First race of the season in a couple of weeks. I have the same bike as my friend and racing arch-rival. I've lost 5 kilos and i think i'm probably fitter than I was last season. So I decided to go for a ShockWiz session this morning, while also doing a reasonably challenging ride.
Should have guessed when I woke up 30 minutes before my alarm that it wouldn't go exactly to plan. Instead of getting up earlier and getting more time on the trail I laid in bed until 5 minutes after the alarm went off. Then faffed around and didn't get to the trails until fifteen minutes later than planned. This meant the headlamp i'd gone to the trouble of setting up the night before was useful for about 2.5 minutes and then got turned off.Â
Halfway through the ride on a gnarly climb the chain snapped. I removed the remaining parts of the broken link and rather optimistically (because the final link was a bit bent) fitted a quick link. That didn't work nicely at all, so I had to separate the quick link (lots of rocks around for that) remove another link and put it all back together... only I put the chain on the wrong way around so I had to remove it and put it on the right way again.
Aside from that meaning I ended up doing a shorter ride than possible it was a spectacular morning with trails in perfect condition (someone had swept the leaves on a 3km track!) and I got a Strava top 5 on a South Korean style rocksliding off piste track.
