Best Friends and Broken Spokes

You know you have great friends when they hand-make spokes for your wheels…

Yesterday during the group ride I took at bit of a tumble. It was totally my fault but nonetheless a bit painful and embarrassing! Thankfully I walked away with little more than a few patches of road rash.

We were in a small group off the front of the ride and I was suffering a bit on the back. I made a short effort to get back to the group and in the split second that I glanced down, someone was moving slightly to the outside and slowing a little to avoid a potential crash situation on the inside of the group. My wheel overlapped theirs and their rear skewer tore out the spokes on one side of my front wheel. This made the wheel incredibly unstable, and essentially was like slamming on the front brake. I Superwoman-ed it over the handlebars and onto the pavement. 

Juan rushed over to make sure I was okay and waited with me as we called Uber. Since the part of road we were on was narrow and a somewhat blind corner, they rode to an area before the curve to alert oncoming cyclists and traffic while I was loading my bike into the trunk of my Uber ride. With a hug and a kiss from both of them I was on my way home, trying my best to avoid getting any road rash nastiness on my Uber driver’s pristine leather seats.

Later that afternoon at All 4 Cycling, Luis made sure I was okay and handed me a Heineken as I carried in my broken steed to the ultimate bicycle healer, Vitico. I had eight broken spokes on my front wheel and unfortunately we did not have any of the spokes that I needed. I was so bummed I was not going to be able to ride my favorite FFWD wheels for training today. There was also a pesky piece of spoke stuck inside the carbon rim of the wheel. Vitico carefully removed the five-inch-long spoke with the precision of a surgeon through a tiny spoke hole.

Since we didn’t have the spokes I needed, I had already planned to use another wheel for today’s training but to my surprise, an hour later, Vitico had already fully re-laced and trued my wheel! I found out later that Vitico had essentially hand-crafted eight spokes that would fit my FFWD wheel from other spokes we did have in stock. I was in awe of how innovative Vitico is but mostly floored by how much he truly cares about my bike and I (muchas gracias hermano!!). 

I am so thankful to have these people supporting me in the pursuit of my dreams, which I know would not be possible without them!

​I have included a video on YouTube titled "How to Care for Road Rash" but hopefully you will never need it ;)