I was in the museum this afternoon showing the bikes to a couple that had stopped in when I got a call from Steve. He told me I needed to go to the shop and call him back when I got there so he could tell me where to get his metal box of allen wrenches. He forgot them and said that I must bring them with me to Morgantown on Sunday!!!
So, I made it to the shop and gave him a call back. He’s pretty touchy about his tools and whenever I or anyone else helps him in the shop, the rule is: you can get out as many tools as you want, but don’t you dare put them away! He makes sure that they are wiped down (which I can do) and puts them back himself. That way he knows EXACTLY where they are and that they are laying in the correct spot in the correct direction. (really) He can tell everytime I get into his toolbox to use something. It’s like they all have alarms!!!
Anyway, when I get the metal box of allen wrenches out, he proceeds to tell me that Marcin – a rider from Poland – that he’s rode with the last two Cannonballs, asked to borrow the one that fit their odometers. That’s when he realized he didn’t have them. The flip side to this story is that Marcin told him that the battery had just died on his odometer and he had to change it before the start of the race. He asked Steve if he had put a new one in his and Steve told him, no, that his was still working fine. Marcin replied that he’d better change it since the last time they changed them was in 2014 on the last cannonball and if his just died today, it would just be a matter of time – a very short time, like maybe, during tomorrow’s ride that Steve’s would die as well! So, the odometers now have a new battery, using someone else’s allen wrench today.