Day 1 into Day 2 - The GAP

Waterfall along the trail
GAP
June 14, 2024

We completed our aggressive day1 ride.  But, it was not until 8:30 pm that everyone arrived at the hotel. As I previously wrote, we stopped for lunch with about 25 miles remaining in our planned ride. After lunch we completed another 10 miles before problems happened. My bike developed a weird thing where the pedals turned freely in both directions.  Ugh. After taking the back wheel off to examine the free spinning cassette, I banged the tire on the ground and everything returned to normal.  Apparently the lever which allows the pedals to go backwards freely failed to reengage. We reassembled the bike and it worked perfectly for the rest of the day.  

About one-half mile later, however, Patrick collided with my rear tire and bent his front rim.  He also took a nasty tumble. We fixed the rim as best we could to allow the bike to be ridden, but it had to go to a bike shop.  The decision was to head back to West Newton which was 5 miles closer than Connellsville. Jeremy accompanied him while I pressed ahead to check into the hotel. Through a series of events best left for Patrick to explain, they wound up in Pittsburgh to replace the wheel and then Jen drove them to the hotel in Connellsville. 

So we are all back together with functional bikes for the next two days of planned riding. It was not easy, but it is done. 

Today is a planned 40-mile ride.

— Bob Doan, Connellsville, PA