Home from the Bike Surgeon

 August 25, 2021

As most of you know we had an incident earlier this month. We were on our way to meet some friends for a mini vacation which included some bike riding among other things. We were about an hour from home traveling 70 miles an hour on interstate 64 in Illinois. All of a sudden our bike and bike rack came off the top of our car. It was truly a miracle that no cars were by us at the time. And, the strangest thing is, as it slid off our car, it hit the back bike tire and fell upright and slid across the traffic lanes staying upright the whole time. It came to a halt in the passing lane of the interstate. Clay was able to jump out of our car and get to the bike before it was hit by other cars. We really feel that God's hand of protection was on us that day!

(This was taken in June but you can see how we transport our bike)

After the accident, taking everything apart to fit in the trunk.

You can see how bent the back wheel is.

Now we had the problem of how would we transport the damaged bike and bike rack to a place for repairs. We had to unload the trunk of our Honda Civic, lay down the back seat, take both tires off the bike, shove it in the trunk as far as it would go. Pile the tires, rack and our luggage in on top and around the bike. Of course the bike didn't fit all the way in so we had to bungee cord the trunk lid down. Luckily the bike store we use for service was between us and our house, so we didn't have to go all the way back home. We left the bike with the Bike Surgeon and continued on our vacation, which now looked a lot different since we didn't have our bike. 

We had to cut out one bike ride in Kentucky but we were able to rent single bikes (their tandem rentals we broken and they are having trouble getting parts to fix them) on our planned ride in Ohio.

 

Little Miami Bike Trail, Ohio

As it turns out, there wasn't much damage to our bike. We had to replace the back wheel and tire and the handlebar tape on my my handlebars. (We figure we did that damage when we were shoving it in the trunk) Ironically those are the two things we had done earlier this summer. We feel really blessed that we still have our trusty tandem bike! Ready for more adventures but nervous about transporting it now. We'll have to use our truck as the bike rack is toast!