The front wheel of my mountain bike is wobbling and when I look down the axle has almost pulled right through the hub. Upending the bike, I effect a quick repair very glad that I had noticed the wobble before I began bombing down the single track at high speed. The problem is operator error, the axle improperly installed after our last mountain bike day at Coondoo. Years ago, 14 to be exact, I had a similar operator error incident when the back wheel fell off our pick-up truck (known as a “ute” in Australia) on the highway when I was driving home after skiing up an insignificant peak (Mount Midgeley) in the Selkirk Mountains of British Columbia.
On that day, I left home at 6 am and drove for about two hours, initially on the highway but then up a forest service road (FSR) to a patch of snow which stopped further progress in the vehicle. I strapped my skis to my pack and set off up the road. The snow patch was, as is so often the case, big enough to stop the car but not continuous enough to be skiable, so I walked four kilometres along the FSR until I reached continuous snow and started skiing. Two hours later I had skied to the summit passing on the way a small trappers cabin. The ascent, which had taken three hours, was reversed in just over an hour, such is the delight of spring skiing.
Driving home on the highway, I noted a strange noise and wobble in the truck but, having no idea what was about to unfold, I ignored the noise and wobble and kept driving. Until, there was a tremendous bump and thud and I saw the back wheel of the truck roll off into a ditch and I was driving on three wheels and one brake rim. No-one ignores that. The wheel was, with some difficulty retrieved from a ditch beside the highway and put into the back of the truck and I, in a pair of what are called “Sorrels” in Canada (the most common brand) but are similar to Ugg boots (but meant for snow travel) walked all the way into Nelson (another five or ten kilometres), down the steep streets of the mountain town to a friends house where I luckily found him at home and was able to telephone Doug. Doug arranged for a tow truck and my friend kindly drove me home, another 15 or so kilometres from Nelson.
How did this happen? Well, I had taken off our winter tires and rims and installed our summer tires and the lug nuts had not been sufficiently tightened to keep the wheel on. It was an expensive repair as the brake drum was bent out of shape and had to be replaced. What’s most notable is how far I was willing to drive to ski up a new peak. Four hours of driving, yikes! I don’t know if I would do that now. I’d certainly think twice about it.
I’m just back from a visit to Sydney which is about four hours driving either way and always an unpleasant experience. The driving sucks, as does simply being in Sydney and dealing with the traffic, congestion, noise, crowds, all of it. Living in Sydney seems a bit like the boiling frog analogy. Things worsen slowly and incrementally until life is just about intolerable but the inhabitants are so inured to the issues they never leave.
One way I make my Sydney visits tolerable is to give myself a small treat or reward if you will. No, it’s not a restaurant meal or a big cake or any other consumable item, it’s a visit to Climbfit at Kirrawee. I love this gym. They have long opening hours – I arrived at about 6.15 am - and four auto-belays, masses and masses of routes on tall walls, and a great bouldering area. I was happy to see that there were less volumes than last time on the bouldering walls. I climb until I can’t hold on any longer and then leave. It’s a blast and always makes me wish we had a facility like that near us, especially as we are in for another round of flooding rain!
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