Some of the typical Tuesday riders were out this week…No Enron, Crabcakes, or Bing. Due to their own reasons, they all got to miss an interesting gloom.

YHC posted for some EC along with Olympus, Fireball, Trump, and to a BIG exciting surprise…Cottontail. The usual EC loop was called and shortly into the ride YHC noticed that there was something a bit odd, as I went to shift nothing happened. Looking at the Garmin display, which is synced to the Di2 system on the bike (electronic shifting for those that may not know). It showed connection and 75% full battery on the system. This perplexed me but the gear was sufficient to ride in, although the 5th gear isn’t the best for power it was ok to maintain a bit over 20 MPH with 100 cadence. So it was decided to wait until a stop to see if maybe I could do a quick check on the system and maybe resolve it. When we got to Fruitville for the U-turn YHC stopped, told the guys I’d catch up. Did a quick check, to no success, and started moving again stuck in 5th gear still. YHC is proud to say the strength of the rest of the cycling PAX has certainly improved. As much as YHC tried he couldn’t catch the other 3 riders as there wasn’t a way for me to generate enough power to go over 22 MPH. Leaving YHC solo for the rest of the ride with a distance view of 3 rear red bike lights, lol. It certainly was an interesting lesson on cadence riding though so I rather enjoyed it. Finally made it back about 5 min before 6 and YHC did a quick stop to inform the PAX of the issue and requested they meet at my house so I could do a bike exchange, breaking out the backup bike for round two.

As YHC was switching over the lights and sensors Ripken noted that his tire wasn’t holding air and that he’d have to bail on the ride. Olympus had a curfew so he too needed to bail. Trump and Cottontail only stayed for the EC loop, so this left just Fireball and YHC for the 0600 loop. Since I was Q and it was just 2 of us, it was decided to go North for a spin out on some less busy roads. Again it was an unexpected but enjoyable lesson as the backup bike performed great, there’s no question that money spent on some higher quality makes a difference. The top speeds didn’t really change but it did take a bit more effort to sustain those speeds. Which kinda made up for the powerless first half the ride. A good rim upgrade and this bike would seriously be mean, maybe one day…maybe.

FireBall and YHC returned to Wawa just before 7, at which point he gave YHC a little guilt trip for not attending Q Source lately. Training and time for upcoming races makes this a challenge but YHC made the extra effort and attended Q source the next gloom because of this, so thanks Fireball…I miss it and all of you too brother.

Until Next time, Pincher OUT! BTW thanks Garmin for falsely displaying the battery…Di2 was 100% dead.