Sierra Cascades – 9/01/2013 – McCloud to Burney

 

 

First photo above was last night’s lodging for part of the group.  Brenda and I had a room with a double jacuzzi.  The next picture is of Lois and Mt Shasta.  More on Lois later in today’s blog.  TODAY'S RIDE was pretty easy.  Many of us had a second breakfast at mile 16 and we were at the top of Dead Horst Summit (a 22 mile climb) pretty quickly.  But it was not all peaches and cream.  Most of the day we had no shoulder.  Ordinarily there would be lots of logging trucks but they apparently weren’t working on Labor Day Sunday.  Still there was other traffic and we occasionally had to quickly get off the road. This itself wasn’t easy because of a drop-off and gravel beside the road.

 

At mile 40 we stopped at Burney Falls State Park, a very popular place.  Cars were lined up to get in; we went around them.

About 5 miles from the end we came across Lois and Craig beside the road. Lois had a mechanical problem. Her bike has (or at least had) a Chain Stop, a device which is supposed to prevent (stop) the chain from coming off of the small chain-ring.  But the chain had come off and dropped below the Chain Stop.  Now the Chain Stop prevented retrieving the chain.  This is not the first time I’ve seen this happen. Craig and I were unable to resolve this on the road so called for the support vehicle.

So how to “fix” Lois’ bike? All we have to do is get the damn chain out from under the Chain Stop.

• The obvious easy solution is to move/remove the Chain Stop.  On this one the screw holing it on was a Phillips-head.  But the screw was on the inside, facing the chain-rings. I could not loosen it. Maybe a better screw-driver, better eyesight, better luck or more patience would have worked.
• Most kibitzers on the side wanted to break the chain.  There was no master-link.  Lois had a new chain installed before the trip and the mechanic didn’t install a master-link. This is not unusual; most mechanics are not tuned to requirements of a travel bike. But this was a Campy chain and I’m not a Campy expert.
• Lois’s bike has outboard bearings on the cranks.  So it was fairly easy, if you have the plastic tool to remove the cap, to remove the left crank, push the axle and thus move the chain-rings out and thus retrieve the chain. I also removed the Chain Stop which didn’t work and caused the ultimate problem.

Our Rim Fire evacuation plan is not what I envisioned. I thought we’d terminate the ride at Lake Tahoe.  But no, we’re going on with a different route, a different set of towns, different passes (fewer but more difficult) and different entry into Yosemite.

Miles = 51, Elevation gain = 2,891.  Total miles =833, Tot Elevation gain = 47,346