Planned to ride Jessica J, my good fixie up to the two high points of the Chehelams southwest of Portland.  Armed the bike with the 16, 22 and 12 tooth cogs.  It was an easy ride up to the fist high point, Mountaintop Road.  Stopped to flip the wheel around to the 17 for the smaller ups and downs going to Bald Peak.  Went to tighten the track nuts.  Somehing was very wrong!

There was a 1/4" gap between the dropout and the hub.  Huh!  I looked at the other side.  (This is a completely symmetrical hub, flip-flop lock-ringed fixed both sides.)  The left side looked normal.  Did the axle and nuts move relative to the hub?  And how could that happen without messing with the nuts and locknuts on both sides?  Nah.  But that 1/4" gap?  The dropouts spread?  On a stiff, strong ti bike?  Not very likely!

I looked closer.  No lefthand locknut.  The washer was floating free.  But, wait a minute!  nuts are circles.  The only way it cfan come off the axle is by sliding or unthreading along the path of the axle inside it.  And it has to get past the track nut.  But that track nut never came off.  It must have broken!  And it has to be here because I got here.  I looked down and there were the two halves of the nut.

I pulled the 22, screwed on the 12, inserted the broken pieces in place and rode gently down the 1200' I had just climbed, stopped and turned the wheel to the 16, replacing the nut pieces again and made it home. I got zero workout.  (The climb was gentle and I had a screaming tailwind.  The 22 was for steep stuff later that I never got to.)

Weird.  In 180,000 miles, I have never broken a hub nut.  Cheap track nuts, yes but not a nut or cone.  Well, Jessica J gets points in my book.  I usually swap the wheel off the pavement.  Finding both halves of that nut?  Pretty unlikely.  But yesterday?  I pulled nto a perfectly paved driveway for the swap.  When I looked down, both pieces were right there.  Same when I dropped them several times.  The girl was looking after me.

Ben