The plan for today was for my wife, Debbie, to give me a ride over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. The Bay Bridge is five miles long with no shoulders, and absolutely no bikes allowed.

Debbie and a couple of our friends rode the Seagull Century yesterday. Debbie joined me at the camp site last night, and went shopping while I rode to the bridge.

Sometimes things don't go as planned.

My super-cool, brand new, Pantour rear suspension disc brake hub died on me. After only 105 miles, only 5 miles from the bridge, it developed an appalling wobble, which could only be bad. I'd hit a bump, and there would be all this grinding on the disc brake. The shifting got a lot worse. This is NOT ACCEPTABLE.

So I limped to the Park and Ride where Debbie was waiting, and while she drove me over the bridge, I took the hub apart.

There is a central tube that holds the elastomer suspension. It is inside a cylinder connected to the cassette. On the cassette side, there are roller bearings, but on the brake side, there appears to be nothing separating the central tube from the cassette cylinder. This was rubbing metal-on-metal. After some metal had worn away, the wobbling started. I suspect Pantour forgot a part.

So Debbie and I drove back home to Baltimore, stopping at every bike shop on the Ritchie Highway to see if someone could sell me a new wheel or hub. No luck. When I got home, I went up to the awesome and always reliable Joe's Bike Shop and got a new Mavic Crossmax CC rear wheel. Pricey, but I'm sure it will be rock solid. I'm back on the road tomorrow, and to preserve the continuity of the journey, I'm riding from home to the Bay Bridge, and then proceeding with the plan. At least I got to see half of the Ravens game where Our Glorious Baltimore Ravens pounded the hapless Arizona Cardinals.

There was some cool stuff on today's ride. My bike is a Reynolds Weld Lab Dual 26 T-Bone. T is for Titanium, a metal typically used to build jet fighters. I like to think of my T-Bone as kind of my personal jet fighter. So I sure was glad to get a picture of the T-Bone with a real jet fighter.

This is where I discovered I lost my rainbow wind sock. From now on, I will be Captain America

A good breakfast is pretty important. Since I didn't have one, and since I didn't have a good lunch or dinner yesterday, I was dragging along in a very pathetic manner until I came to this nice restaraunt on US 301 just east of Centerville, MD. French toast with about a quart of syrup on it is really great for bike riding.

The other nice part of the ride was the Cross-Island Bike Trail on Kent Island.

The trail goes through salt marshes and pine woods. It's only five miles long, though, which is a shame because it's really nice.

Here is today's actual route travelled.