RIP to this rim, she served me bravely…

I'm reaching the end of my tour from Clearwater, FL to Washington, DC on the ECG, and I wanted to share this story because it defined a sizable part of my trip.

While travelling north through Georgetown, SC I noticed my bike making a weird huffing sound. At first I assumed it might be bearing trouble because it sounded like it was coming from my front wheel, but everything felt solid, and I knew I was approaching Myrtle Beach and could find a bike shop to swap out the bearings pretty easily if need be. I got an offer to stay with my dad's cousin that night, so I headed their way and simply put up with the noise for the time.

The next day, while passing through town, I decided to stop at a park and see if I could troubleshoot the problem, so I flipped the bike, spun my front wheel, and it didn't make any weird noises so I put everything back on and kept moving. Well, a few miles later I was looking down to check my rear tire to see if it still had good pressure, and I noticed that it had a bit of a wobble to it. "Well that explains the noise!" I thought to myself. "It was a broken spoke on my rear tire causing it to rub against the fender!"

So I quickly stopped at another park, flipped the bike again, and got to checking the spokes to see how bad the damage was. Surprisingly, none of them had broken, but the fender itself had cracked at the bottom screw, which had caused it to shift. "Ah!" I thought, "So the wheel just got bumped or something and knocked it out of true, and I just hadn't noticed until the fender cracked and started rubbing. Cool. Easy fix. I'll just tighten a few spokes and get it more or less back in true until I can get it straightened out at a shop."

So I pulled out my multi-tool, and started figuring out where the wheel had the largest deflection so I could try and straighten it a bit… And that's when I noticed my mistake. The problem wasn't with the spokes, the problem was with *the rim.* The deflection wasn't because the spokes had stretched, it was because one of the spokes had started pulling out of the rim entirely! The rim itself was cracking and pulling apart around the spoke holes!

Well, this was definitely not something that could be fixed easily. The whole rim was going to need replaced, and I wasn't about to get a shop to rebuild me a new wheel in a few hours. I immediately started calling ahead to shops in Myrtle Beach looking for wheels that could fit my current brake, cassette, and tire setup, but it seemed that nobody had a wheel that would fit. In desperation I called the REI just south of Raleigh and talked to the shop manager there who was able to put in an order for a wheel that would fit.

Now I was in a bit of a bind because I was hundreds of miles away from home and if I bailed now, I'd have to find a way to get my bike and all my gear to the nearest Amtrak station. So my choices were either to pay to get myself chauffeured to fayetteville… Or to ride the wheel, baby it, and if it fails I just suffer through the consequences and pay for a ride anyway.

(Note: if this was my front wheel, I'd have thrown in the towel immediately, but since it was the rear, I figured the consequences of a catastrophic failure would be less… violent.)

So I rode it. I skipped Myrtle Beach and Wilmington, instead cutting through rural SC/NC. I took it slow. Braked primarily with my front wheel. Took rural back roads with low car traffic. Never went above 15-20 mph. Avoided bumps and potholes… And she held on. For 200 miles into Raleigh that rim held together. I *finally* got it swapped out with the new wheel which arrived at the store just in the nick of time and boy did it feel so liberating to be able to ride with confidence again!

I almost wish I could have kept that wheel as a souvenir, but it would have been too much of a hassle to carry with me, so I had the technician in the shop cut the hub out and I stuffed it into my gear bag. Fortunately, I have this video showing just how serious the damage was. Watch at your own displeasure.

I'd like to offer this post as a send-off, though. For the rim that held together long enough to get me where I needed to go. She's at the bottom of some garbage pile somewhere now, but she will live on in my heart ❤️

Tl;dr: this rim carried me 200 miles in this condition, keeping me from having to bail on a major tour. RIP.