Thursday, March 26, 2009

Gas Free Commuting Update

Another non-Hyperion thing (but I plan to post Hyperion stuff tomorrow)..

I have not been able to commute on my bike this week due to a shocking development. I was riding to work on Monday morning and felt some weird wobble coming from the back of my bike. I thought to myself "Hmmm.. Probably have wheel bearings going bad or something; maybe I will call my bike shop and ride gingerly down there at lunch so they can do a quick repair...". I rode somewhat carefully the remaining 3 miles through some neighborhoods to the office. At the office I trying to see if it was really the wheel bearing and I found the real issue:

I broke the frame on my mountain bike!!!

How? I have no clue! I was riding on a sidewalk at the time and didn't hit anything.. Amazing. So now I am in the market for another Trek 850 (19.5 inch frame if you have one you want to sell).. I may end up getting another frame under warranty but it won't be for the same old model I have. I probably will get another backup bike.

This has really pushed me over the edge as I am now regularly checking craigslist.org for the cities near me; it seems to be the place to buy a used bike. I also registered for an eBay account today as there may be new replacement frame available there.

My son that is at the University of Michigan always wants to ride with my wife and I when he is home but we didn't have enough bikes. Maybe now we will.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Is the frame aluminum or composite? A welding shop would probably be able to weld it back up for you for about $40-$50. Just an idea from a backyard mechanic/welder/machinist/cube geek.

Tim Tow said...

I may do that if I can't find a frame soon.. It seems like there are probably thousands of these bikes, in the correct size, sitting neglected in garages around the country..

I will probably get another bike while I work to either fix the frame of this one or get a new frame (or a warranty frame from Trek; the frame does have a lifetime warranty).

Tim