A year later

Here's Jon's Kogswell, almost exactly a year ago. Fancy and new.

Jon rides this bike like a demon. He rides all of his bikes as if possessed. I'm pretty fascinated by Jon and how he rides and deals (or doesn't) with his bikes. I wrote a magazine article about it (pdf).

Jon showed up to last weekend's Sunday SOS ride on the Kogswell. The SOS ride is not a technical trail ride, but it is a trail ride. Jon is sort of the king of unintended underbiking, so he wasn't too phased by having the "wrong" bike.

We went through the graveyard and on the river trail and re-grouped under the mega church there -- by the exposed water pipe/fence. And I noticed his rear fender stay had become unattached. In fact, his stays and fenders area all bent up.

Thankfully the fenders are steel and the stays are 5mm aluminum rod, so nothing's getting getting all shanked up in the wheel. This is a big benefit of steel and aluminum fenders in my mind. And the fact that they can be bent back, to a degree.

As I'm fussing with the fender stay, Justin asks innocently, "is that a broken spoke?" Sure enough. Jon also has a broken spoke. We speculate on how long it's been broken. I should've looked closer at the break to see if it was dirty or not, but I wanted to ride, so I didn't get all GP on it, I just twisted it around another spoke to keep it in place.

The 26" wheels (not 650b) were a big selling point for this bike becoming a Jon-bike. I figured 36 hole 26" wheels were a good overbuilt solution for a guy like Jon and they could probably hold up for a while, even with a broken spoke. Sho'nuf.

It's Wednesday now. Jon is still riding the wheel with a broken spoke. My guess is that he'll ride it until another one or two or three spokes break and the wheel just won't spin.

Both of his back up bikes are also dead at the moment.

Two Wheel Transit is his shop -- head's up guys.