If It Ain't Broke, Don't Affix it to the Back of the Car...

Today is Tuesday.  Tomorrow we start the ride. Getting to this point was a little dramatic for sure... As Ben and I drove up the East coast on Saturday, we were just north of DC and getting ready to switch from 495 to 95...

All of the sudden...we heard a loud crack as the car lurched forward...we were rear-ended!  I should probably tell you that no one involved in the accident was hurt.  As you can imagine, my first thoughts raced to the bike - my trusty specialized roubaix that was attached to our rear bike mount.  This bike had accompanied me to two Cycle Oregons  and countless rides on the green ways of Raleigh.  What are the chances that my bike would be OK after that awful noise???

As we got out of the car to assess the damage, my heart sank as I saw the front end of the other car.

Initially, there appeared to be little damage to our car and initially the bike looked OK....

Upon closer inspection though...cracked carbon fiber frame... The bike was totaled.

After waiting for the police and exchanging insurance info with the other driver, we stopped at a specialized bike shop 10 miles up the road.


The owner took a look and agreed that the bike was totaled. Two other fun facts :
1. I am tall (you all know this) and since I am so tall, I need an XXL frame.  The fun fact is that this size is typically not carried in stock - usually a special order.  Did I mention that it was Saturday and Monday was a holiday and the orientation for the ride was on Tuesday???
2. The specialized bike site...the one that allows us to search dealers across the country to locate a replacement bike...was down for maintenance for the weekend.  This means we would need to search for my bike MANUALLY.

The bike shop was super nice and he called around to shops in the area with no luck. Ben and I decided to grab lunch while I called two fellow riders - my friend Sony in NH and my sister Molly  (and her husband Mark) in Boulder, CO..to widen our manual search.

Here is an excerpt from Mark's Facebook post : 'Emergency!  Enormous road bike needed ASAP! '

In the end, Molly and Mark were able to locate a replacement in Boulder - which Molly could bring with her to the start of the ride if we needed her to.  Sony was able to locate a replacement at Goodales in NH.

I called Goodales, they built the bike on Saturday and I stopped by for a fitting on Sunday.   They were super helpful and when I told them the story of how we came to find an XXL bike at there shop...one of the mechanics said - of course we had one - we are bad-ass!  Bad ass indeed and my heroes for sure!!!!