day 44: i broke another spoke.

I tried to explain to Aaron that I did this so Tim wouldn't have sent us the tools in vain. (Yeah, Tim!) He wasn't buying it. "This is spoke #5," he said with waning patience as he got to fixing it. I reminded him that he didn't fix the other four. This was probably not the most helpful thing I could have said.

So, why do I keep doing this? It seems I'm a rough rider, a "masher," as Jeff the bike shop owner in Rapid City said. This is opposed to a "spinner" - I tend to ride the harder gears at a slower cadence to leverage more power from my relatively small frame. This has been the best way to keep up with the relatively larger frame on the bike (usually) ahead of me. An unfortunate side effect of all.this mashing is that I rock my weighted down bike from side to side and create a lot of extra force - and there go the spokes. I tried to blame this on the quality of my wheel. "This is an incredibly strong piece of equipment," he said.

"Well, I'm incredibly stronger," I said.

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