So, every Thursday I go on a bike ride with a friend. Last week, when it was Thursday-Bike-Riding-Time I could feel something was wrong with the chain. (Actually, I had realized the problem for some time before that, but it was then that it really caught my attention.) Silly me didn’t think much of it – I assumed it had to do with shifting the gears and that the problem would simply dissipate, if I just shifted several times, until the chain was properly adjusted on the gears again. (Can you tell I don’t know much about bikes?) Well, you’re right because my logic didn’t work. Though nothing happened on Thursday, the following day when riding my bike to the tennis court, the chain came off as I was going uphill and shifting the gears. I fixed it after I got home (yes, I know how to put the chain back on, though I really hate getting my fingers dirty) – or at least I thought I’d fixed it. Saturday, riding my bike again, all of a sudden the wheels blocked! I almost fell of my bike with the sudden, unexpected stop and there it was: the chain had come off again. Only this time, when I checked the chain later, there was nothing to be done. One of the links of the chain had been bent so severely that there was no more trying to fix it myself. So, yesterday I took my bike into town. I put it on the back of a small three-wheeler where I had to sit and hold it, because it was too large for the vehicle, and brought it to the bike dealer. Thinking they could fix it by just exchanging the broken link of the chain with an intact one, the repair guys – and I – had to realize the problem was much bigger (though it took them a while to figure that one out), and instead they had to replace the whole gear shifting part on my bike’s back wheel as well as align the back-wheel, since they found out it was really crooked, too. Hadn’t even realized that! So, while waiting for them to finish the job, I had a chance to make “friends” with some ladies, a toddler, and a government official who also joined us. You never know what kind of opportunities a broken bike chain can create!