Door Closes, Door Opens

Riding home from work recently my daily rider, an orange Soma Wolverine (v1.0) started making clicking sounds, seemingly coming from the bottom bracket area.  I'd been riding, commuting, and touring on this bike for four years and 17,000 miles.  Time for a new bottom bracket ... or so I thought.  Those "clicks", it turns out, were my frame breaking!  Five clicks, five distinct breaks, in less than two minutes.  All the breaks occurred on the drive side rear dropout area.  Apparently once the frame broke once, it put additional stress on another area causing a subsequent fracture, quickly leading to a third, fourth and fifth.  Both the seat and chain stays were completely severed from the dropout, leaving the hub only connected to the non-drive side of the frame. Yikes!  I'm glad gravity didn't get involved, or I'd be nursing some bruises.

The Soma Wolverine door closes.

After a few tears, a few beers and sympathy-inducing texts to some friends, it was time to seek a new frame.  I had coveted Tout Terrain bikes for some time and they make Rohloff /Gates Belt friendly frames.  I'm an IGH/belt freak, so deciding on the German brand came as easy as those tears and beers.  But which model?  Well, it turns out I'm set to retire.  With no more commutes in the forecast and a lot more time to tour, the touring-specific Tanami called my name.  The olive colored one please ... wait, that color costs $100 extra!  The no-upcharge blue one, please.

The Tout Terrain Tanami door opens.

Until this year I had many more tour ideas swirling in my head than I had time.  That changes in June 2019 when I retire and turn those ideas into real tour plans.

New frame, new chapter in my life, new touring plans  ... new blog to document it all.