2011 Lake Pepin 3 Speed Tour Stories

 Just want know how the 3ST was for the other Nutters who attended. Below is my story. I'm sticking to it.

 Most of you who were there know that my daughter, Courtney, and I had to cut our participation short because of the catastrophic clutch failure in Courtneys' Raleigh. Prior to that, we were having a great time. Heck, we still had a great time after her bike broke.

 Courtney and I decided to call this 3ST the 'What Can Go Wrong Will Go Wrong Tour', and it wasn't just for the issues we had. This was my fourth tour and I saw more flats and breakdowns on this ride than the previous three combined. I flatted a few miles in and somehow managed to strip the threads in the business end of my Official Raleigh Superbe Frame Pump. I also had a cotter pin loosen up and the Harbor Freight/James Baum designed cotter pin press worked great.

 The rain came pissing down after the Bay City Hill, which was where we first had an inkling of the impending doom of Courtneys' hub. We couldn't keep it from jumping between 1st and 2nd, which was really pissing me off because I can rebuild AW hubs in my sleep. Anyway, I learned that my $30 Campmor Rain Cape is actually a Rain Sieve and I was soaked to the skin. C fared better with her Gore-tex jacket.

 We stopped in the town of Maiden Rock for pizza and to dry out. Garth and Erin swam in a few minutes later, looking like they had ridden bikes in the rain, too.

 About the time we left Maiden Rock, the sky started to clear and the temps warmed up. The miles melted as we were looking forward to ice cream in the town of Nelson. A few miles before Nelson, C told me she was going to stop and stow her jacket and she would catch up. Just about the time I reached Nelson, my phone rang and C called to tell me she'd lost 1st and 2nd gear. Back I go and, she's right, 1st and 2nd are bye-bye. She still had 3rd and as we only had 3 miles to Nelson and another 3 to Wabasha, we decided to limp the rest of the way. She thought she still had 3rd. That lasted for about ten feet when there was sickening 'CRUNCH' from her hub, and then nothing, nada, zilch, except freewheeling in all 3 gears. We hoofed it about a mile or so and managed to get her and her bike a ride into Wabasha.

 I got into Wabasha a while later and opened up the hub on her bike(the James Baum cotter press doubles as a hammer in a pinch). I found the clutch in pieces and 3 of the 4 pawl springs were broken. Our 3ST was done.

 However, we didn't let that put a damper on things. We had a great dinner and conversation at the Eagles Nest. The fellow who gave C a ride to Wabasha gave me a ride to Red Wing to get my truck and we had a another wonderful meal again at the Eagles Nest the following morning.

My few pics are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/21499296@N08/sets/72157626786617662/

My digital cameras' battery crapped out before I took any pics so these are from my Blackberry. And before anyone questions the clutch, it is a special clutch designed to work in AW hubs that are converted to 2 speed fixed gear. I've used these for years without a problem. The designer/fabricator has been running these in his unmodified AW hubs for a few years without issues. We, the fabricator and I, think we got one with a small flaw which caused the problem.

So, come on. Fess up. Oh, and we found a bakery that sold raised cake dounts with Maple Sugar Icing aaannnddd BACON