My Journal for June 28th when I was Sweep

Saturday June 28th Ride into Newcomerstown, OH

Today we left our gracious host early in the morning and set out for Newcomerstown, OH. One perk of Bike and Build is that everyone helps out everyone else. People will stop if someone gets a flat tire or just needs a rest. We want everyone to be safe, which is why we have something called sweep. Sweep consists of two people that always ride behind everyone else. They make sure people don’t get lost and carry extra tubes and tires.

Today, sweep had a very eventful day: Since sweep must stay behind all of the other riders, we decided to take a break early in the morning by rolling through the drive through Burger King on our bikes. Two orders of cinnaminnis later, we were content and ready to roll knowing that we were a fair distance away from the back of the pack. Just as we mounted our bikes to head out, we got a call from one of the riders that got lost. We were ahead of her! We made sure she was going in the right direction and waited for her to reach us. After biking for a while we met up with another rider who needed to get picked up and waited with her until the van came. All just a normal day until the weird starts- the other sweep was feeling that her pedal was acting weird so we stopped to take a look at it. Her pedal had fallen off the other day and it had been put on crooked in haste. To remedy this we tried to take the pedal off, but found out that we stripped the crank’s threads in the process. Luckily a kind cyclist rolled by and called her husband who came by with tools. After some engineering magic, and a long amount of time, the kind gentleman “fixed” the pedal to the crank.

The afternoon was equally eventful. After the van pulled away, the chain on the other sweep’s bike came off, and we struggled with is for a long while to get it back on. After a few miles of riding we got a call from some riders that fell on the road. They rode over some gravel and fell during a turn. Both riders were ok, just a little shaken. After checking over the riders and the bikes we determined all was right and started riding. A big hill came up and as one of the riders shifted to the “granny gear” her bike made a loud clanking noise and refused to move. We took one look at her derailleur and knew something went very wrong. Her derailleur exploded and was twisted in an awkward position. At that point it was late in the day and everyone else was into the host location, so the van driver decided to pick us all up and take us there.

A great end to the day is that it was Jane’s Birthday so we got to pick up a cake on our way back and celebrate with a good friend! Other riders had bought her a turtle hat and we all joined in to sing her a happy birthday.
Jess Leon