 15 miles down the road.
So now the mission was clear: Get to Shelbyville as fast as I possibly could.
Mad Lad Energy:
I immediately got on the bike and started down the road with maximum effort. I wasn’t sparing my legs. I wasn’t sparing my battery. I wasn’t sparing the wheel. If it was going to break it was going to break spectacularly, and because I pushed it to the utter limit.
I put on the an uptempo playlist on spotify and shredded across the countryside at 30mph and for 20 minutes pumped as hard as I could with a giddy smile, laughing.
I arrived at Shelbyville and my wheel was now making audible protestations, and as I pulled into the Uhaul agency I got a call directly from Jeffery, the gentleman from the first bike shop Beka had called.
He explained that in thinking about it he could just come and grab me, and take me over to the shop in Clarksville for the price of gas.
Standing in the parking lot of this joint Uhaul / storage center I wasn’t quite sure what was the best option. A uhaul had already been reserved for me. I told Jeffery to hold on a moment while I sorted out the Uhaul. I had knocked on the office door to no response, and it was clear no one was around after about a minute. So it seemed that fate and decided for us — Uhaul was out and I would be riding with Jeffery.
So I headed down the road to the Kroger grocery and got some lunch and waited for him to arrive. It took some time as he had other things to attend to first but eventually he showed up in his Toyota Sequoia (he is a collector of them — or so he says) and we loaded the bike up without issue.
The ride to Clarksville wasn’t exactly short, but it also wasn’t terribly long and so we had a while to talk on the way. He’s a kind of jack of all trades, and interested in many things. Like me he has a deep love for science and learning, and so we had some stimulating conversations about the geology and natural history of the region. Beyond that we talked about his kids and their life. Conversational threads ebbed and flowed, it was an enjoyable ride.
When we arrived in Clarksville we unloaded the bike and much to the surprise of the shop, as they didn’t expect an ebike with a hub motor. Bob, the wheel builder on site is a man of quiet experience, and you could see his reservations on his face. But he dutifully took the bike back and replaced the broken spokes with new, but lower gauge spokes — all he had was 2.0mm versus the 2.3mm my bike already had.
He suggested the breakages were for two main reasons: Weight and torque. The weight of me and the equipment pressing the wheel down causes greater rolling friction to overcome, and when the motor engages, especially from a full stop it pulls as the spokes and then quickly backlashes, causing them to work harden and eventually shear.
He gave me clear instructions to make some hard decisions about equipment, and to change how I use the pedal assist — only apply it when already moving under my own power to reduce the initial jolt.
The entire time Jeffery stayed at the shop to help me transport my bike to a hotel for the night.
We had dinner at a taco place down the road before I turned in for the night at the hotel. There wer conversations we shared in those times, but those are ours, both meaningful and heartfelt, but ours.
My wife had the prescience to say, and it hit me later that Jeffery is the answer to prayers made earlier. He was and is a guardian angel.
At the hotel It was time to make some hard decisions about equipment, discarding all unnecessary weight to trim this down as much as possible.
This is what I’m left with (from top left)
3 Shammy towels
Battery pack
Assorted tie downs
42t front chainring
Keyboard
Raincoat
“Camp shoes”
Biking / wet shoes
Glasses
Inner tube
Camera gear
Rain Pants
Dry / wet gloves
Calf Socks
Merino wool underlayer
Headlamp
Sunscreen
Chamois butter
Toiletries
2x riding shirts
1x Civvie shirt
2x Padded shorts
1x Civvie shorts
(Unseen) Camping gear
Then there were the discards
I’m not goingn to exhaustively go through the things discarded. They are mostly just duplicates of clothing, or equipment, or things that I might need. For example a 2lb tire… I definitely won’t need it for a while unless I have a blowout.
I’m exhausted. It’s been a long tough day, physically, emotionally etc.
Tomorrow is a new day and it has new concerns.