Bad luck and good luck

Less than a week to go and it's time to taper off on the riding, relax and start to get mentally ready for the ride right? Wrong, I managed to make things a bit more stressful for myself by breaking my carbon bike frame. I'm not exactly sure when I did it but I'm guessing it was a couple of weeks ago when I rode from Tygh Valley back to Mt Hood on a really crappy road. The expansion bumps were massive and occurred every 20 feet for about 10 miles...

I noticed the crack last Friday night on my way to Bend. While there, I ended up riding a couple of times and I saw that the crack got worse. I started to think that the chances it might not be too smart to try and ride this bike all the way to Georgia.

Sooooo, on Monday morning, I took my bike over to my favourite bike shop Cycle Path in North East Portland. I wanted to find out if my frame was rideable or if I could get it warrantied. This is when my luck started to turn.

I got to the shop and bumped into the rep for the company that made my bike. It gets even better than that... Scott Montgomery, the CEO of the company (Scott Cycles) was also in the shop just visiting Portland for the day. When I told him I was planning to ride across country on this bike this coming weekend, he got all excited and told me he would do what he could to help me out. Normally it takes several months to get a new bike frame back from warranty. I was more than happy to hear that he was going to help me out.

Tonight, I went back to Cycle Path and found out that the frame hasn't arrived yet and that if it doesn't come tomorrow, I won't be able to get it until Monday as the shop is closed for the July 4th holiday. This would be a problem as I'm supposed to be in Pendleton by then. Cue stress levels raising instantly... However, Bill, the co owner of Cycle Path told me he would strip down one of the bikes in the shop and then use that frame to build up my bike with my existing parts. He's going to rush this through on Thursday so that I will have a bike for the tour.

All I can say is thank you from the the bottom of my heart to Scott Montgomery and Greg Talbert from Scott cycles and a massive thanks to Bill Larson at Cycle Path. If you ever need a recommendation as to where to buy a bike and what brand...

Oh yeah, here's my new frame. Beautiful eh?