Ultimate winner

This budding engineer's tale of mechanical ingenuity made him the unanimous victor in our Ultimate Trailside Repair reader essay contest. Along with the pride of a job well done, he wins a shiny new repair stand from Ultimate Support Systems, worth $100. What follows is his story of pain, suffering, inner turmoil and triumph in the face of mechanical adversity.

The Devil Made Me Do It
By Aaron Roseboom

We all have the proverbial angels and demons on our shoulders, our good and bad consciences. However with riding and me it's a little different. I have the phantom-like voices, but I don't hear red vs. white, pitchfork vs. wings. It's a little stranger. The only remote comparison I can make is that it's some sort of twisted reincarnation of my mother's voice. Only not how one would think. She doesn't yell, "Be safe," it's "Get your money's worth son." Every time I ride it's almost as if I must justify to him (I use the male pronoun because if I had a female voice in my head that would cause me to question my sexuality) that I have spent $2,500 on a bike. Or perhaps it's the remnants of my cousin mocking me the first time I spent my entire savings ($250) on my first suspension bike, a 1996 used Barracuda with Manitou forks. "$250 for a pedal bike," he exclaimed. "Pedal bike, pedal bike, pedal bike!" It was traumatic. But I'll try to hurry this trip through my troubled psyche.

In order to satisfy this voracious little fella I always have to do something that necessitates my Stinky Primo, rather than the 2.5 inches of travel from the old Barracuda. That's fine, we all need some sort of driving force. I need to try that 12-foot rock drop eventually. But when I turn to confer with my mild-mannered incarnation that lives on my left shoulder, he's not there. But where could the instigator's balancing nemesis of clear mindedness and conservative thought be? I think he's an alcoholic because he's consistently late, unreliable, and moody.

Now my last experience with an 8-foot drop was "successful" but not exactly confidence inspiring. It was ugly. Sensing my confliction, my roommate (and novice riding partner) did me the favor of offering me the inspiration in the form referring to me as an unmentionable piece of the female anatomy. Of course when my Hemingwayesque machismo is being questioned what am I to do but stand firm and answer back with a resounding "I'm doin' it!"

Now my heart is beating well above the scuffling footsteps of my roommate running for the right vantage to behold my doom. I roll up to the edge, peer over, and just as I perceived originally—it's really high. Nevertheless, fear has no home in me. At this point the little voice has receded deep into some happy childhood memory waiting for the dust to clear. I'm only about one pedal stroke from the edge when I kick my pedal, jerk up the front tire and hold on. I think, "Wheel up, wheel up…oh my God this is high, really high. I've never been in the air this long. Okay, I should be landing soon, come-on. Oh this is too high; I want to come down (whimpering). Mommy?" I freeze and land a little nose down. I flash back to getting shoved into the dryer by my older brother. I see ground, and then I see the rock, and then the sky, and then I close my eyes. Now I can't breathe, and I'm thinking, "Oh you've done it now voice. Ya killed me." As air begins to rush back into my lungs I am aware of the roar of my roommate's laughter and patronizing queries into my physical condition. "How's my bike?" I ask. "Where's your bike," he answers.

I'm relatively unharmed but definitely walking funny. As I hobble into the direction of the woods I see my bike and prepare my self for the worst. It appears as though it may have survived. Nothing looks broken so I grab it and sit myself once again tenderly upon my stead. As I begin to push on the pedal, the chain seizes, and I ingeniously note something is amiss. I look down at my front sprocket and things seem to be in order. But when I inspect my rear derailleur I see it has rotated a complete 180 degrees and is now pointing to the sky much as I was just moments ago. This troubles me as I still have a two-mile trail-ride back to the car.

Congrats Aaron, your prize is on the way!

Now I was never a boy scout, and I didn't have a Swiss Army knife but a trail fix was my only option. The aluminum dropout has been completely mangled but it's still hanging onto the wheel hub. I grab onto the derailleur and I feel the now pliable metal bend easily as I try to mold it into working form. The tree has not only cremated my dropout but also completely squished my derailleur. At least that is my professional estimation at that time. "Hmmm."

My roommate is still chuckling in the background. He's a Computer Science major so he's going to be of no use to me. Luckily I am majoring in Mechanical Engineering (third year at the time). As the first step of my design class had taught me, I initially examine what my available resources are. So I remove my Camelbak and begin laying out my options. I have a bike pump, patch kit, tire tool, hex key, and a chain breaker. Running the chain through the derailleur is not an option, so I disconnect the derailleur. I was still toying with the idea of straightening it out, but I give up on that. Now the derailleur is hanging on the chain, and that's going to inhibit proper chain rotation.

At this time I'm criticizing the mental capacity of the designer of the derailleur, and I reminisce to myself about the old days and my single-speed Huffy, and how stuff like this just wasn't a problem. Then it hit me. I'll turn it into a "single speed," albeit the gears still exist and I won't be shifting through them. I busted out my chain tool and broke the chain and removed 6 links and put the chain on the fifth cog in the rear and the middle one up front. It was a long ride home, but it would've been a longer walk.

My quick thinking got me out a hairy situation and while Cal Poly may not hire me as their poster-child because of it, I was kind of proud of myself. No doubt though that when I graduate in two years (lots of people go to school for 5 years) I'm sure companies will line up to hire me, as long as I don't tell them about the little voices. We'll just leave that between you and I.