On Thursday evening I scored a nice deal on a toy that I have added to my collection of things. A Giant Talon 3 in decent shape for $190. This was originally about a $500 bike so it’s a decent deal considering it’s cosmetically in decent shape and nothing is in disrepair. It could definitely use a tune up to adjust the derailers, grease up the chain, and bleed the brakes at the very least. But those should be easy to tackle some of it myself and/or use a shop. Couldn’t hurt to have a once over on it. Today though I proceeded to take it on a nice technical ride and promptly broke it.
There’s something missing there! I made it through all of the hairy parts of the ride and thought wow, this bike is holding up great. We’ll apparently I must have bashed a rock just right because I snapped the derailer off. It just took until the home stretch of my ride on pavement to fall apart. Here’s a look at the carnage after I got it apart at home:
Looking it up on Google, it’s a very cheap part though Thankfully. It should be an easy bolt in affair to affix a new one with spending less than $30 on the part. I suppose I could use it as an excuse to upgrade but it’s more than up for the task as far as I’m concerned at my level anyways.
Back to the ride though, it was an excellent route for sure. I biked about 2.5 miles from home to the trail head, heading over some rolling paved hills with beautiful scenery. It was a workout for sure but a nice start. From there it was about 1000 feet of downhill jam over the next 5 miles. So a relatively gradual slope with varying mildly technical terrain. It eventually got super technical and overgrown and I got lost a couple times. But overall it was fun and got me all the way down to the beach.
After a nice dip of my toes into the chilly but refreshing water, I got back on the road for a straightforward 2 mile ride on the PCH back to my street. I had a grueling 1400 foot climb ahead of me for the next two miles after that but with plenty of water and breaks, I knew I’d be fine.
Unfortunately about a half mile into riding along is when disaster struck and my pedals became entirely useless. When I looked down and saw the derailer swinging around I knew something had gone wrong. I had hoped it was just a bolt that came loose but upon inspection I found it sheared in half. No battlefield medicine was gonna fix that, not that I had any tools anyways. I got lucky though and one of my roommates was at home and happily came to pick me up in his Jeep. Saved me from biking up the hill anyways!
Great start to my bike ownership. Will see how much luck I can continue to have! I’ll grab a derailer at the store tomorrow and be back in business ASAP. But I’m probably interested in the brakes having work done before riding again anyways. They certainly functioned well enough but I'd like way more bite and fine control which I'm sure is just a tune up away.