by Ed Parrot » Sun Jul 31, 2011 8:07 pm
A lot of the usual suspects were at the Grand Fundo, but four of us showed up for the regular saturday morning ride. Myself, Paul, Zach Swan and a visitor from Virgina, Chris, did a loop up through Conway, Deerfield, Montague and Leverett. The other three guys headed back to Northampton when we hit North Amherst, while I headed home.
Early in the ride, Martha Grinnell and another of our tri-team (not sure of her name) blew right by us on their ride, and we hooked on behind them for a few miles before going our separate ways.
It was a great day for a ride and we were all pretty evenly matched, which made it go smoothly. We stopped in Montague for refills on Gatorade and Paul suggested we try W Chestnut Hill Rd in Leverett, which has a section that starts to push towards 20%. Thirty seconds into the hill, a loud metallic sound reverberated and upon further examination we discovered that Paul’s fourth cassette sprocket had shattered into numerous pieces. Fortunately, he could still ride, though the cassette wobbled a lot. He skipped the 20% climb, but still managed to hammer up Cave Hill Rd coming back.
