On an unusual breakdown

I was rather surprised and a trifle annoyed yesterday morning when the chain on the Castafiore broke whilst I was climbing St-Jacques Street on on the way to work. While I have had issues with bike chains in the past, I have never had one break on me before. One odd thing about the break was that the link that broke was the joint link but not at the removable pin.

Fortunately, I wasn't far from my bike store and alternate means of transportation. As the bike store only opened at 10, I left my bike locked outside of it, and took a bus to work. It luck would have it, the breakdown may well have spared me having to ride home in the cold and heavy rain.

There was a new person at the bike store who looked very young. In fact, he was only 16, several years younger than the Castafiore! However, he put a new chain on and seemed to know what he was doing, which is possibly more than could be said about me.

To be honest, I have been following my typical end-of-the-cycling-year bad habit of delaying maintenance issues. I have the vague excuse that until recent I was still paying off the Newfoundland trip and related debts. However, I realized that I was in potentially dangerous situation as the Castafiore has some minor mechanical issues that will need to be dealt with at some point whilst I don't think I should use Leonardo for getting to work owing to some more serious mechanical issues. All this to say that I should make a point of taking Leonardo in to be looked at tomorrow morning.