Twig stops play

Josh, my ten year old, shot off on his bike to school today. He and my daughters were racing to be the first of the Reidlets into the playground. Five minutes after they’d left I was still loading up the trailer. Tuesday is music day at school so I was being packhorse, carting in all the bags, lunches, guitars and violins.

As I was about to leave, Josh came round the corner, sheepishly, his rear mech trailing on the ground.

“A twig got stuck,” he said.

We’re a multiple-bikes-per-child family so there was no drama, Josh just took one of his other bikes (a rather fine 24-inch Kona CX bike shod with road tyres) and pedalled off up the hill.

UPSIDE
It’s at times like these you’re glad you’re going to be repairing a bike with a replaceable dropout. The frame isn’t trashed, just the dropout.

DOWNSIDE
Do you know how many different replaceable dropout shapes there are? I don’t, does anybody? I’m now going to have to traipse around, dropout bits in hand, trying to find a bike shop that just so happens to stock the right shaped widget.


Bicycle Anatomy for Beginners from Quickrelease.tv on Vimeo.