Connie got stripped down to the ‘bare essentials’ as she needed a little ‘nip and tuck’.

All her surfaces were cleaned up, chain was cleaned, cables replaced . . . but there was one thing still bugging me.

About six years ago, while out for a ride, I had three, as Clint would call them, ‘punks’,  push a grocery cart in front of me while I was tooling along about 15 mph. The cart went to the right, the bike went straight and I ‘disengaged’ from the pedals and was launched left. I received a broken collarbone and Connie seemed fine other than a scrape to the handlebar tape. An inspection (short of an x-ray) at the local bike hospital revealed no injuries (to her).

BUT . . . as I continued to take her on long extended rides I notice extra play in the fork. A ‘wobble’ that was in fact attributed to the resulting ‘ovalized reformatting’ of the headset caused by the impact with the shopping cart. Of course, the added inertia from my ‘slight’ frame pushing the whole thing didn’t help either.

You can see the resulting space from the stretching of the cup above causing the fork to wobble.

I got Connie put back together but wanted the headset issue resolved before this trip. Having run out of ‘bike time’ and not having an extra headset in stock, I took Connie to the local TREK Emergency Care facility and consulted with Dr Isaac, BMD (Bicycle Mechanic Doctor.

He agreed with the prognosis of an ‘ovalized cup’ and a new head set was ordered. Three days later Connie was back on her wheels again and in the garage waiting to be loaded for San Diego!

Dr Isaac, and his favorite patient, Connie ‘The Clydesdale’ Cannondale.