So most of my family and friends heard about my small mishap with my bike over the weekend.  The bike has been riding awesome all season with normal suspension bike maintenance, however while cleaning the bike and doing a final prep for Leadville I noticed a small crack in the frame.  This is my first full carbon mountain bike and I immediately brought it to my local GT Dealer for a full inspection.  Unfortunately the bike is not safe to ride and we think it was just an abnormality in the carbon weave that caused the crack.  This probably occurs 1 in every 10,000 bikes, but as my track record for bike mechanicals go, that 1 in 10,000 most definitely would be mine!

So fast forward from Sunday to yesterday morning at work.  I call the fine folks at GT Bicycles, which is now headquartered in Connecticut, and I speak with one of their reps named Michael.  He was amazing on the phone and immediately went to work in finding me a replacement frame or full bike.  A few hours later I follow up with Michael and he has located a new bike for me and has it shipped to my shop in Boulder.  Disaster averted!  Right?

Well, in my back pocket, I do (did) have another mountain bike as a backup in the event that the new GT gets hung up in the mail or what have you.  So tonight I dropped by another shop here in the Denver metro area to pick up my backup bike.  I blast on over to Chipotle after getting the bike for a quick burrito and then I head home with the bike on my roof.  Shortly before pulling into my apartment building my sister calls to say hello and I am now completely unaware of the impending doom of my bike.  The garage door opens slowly and I creep in and then I hear it, just like a rice crispies commercial…SNAP, CRACKLE, and POP!  I hang up on my sister and assess the damage.  The bike is somehow still attached to my trusty Rocky Mounts trays, however the front fork and disc brake mechanism have given their lives to this one.  I haven’t dared look any closer at the bike for fear of the frame being completely annihilated.

So tomorrow my new GT Marathon is due to arrive in Boulder and I’m hoping that I can get into work early and leave early to fly up to Boulder and have my friend Kris work his bike mechanic magic.

I’m a bit more relaxed a few hours after the garage disaster and I’m hoping I can get the new GT up and running for Saturday.  There is nothing quite like running around trying to get a bike operational a few days before the biggest race of the season and my career so far.  Everything will somehow workout in the end, but man having a stick in the spokes days from the race is never fun!

-Admiral