Broken...then fixed!

Every year before Marin camp something seems to go horribly wrong with my bike, despite my best efforts to keep it in good repair. Last year, my left-side shifter broke, and every time I went to upshift, I would get poked in the finger by the sharp end of a misplaced spring. This year, something even worse happened - my frame broke. I have broken plenty of bikes in my time (10 now, I think) and I don't think it reflects poorly on the manufacturer of this one. My bike broke a rear drive-side dropout in the middle of a fast downhill sprint (I still won!). Happily, it was cleverly designed not only with a replaceable derailleur hanger, but an entirely replaceable drop out. Here is what it looked like before replacement:

Now, here is what it looks like:

No sweat! Of course, I would rather my bike not break in the first place, but in a couple of years of racing, this bike had seen a lot of hard miles and this was not the first time that dropout had taken a hit. So, I am grateful that it carried on as long as it did...and more grateful that when it broke, it was easy to fix.