This is not the way your rear cog is supposed to look.

OK, first ride for a week with Kevin, after he and his sister took off to Disneyworld. You’d think that would slow him down but no, not much. It did mean that I could kinda sorta keep up with him up Old LaHonda at least. The ride was to be the usual; Old LaHonda, Pescadero, Tunitas. After suffering through Old LaHonda we were both looking forward to that point that comes a bit later in the ride, when you start feeling good, and it was pretty much exactly that point, just as we were climbing out of the LaHonda duck pond, that I had my first bike failure in… years. I mean, many years. I’m climbing up the steep section and bang, all of a sudden I’m pretty much on the top tube, somehow managing to keep from crashing.

The picture tells the story; one of the larger cogs broke in 3 places and tore loose from the cassette body. My 11-speed cassette was now 10. Not just that, but I couldn’t trust moving the chain across that big gap, possibly getting stuck and doing all sorts of bad things. So, we turned tail and headed back up 84, an easy grade that wouldn’t require that I shift up past the first 5 or so gears that still worked.