Tragedy and Drama

This evening, in eager anticipation of the TC3-SAS Ride, I was going over Old Clanky in pre-ride maintenance fashion when I noticed a distinct wobble in the rear wheel. I had the wheels on this bike re-built last year because the original rims were in pretty bad shape. I swapped out the steel rims for some Sun CR-18 alloy rims, but going on the cheap, I opted to re-use the spokes.

Bad idea. Tonight when I tried to touch up the true and round on this wheel, I blew out at least 4 spokes - and I was being careful, too. It sounded like a .22 shot in my basement.

Dammit. Dammit, dammit, dammit!

I've got the first TC3-SAS ride on Saturday and a busy week between now and then. I dropped an email on my favorite LBS to see if they can replace the spokes and get this wheel in ship-shape before the weekend. If not, I"ll borrow a wheel from a spare Phillips 3-speed in my garage (I am going to be selling that shortly, by the way), but I'd rather get this wheel repaired and ride it on Saturday.

Stupid, stupid, stupid to opt to re-use spokes that are almost as old as I was, but if we didn't make mistakes now and then, we'd never learn, would we?