Exotic Bicycle Field Repairs
My favorite spread from one of my favorite bike books is the Field Repair Montage in “The Ultimate Bicycle Book,” where wonder-writer R. Ballantine displays a TASTY gnarly old city bike exhibiting a dozen innovative field repairs. (I especially like the stick-as-handlebar, grass-stuffed flattire, false-pedal and bungie der…oh, I like em all.)
My own best exotic repair was when my old Trek 760 seat tube sheared at the bb while on an intense ride to downtown Detroit from AnnArbor. We were in rugged paved-world country, I tell you, when my bike started going its own way. Along the road I found some wire and string. We borrowed a pliers from a gas station (dang–there’s a disqualifying assist, I suppose). And I wound that sucker tight between seatbolt and chainstays, then inserted a stick and twisted to give extra tension. We actually kept a hustle on all thru the repair–we were in a hurry to get to a party and didn’t even let this disaster make us think we’d be slowed, much less stopped–which is how such a failure might usually be viewed. We were quite a pit crew. I bet the repair took just 20 minutes. The bike rode fine for the next 20 bumpy miles! There were top GM Execs at the party we were riding to–they were very impressed with the repair.
Trek then fixed the ole Green Hornet for free. That 1980 Reynolds frame (Cinelli bbshell) has helped five big heavy racers thru their early races and *still* lives on! –But it was made of the ultralight tubing and was a bit too big (24″) and flexed too much for me for intense pack situations–but it was WAY light.
The best bike rescue I ever saw was when a dozen of us went on a training ride once and got about 25 miles out when this girl’s crank broke. I can’t remember what part broke, but it was fatal. So we all took turns pushing her home. We got a rotating double pace line going just like usual, but instead of just riding sidebyside, each of us would push her at the front for a minute then drop back to the rear and let the next person push her. It all went very well and we hardly noticed a change in speed and everyone got to still ride sidebyside with everyone else and chat until they got to the front. All communal relations stayed the same. I bet we even got a zigzag rotation going…just to make it perfect. It was truly a nice thing. (But now that I think of it, I bet her butt hurt more than usual, legs got more stiff than usual, coz she rode for 25 miles without pedaling!) JP
–JP
