On Friday I used to be out for a protracted trip on my recumbent and I occurred to look down at my entrance wheel and seen a damaged spoke. The wheel appeared in ok form, not too badly “out of true”, and was nonetheless ride-able. So I headed dwelling and switched bikes, finishing the trip on my upright. I later took a superb have a look at the wheel and located it truly had 5 damaged spokes. All broke on the J-bend the place the spoke comes out of the hub. I used to be shocked as a result of I’d by no means damaged multiple spoke earlier than and in addition normally there may be an audible ping. That is my entrance wheel with the electrical motor, so the spokes are subjected to torque from the motor in addition to affect, e.g. from potholes. It had carried out simply wonderful for effectively over a yr so I assume I will need to have hit one thing pretty huge lately. I ordered substitute spokes on Amazon, being happy to search out out they arrive in customized lengths so I might order the proper dimension. I’ll repair the wheel once they are available in and get it again on the highway. I’ll try to remain on smoother roads sooner or later.

Within the meantime I can nonetheless trip my upright if I would like electrical help, and I’ve the unique wheel again on the recumbent. The timing is fortuitous. I hadn’t been driving my upright sufficient since I recovered from my final bout of sciatica. So my butt was getting sore on longer rides on the upright. A got here throughout an amusing time period for this on an ultramarathon biking web site: “marshmallow butt”. I have to toughen my butt again up, from “marshmallow” to “iron”, as a result of in Might I’m entering into a good friend’s van all the way down to Paso Robles for a couple of days of biking, and my recumbent received’t match so I’ll be taking my upright. I’ll ensure that to get extra saddle time in on the upright earlier than them.