Backed over it with the car.

It took me a couple weeks to get around to this but my fans have spoken and get to it I must.

The Wee One was a little anxious about going to meet Santa Claus but with the reassurance of La Grande Mermaid she picked herself up by her glass slipper straps (and Minnie Mouse ears) and did the event justice.
You may recall that last year she cried so hard and kneecapped poor Santa with her ruby size eights.

With Abby in her tutu and Mommy in her cap we all settled in for a good Seattle flap.

After Santa we lunched, rode the carousel, and rode princess-style in a horse drawn carriage. The Wee One illustrated a bona fide princess wave and had enough elbow-wrist for us all.

Then, after a long day downtown, we rode the light rail home. Lots of special rides, a successful Santa event, and all is ready for the holiday to officially arrive.

First of all this morning my bike thermostat read -11.1C when I got on the train. My finger thermostat read “That’s cold.”

Next, on the way down the hill my rear derailer failed, or rather the cable failed and I thought it froze. I was stuck in my 11 tooth cog. For the unintiated that means it was really hard to pedal away from a stop and impossible to climb steep hills.

For the visuals in the audience; think about what it would be like to push your kitchen chair across the floor with a straw.

Anyway, once I got onto the train there were *amazingly* two other crazies bikes.

Great! Maybe one of them will have an idea that’ll help.

There was also this other guy I see a lot; just a regular passenger (read as “stealth” biker). So I attacked my derailer with a fervor to see if I could pull it into a less straw-breaking gear.

The thing about the rear derailer is that it is held in place by the cable and when the cable fails (not frozen) it “defaults” to bottom, the derailer spring is doing it’s work with no resistance.

So the biker says

You need some tension on that thing.

No chance and no help.

Then the stealth biker pipes up

When that happens to me I have just wedged a piece of wood in the mechanism to keep it where I want – in a “higher” gear.

Brilliant! I didn’t have wood but I had some tools. And a few short minutes later I am rolling in my 13 tooth cog. Much more managable for starting what is currently a single speed bike. Visually speaking, we just put a blanket underneath the chair.