In my pre-race blog on Saturday, I was concerned about weather on race day.  I spent considerable time thinking about ‘what-if’ scenarios for the race and making plans.  It turned out that we had fantastic weather for the race.  It also turned out that I experienced a bike mechanical failure, that wasn’t part of my ‘what-if’ planning.

As mentioned, despite concerns about storms, the bad weather did not materialize for the race. The lake was really calm and made for great conditions to start the day.  My swim to start the race was okay but not great.  I exited the water in good spirits however, knowing I still had everything to play for.  

Transition went quite well and I jumped onto my bike at the mount line, excited for what lay ahead.  The course climbs a hill out of transition, so I stayed in an easy gear and tried to settle down.  Once at the top of the hill, it was time to switch gears and start pushing. That is when it happened.  My bike would not shift into the big chainring. The front derailleur wasn’t moving at all.

I looked down at the shifter on my aerobar and noticed the cable was exposed. I knew immediately what was wrong.  The cable had either snapped or had become loose at the derailleur.  I pulled on the wire and it didn’t move, which told me the cable was likely intact.  The cable must have come loose at the derailleur.  I stopped at the side of the road to take a look.  

I tried pulling the cable at the bolt holding it onto the derailleur, to see if it was loose.  It wasn’t loose, but it did look like it had moved, judging by how much excess cable was exposed beyond the bolt.  If only I had a 4mm Allen wrench,  it would be a twenty second job, to get it working well enough to get me through the race.  I didn’t have a tool with me…

Now I knew, I was stuck in the small chain ring for the next 24 miles.  I had no choice but to push as best I could.  My cadence for the bike leg ended up being way higher than normal. It topped out at 130 rpm.  There were lots of places on the course, where I spun out and had no choice but to coast.  I didn’t get down on myself though, I chose to do the best I could. I ended up with a reasonable bike split, but it many minutes slower than it could have been.

The bike leg eventually finished, and I had a great transition onto the run.  My run went well.  Not the best run I have ever done, but considering I had been pedaling like a madman for over an hour, I was very happy with it.  I was even happier to find out later that I had come third in my age group.  It is never a bad day when you stand on the podium.

P.S.   The failure was the cable coming loose at the derailleur.  Even though I had done several hundred miles with no issues, since installing new cables a month ago, yesterday the cable slipped.  The bolt holding the cable was just slightly under torqued when I checked it.  The problem took me 15 seconds to fix…