Houston, we have a problem! A really big problem!

Nightmare, Gladys is sick.

When I was putting Gladys back together after the flight I noticed that the derailleur was loose. On closer inspection I realised that the bolts attaching it to the frame were loose. Uh oh, no they weren't, they'd been torn out. I tried tightening them up but only one bit, the other was threaded.

I could ride but only very carefully and got myself down to the mechanics at the expo. They said not to worry, it wasn't the frame that had threaded but the derailleur hanger and this could be replaced, phew I thought. Even better there was a massive Trek stand inside the expo.

The guys at Trek were amazing, I'm biased I know but you decide based on this...

They stripped the derailleur down and then set about finding a new hanger...this is where it all went pair shaped. I came back after registering for the race and saw a bunch of Trek guys looking very grave. They showed me the rear drop out where the derailleur hanger attaches, they had a high powered light shining on it and you could clearly see that the dropout was cracked right through to the bolt hole. (Gladys was so brave, she hardly said a word).

Stan, the main Trek guy that was dealing with it said he felt strongly that if they put it back together "It was likely to break during the race...but it might not". Being an optimist I said "I think it WILL last the race...but it might not"

There was much debate and then they blew my mind. They said they had a brand new medium size Speed Concept that they could lend me but unfortunately they were already lending it to another competitor, so they'd loan me a brand new Madone road bike and set it up as close to my bike as possible. I was so appreciative but I knew the bike fit was critical, I was here to compete not just complete, I thanked them profusely but asked them to just patch Gladys up and I'd risk it.

A while later they came back and said, the guy they were lending the Medium Speed Concept to is a little taller than me so they'd switch him to a Large and I could have the Medium. WOW!!!! We then started discussing the logistics, basically Gladys would need to be stripped down and things like the SRM transferred and because the stem was a different size the the whole issue of cabling came in especially as I had the Di2 and the loan bike had SRAM. They were prepared to do the switch but time just didn't allow the stem and bars to be changed. This brought the fit back into play. In the end I stuck with Gladys and asked them to patch her up and replace the damaged hanger, I'd trust Gladys to hold cracked dropout together.

Stan was brilliant, he patched her up, and took another hanger from a new bike, retuned the gears and he seemed quite optimistic that the job he'd done would hold provided I didn't hammer the gears during the race. How much did this cost me? And here's the sting...they all laughed when I asked. "Nothing buddy...just keep riding Trek!". NOW THAT IS WHAT I CALL CUSTOMER SERVICE!