Sigh. It's time to replace my chain. First was the fact that when I started pedaling hard in my most popular gear combination, the chain is beginning to slip and skip a little. Further confirmation came from using a chain checking tool. Yup, it's now beyond spec.
Needing a new chain is no big deal, in the grand scheme of things, but I like to remind myself whenever this happens that I stretched a steel assembly with my legs. At this point, the discussion could veer off into whether I actually stretched the plates of the chain or rather have worn down the connections between the links so that there is now lateral play in them. Regardless of which of these scenarios has resulted in my chain skipping and being beyond spec, the fact remains that it is now longer than it should be.
The metaphor here is hard to miss, but I'm going to spell it out for future reference when I'm feeling down. Consistent work over time enables us to do things that we would not consider possible, a little bit at a time. If I were to go into a bar and tell my new friends that I could stretch steel with my legs, they would regard me dubiously. But there it is, out there on my bike, the one that needs a new chain.
