You Never Know

Well, today's been a real bummer. I was looking so forward to today's ride only to experience a real sh!tty day. My schedule called for a 3h30 bike ride with a 1hr run after the bike.

Last night I prepped the bike and everything was ready and as soon as we got back from Church I jumped on the bike and was ready to roll. It was such an awesome day and being out on the road for the first time since Winter just gave me that extra motivation.

My schedule called for the entire brick session to be done at IM race pace and although I knew it was going to be hard I was looking forward to it.

But then disaster struck, I was nicely biking along and was maintaining the 250+ watts average the session called for. At that moment I was 1h15 into the session and about 40km's away from home.

I was really pushing it when I went up this hill( picture below) and then suddenly I just heard this snap sound and I had to be quick to get my foot out of the pedal as I was standing still. At first I thought the chain came of the ring but I haven't changed gears and then the bike came to a complete stop as the rear derailleur got tangled between the rear wheels spokes.

As I got off the bike I had a look and couldn't believe my eyes, the derailleur just broke out of the frame. If it was the derailleur it would have been bad but not as bad as a cracked frame.

I will take the bike to the bike shop tomorrow to see if they can claim from Cervelo as the bike is less than a year old otherwise I will be looking at someone who can weld aluminium, or a complete new frame very soon. Although the bike is carbon I saw that the part that's broken is aluminium and maybe it can be fixed as a last resort. At least the view from almost the top of the hill was great, as I waited 45 minutes for Kim to come and fetch me, thanks Kim.

As we got home I wasn't in the mood to do the 1hr run and it was suppose to be a Brick session. I just didn't feel like running an hour after I stopped cycling.

I also emailed my coach and asked her to reschedule my bike training this coming week or at least for the next two days as I don't know how long I'll be without a bike. I do have the mountain bike and will use that in the mean time, but no powertap workouts soon.

On a positive note I received my contact lenses from my new Optometrist and they are just great, Yesterday I had to double check/feel a few times as I couldn't even feel them in my eyes. Thanks Russell, amazing what a pleasure it is to have contacts when you have someone knowing what they do, helping you.

For those who can remember Russell is my friend who me and DJ delivered the VW Bus to in Upington about two months ago. He's an optometrist by trade and also an excellent Ironman athlete.

The best part for me is that he is more than a 1000km away from us but looking at the measurements they took of my eyes, he immediately noticed that the calculations were wrong when the previous optometrist ordered my lenses.

I will wear these lenses for a week or so and if they still feel as great as this weekend I will get him to order me some more.