It's the last leg to home and it happens to be a pretty steep hill with a hugely busy intersection at the halfway point. The bike lane is decent but not spectacular, the main issue being that bicyclists going straight see a certain amount of risk from frantic cars cutting across the bike lane to take a right. We did not make the light and stopped and waited for the green. It came and we trundled forward along with the surge of desperate and unhappy automobiles.
We are almost to the far side and I've passed Contraption Captain on the inside when I hear the loud crack of splintering plastic and the chunk of a bricked bicycle. I know he has not been hit, it's not an impact kindof noise it's a bicycle failure noise. I stop and turn and C is peering at his bicycle and then we get out of the road and I get a sinking feeling in my stomach because C has to drag his bicycle to the sidewalk -- the back wheel won't turn.
He studies the bicycle and I wait hopefully. C is a fantastic repair-person so I have reason to be confident. C shakes his head. I go to his bicycle and consider the wire that has wrapped around the wheel and forced the fender around an through for good measure. Imagine a wheel with a fender on top. Now imagine that same wheel with the fender mostly underneath. Now imagine a fender through the brakes and down the wrong side of the wheel and bolted into place. I try and budge the wire but it's actually doubled.
We walk home.
Un-fun at any time, walking home with a large Tour Easy recumbent whose back wheel can not turn is exceptionally un-fun. In the end Contraption Captain uses his belt to hoist the thing onto his shoulder and we stagger the last mile home. It was a pretty impressive sight, that big bike up on the shoulder but certain situations are not Kodak moments, kwim?
Once home, we went to work on the wire and between his hardware and my smaller fingers we got the huge double length of wire that some douche had dropped in the road out of the wheel. Then he re-trued the wheel because he's awesome. The fender is a loss so hope for no rain for us until a new one arrives in the mail.
What else. You know, it may be an exceptionally large heavy bicycle but can you think of a small lightweight automobile that a single person could carry home on their shoulder? Me neither.
What else more. This is our second wire in the road encounter in six months. Don't you wish cars were not such incredible litter-monsters? Me too.
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