just ridin along

I used to hang out in bike shops a lot. In fact, back when I worked at Novell in Provo, I used to get food and head to Frank’s Bikes for lunch almost every day, where we would eat, lounge, and invent crazy games (like flaming water bottle catapulting), have 4-up kid bike races in the shop, and such.

Anyway, I also saw a lot of bike shop customers (we didn’t consider ourselves customers–Jeremy probably didn’t see us that way either, come to think of it), and we heard lots of crazy customer stuff. In particular, we used to hear what customers would say when they brought their broken, recently purchased bikes in for repair (and, hopefully, warranty).

So if you’re a shop guy reading this (that’s unlikely, since the only person reading this is probably Kim, who is definitely not a shop guy), you know what’s coming, right? There’s a phrase I learned at the shop that every customer seems to think is original to him or her–Just Riding Along. It even has its own acronym–JRA.

You don’t even have to say the whole thing. Crash your bike and break the fork? JRA. Ride over a waterfall and lose your bike underwater for an hour? JRA. Drive into your garage with the bikes on top? JRA. And the Shop guys look knowingly at each other, and reject your claim.

Which makes what happened to me yesterday so weird. I was riding the Walt Works (disclaimer: this Walt is an old, already-warrantied frame with a lot of miles. In fact, it’s one of the first Walts ever, number 3, if I understand my history correctly (Brad’s the original owner, not me). I have no complaints about Walt’s bikes (or Walt himself, for that matter).:

Me, Brad, Kenny, riding Corner Canyon in Draper. On the first twisty downhill, I felt all over the place, like I just couldn’t point the bike straight, and as I caught up to Brad and Kenny at the bottom, I said “Jeez, I feel totally off my game today, just can’t get a grip.” They seemed to think that was perfectly normal.

So later, I was just riding along (JRA):

and I heard a distinct CLUNK. We were on the final downhill, the high East singletrack just above the equestrian center in Draper. I knew something had broken, but figured it was my pedal or something like that, so I dropped to the last bridge, maybe a quarter mile above the parking lot, and Brad and I took a closer look.

Yup. Right below that Chris King headset, the top tube is broken clean through. Let’s see that from the other side:

Clean through. Not sure I could have done it cleaner or better with a hack saw. Come to think of it, I don’t think I own, or have ever owned, a hack saw.

Anyway. Seriously. JRA! I haven’t crashed all year.