... was out last weekend for a "solo flight" MTB ride... got about a half mile from the vehicle parking - had a little slipping of the drive chain to this point - when "pop!" - the chain goes flying' and the cranks spinnin' free - broke a chain link... no big deal - always pack a 'chain repair tool' along for just such and "emergency"... upon inspection discovered that the link in question was completely seized tight - wouldn't have expected that as the chain is relatively new with only a few (albeit muddy) trips on it... had applied a coating of some highly touted (by the salesman) penetrating grease lubricant to it the previous weekend - will leave it go at that... anyway, pressed out the damaged link and am in the process of reassembling the chain when again "pop!" - now the push pin in the tool itself has snapped... maaaan!... don't have another one of those...
... broken pin...
... just need to press the chain pin to reconnect with the inner link and I should be back in business, but don't have any applicable tool - there's a few local dirt bikers we know congregated a few hundred feet ahead on the trail, so I take a walk up to see what tools might be available for quick borrow - could really use a pair of 'vise grips' in lieu of a replacement chain tool, which I didn't expect anyone to have... well, the only tool available was a pair of pliers, with which I was able to push the pin thru the inner link but was not able to generate enough "clamping force" to engage the (inside) outer link... "... man, you guys sure that none of you have a pair of vise grips?" - all respond negative... oh well - would be simple enough to pack up and drift back to the vehicle and call it a day, but hate to give up so easily and besides, it's a pretty nice day outside... so now I'm searchin' thru the pack, scanning the ground - lookin' for anything that might at least "spark the imagination"... I'm lookin' over this always packed "multi-tool" - a useful assembly of screw and hex drives, a socket drive, tire irons and a few external sockets - Hey! - that square-shanked socket drive has possibilities - appears to be just the right size dimensionally to fit between the chain-gripping tabs of the chain one way and the movable screw and chain the opposite...
... and it is (simulation back at the shop)...
... worked like a charm...
... now the next issue - continue on along the six mile loop with the eventual steep hills (with the now known chain issues) or pack up... screw it! - gotta' know how this will turn out, so continued on - wound up cranking the entire "crux" route of the trip with no problems - just got past the very last of any significant uphill to be encountered when "pop!" - there goes the link again - and it's seized solid just as before - but for the most part it's all downhill with one, short low upgrade with a short bit of flat to go - tossed the chain in the pack for later repair at home and easily cruised the two miles back to the vehicle..
... picked up a new chain tool yesterday which included this simple but useful gadget - basically just a short piece of wire coat hanger with looped ends to be used as pictured - can't believe that we've been repairing numerous broken chains over the past thirty years and never one thought of doing' that - sort of like discovering that you can shake the tree to get the coconuts after one falls and conks ya' on the head ...
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.. mounted these 29x10.5 'Super Swampers' on this '06 'Jeep KJ Liberty' (2-1/2 lift on 15" rims) a few years back after we didn't feel like going thru the effort needed to get 'em to work on the 'Suzuki SX4' (see 'Mountain Machines')...
... here they are yesterday after over 20K miles of mainly highway travel (is the "daily driver")...
... never would have expected that type of wear - figured to get maybe 8-10K out of 'em... barely half-worn with probably another 20K to go at this rate....
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... the town of 'Dunbar, PA' is holding' their 3rd annual 'Ramp Festival' next weekend, Saturday, May 14th - personally never attended (wasn't aware of the first two) - but looks like a good time - and it's easily accessible by bicycle from the 'Yough River Trail' - take the 'Sheepskin Trail' spur from 'Wheeler Bottom' for the two mile ride - will bring ya' right into town and the festival...
... that's the (non-annotated) 'Sheepskin Trail highlighted in blue - we had to upgrade to a new operating system on the 'Mac' a few weeks back because of compatibility issues for the needed upgrade to the most recent 'Flashplayer' which kept kicking us out of our web browser - the new system totally blows - no longer compatible with every photo/video software package we been using for the past 12+ years and on top of that deleted every individual file folder we had and dumped everything into one massive file now containing over 14,000 images to now resort - luckily we had backed up most of 'em to an external hard drive - it's obvious 'Apple' now only want's to sell ya' some dumb-ass 'Smart Phone' so you can take some idiotic "selfie" image of yourself standin' next to some horses ass (no insult to the horse intended)...
