Beautiful day, clear skies and cool temperatures. The plan was to ride the Montour Trail from Boggs southbound, meet my friend R and handoff some hardware I had for him, and end up at FarmHouse coffee for caffeine-loading before the return trip.
I started at Boggs as planned. It's my favorite trailhead on the Montour Trail, it just seems like a bit of an oasis. Riding past MP16 I noted the flooding and pooling caused by the beaver population and their dams, and I thought: hey, we could just freeze the water around the beaver dams and prevent it from having any effect on the trail, right? I mean, once Fukashima proves the concept it should be extensible? My eagerness is tempered by my fear of IceNine somehow jumping across the membrane.
At MP19 I was surprised when my chain sort of stuck on the chainring; it didn't want to release and continued riding up on the back of the chainring. So I backpedaled and it seemed to release. I continued pedaling normally for like three revolutions and then the chain broke and that was the end of that powertrain. Funny how fast a bicycle becomes an inanimate object. I was not going to make my rendezvous with R.
Conditions were good; it was daylight, it wasn't raining, it wasn't cold, it wasn't a hazardous setting. I started looking through my Kit of Many Wonders (Felix the Cat's "bag of many tricks" was actually inspired by my bike toolkit) and was pleased to see that I had a chain widget on my multi-tool, a Crank Brothers Multi-17, so I had options.
My friend R pulled up just as I began my surgery, and we were able to reconnect the chain (minus two links). I was amazed that we managed the repair, and that the re-assembed chain did so well afterwards. I think the only loss of function is that I'm unable to select large-front-chainring and large-rear-cassette, because the newly shortened chain just isn't long enough to cover both of them. I could not have made the repair without having the tool.
Continued south-east with R for a bit, then continued alone to FarmHouse coffee at MP32. Pleased to see a lot of available seating outside of FarmHouse. Dismayed to realize the seats were open because Farmhouse was closed; sign on the window gave the new hours, Mon-Fri 0630-1200; Saturday 0800-1400. I hope everything is OK with those folks, it's a great shop.
Departed on the reverse leg. It was a pretty uneventful trip and the chain didn't provide any problems. Trail conditions were excellent, improved over the last time I was out this way. I noticed a new shelter and (I believe) a new water fountain at MP13.1 which is a great location.
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