Bad Sam! Bad!!

I guess, this trip is all about mechanical problems. I deal with one problem and here comes another one.

I got up before dawn this morning so I could be on the road at first light to ride the Going to the Sun Road across Glacier National Park.





There is a time restriction for cyclists on the road. We have to reach Logan Pass, the crest of the Continental Divide, a 3500 ft climb, by 11AM from Lake MacDonald. We can also ride the section after 4 PM. So, I set off nice and early and got a good 15 miles up the 30 mile road to the pass.



My new dérailleur needed some adjustment so I played with the barrel adjustment as I rode along. It's been a long time since I had to adjust gears like this so, of course, I made things much worse. Pretty soon, I was riding around in circles in a pull out trying to get my gears to work. All of a sudden, the chain locked up, I almost immediately stopped and since both feet were still clipped in my pedals, I tipped over. So embarrassing! Luckily, no one saw me crash. I caught my new expensive riding tights on my fender and ripped a hole in them but my spendy camera and lens in my handlebar bag survived just fine.

It's a funny coincidence that the last time I had a tip over crash on tour was about 100 miles from here on the road to Waterton National Park right across the border in Canada during my Rocky Mountain tour in '97. I still have a hefty scar where Sam dug his front chain ring into my calf.

Anyway, dejected, I headed into Avalanche campground figuring that I needed to find a ride back to the bike shop in Whitefish to get my gears adjusted and my chain that was partially broken from my 'crash', fixed.

In the hiker biker campsite I met Stefan and Jessica, two Swiss cyclists riding from Jasper Park in Canada to Yellowstone.


It turns out that Stefan is quite the bike mechanic and he fixed Sam right up, chain, gears and all. Sam is now happily shifting smoothly again. Thanks Stefan!

I left my gear in the campground and rode down the lake 6 miles to Lake MacDonald Lodge to hang out by the lake until 4 when I'll head back up to the campground, load up my gear, and haul over the pass.


Sam behaved just fine on the ride down. Hopefully, he'll mend his ways and cause no more problems.

Of course, now my tent zipper is starting to fail... Sigh!
-- Post From My iPhone

Location:Glacier National Park