However, when I checked at 6:30, no precipitation was either falling or nearby, so I decided to go for it. The ride was still very moist, both from a lot of water on the ground, and very high humidity, but I experienced no rain. I was psyched up to do 4 round trips down to Woodland Drive, for 23 miles and what would have been my longest ride to date.
Mechanical problems once again came into play, though. About midway through the second round trip, I began hearing squealing, rubbing, and clicking coming from the back. I wondered if the problem might have been related somehow to all the water, though I couldn't see how. At first (although handling didn't indicate this), I feared that I was getting a flat on the rear tire. But I checked this, and it didn't seem to be the case. As the noise continued, though, I began to get quite nervous about having a breakdown several miles from home—and even though I had my cell phone with me, Michelle was still sound asleep and I didn't want to wake her. So I decided to cut the ride in half, and only complete two round trips.
After I had made this decision, and was nearing home, though I am completely lacking in any mechanical abilities, I seemed to make a discovery. The chain, as it passes from the pedal gear in front to the geared rear wheel, goes back through an upper plastic tube, and returns to the front through a lower plastic tube. These don't seem to be fastened to anything (or, if they were originally, the fasteners had come off and been lost), and the upper tube had worked its way back so that it was rubbing on the wheel, causing the sounds I was hearing, and the lower tube had worked its way forward and was throwing the chain off the gear. This discovery made the last half mile of my ride much more pleasant.
So, anyway, I came home quite drenched from the spray of the wheels on the wet ground, and having done a ride of 11.8 miles in 1 hour and 20 minutes—not what I had hoped for or intended, but tolerable nonetheless.
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