iPhones Don't Work If Nobody Answers

It was about 40 degrees when I took off at 6:30 this morning for a planned 29-mile ride. I had my new lights and was all bundled up so I was looking forward to this. All was going well until about mile 7 when I went/jumped over a pothole/rut. I heard a "bonk" and my rear wheel, which was already out of true, started really wobbling. I pulled over and not only did I break a spoke, I broke two (though I wonder if the second was already broken). I was hoping I could ride home SLOWLY. Nope.

No problem. I carry my iPhone with me on rides (with a protective case, of course) so I'll just call home and get picked up. Well, it turns out that yesterday's wealth of Wii games overloaded the senses of my son and, though he was awake, he ignored my phone calls. All but the last one. He ignored the 13 messages on the answering machine. He ignored the calls I would make just to ring the phone. Grrr.

Okay, my wife or daughter would have to wake up at some point, right? I'll just play video games between phone calls until one of those two wakes up. So I did. Funny thing about my winter riding gear: it keeps me pretty warm when I'm moving by trapping my heat. Not so much when I'm standing still. Soon the warm glow of my ride started to fade and there I was, in 40-50 degree weather with the wind picking up, and I'm standing there wearing shorts and a windbreaker. For two hours.

By the time I get ahold of my wife the shivers are getting harder and harder to control. She shows up with the van, I toss the bike in the back, and we head home. We were planning on a trip downtown so I had to take a quick shower which, as hot as it was, was surprisingly not very warming. However, a trip into the kitchen for some emergency ramen did help a lot. Note to self: pick up more ramen for post-ride warming.

That's three spokes in three weeks. What am I going to do? I can't really buy sturdy new wheels for my bike because it is so old and I don't want to spend more on wheels than I did for the whole bike. New bike? The bike shops I have gone to have been heavy into Specialized bikes but I wanted another opinion so headed over to Velo Pasadena because they showed a wider selection on their site. I got there and oh my goodness. Big shop and you can actually walk around in it. I got some help and was shown a Felt F55, which is on sale because it is an '08. What to do, what to do...