PING! SNAP!...Oh Dear Lord what was that...

On the ride into I head a dreadful "PING/SNAP" from the general area behind my butt. At which time the bike decided to become impossible to move forward. After a close inspection of the back tire/wheel/hub area the epicenter of the SNAP sound was discovered. What was going to be the good day of the week has been brought down by the one bike part that everyone takes for granted.

Its not really this parts fault, bikers in general just take it for granted, and there are some compelling reason as to why;
1) It has no moving mechanical parts
2) There are more of this one part on your bike then anything else
3) They are critical for the bike to work at all
4) They are under enormous amounts of stress, rotational force and content flexing

Your guessed it, the lowly spoke. Now I am not enough of a bike geek to know how many there are on my wheal, but I do know (now) that I need every one of them. That back tire had the looks of a potato chip that just hit the fire. After disconnecting the rear breaks, I was able to complete the ride in to work without any other incident.

On my lunch break I made a quick phone call to the LBS to see if they would be able to take care of me if I brought the wheal in this evening. They said it was a solid maybe, and that we would go from there.

I figured I can cut my ride 1/2 by taking more direct roads, ride light and I should be OK. So i got on after work, rolled down the side walk from the bike rack, down the ramp to the street all was well. I'm thinking to my self I can do this, then that sound again "PING!!!!!" followed closely by "o for F&%$#@ sake. You have got to be F&*%&@% kidding me." Its a spoke munity, they have given up, get off us you fat bastard, no way, no how, not today, or ever. My back wheal is now starting to take the same geometric shape as your grandfathers wallet, and rides about the same to.

Off to the LBS

I arrived at the LBS and felt good about my chances, only one car in the lot, four guys working the shop. When I walk in I instantly figured I was screwed. 3 guys in commuter gear, all with broken something or other, I would have bet you a bucket of bait that it was going to be drop off/pick up for this one. One of the guys came over and asked what I needed, and after making a few arrangements for a six pack he took care of me. After about 3o min, and one really funny joke about a guy that looked like the buzzard from bugs bunny I was back in business.