Phew – that was lucky! Only 18 Euros for a replacement part and the wheel is OK. The wheel is a Mavic R SYS SLR. This is the broken bit below with a missing section.The bearings were unaffected and neither was any other part of the wheel. I tightened two spokes about a quarter of a turn with a special key and then they were as solid as the others.
I guess the scary thing about wheels if they start to have faults is that they could get you killed. I’ll be more attentive in future. The “creak” however has not gone away at all. All the bolts on the chainwheel have been checked. Latest thing I spotted is that the rear dérailleur is not aligned properly – but oddly the actual hanger from the bike looks fine. I’ll get Canyon to look at this image and see what they advise.
Leaving for Marseilles in the morning and the “Bosses des 13” race – looking forwards to it but the weather is not going to be great Mistral wind I believe.
Training ride yesterday legs were tired and there was no power so I stopped halfway through. The day before I climbed up to Peisey Nancroix as a hard time trial to push up my heart rate and work on power – so the legs just hadn’t recovered – even a short but very hard climb takes a while to recover from completely. That was Wednesday and with the lighter ride yesterday – Thursday – the legs should be fine for racing on Sunday with two days of complete rest between. Part of the tiredness comes from starting up the running again. Good news is that weight is now down to 68Kg (from 73Kg back in June) This time I’ve decided that 68kg will be the maximum I ever allow my body to reach in future. It feels so much better to be this weight and that will only improve as more weight goes.
(Following Spring I dismantle the hub myself and find that the technician has reassembled the hub incorrectly. He put in three clips when the ring can only hold two and this effectively stops the ring from being secured in place – it was therefore not secure and not acting as a compression ring. Lucky the wheel didn’t collapse or he’d be in court! The lesson is to do it yourself – never pay a technician. I replaced the ring clips with new ones myself but before that I trued the wheel – the spokes having left hand threads – with the compression ring out)