32-Mile Ride: ABORTED

very short nooner ride only today
Since Jacque had an in-town meeting tonight, we decided I'd ride the bike all the way to work and she'd pick me up after work.  This was especially attractive since I've been lumbering to town and back the last 2 days with the gas-hawg RV since Jacque's Exploder is still at the auto shop.
I left the house in the early morning dark, just after 6 AM.  The ride out of the property and down our nasty rocky rutted road almost a mile to the pavement of Frost Road is always an agony, especially on the bike with low light so it's nigh impossible to avoid rocks and bumps. I had gotten only a hundred yards or so up the road when I hit an unseen rock, and in my frantic attempts to remain upright and struggle (in Grandma Gear) to the top of the hill, I pulled too hard on my left handlebar grip and separated it from the gearshift rotator collar.  I stopped and fiddled with it for maybe 15 minutes, trying to get it to snap back in place.  I could not ignore it and just ride since the spring in the large front ring gear selectorwould not lock in any gear at all, it just pulled the chain to the lowest gear and off center from even that.  I finally decided I wasn't going to be able to fix it without more light and better tools than my Leatherman, so I trudged it back to the house.  By then the sun was starting to peek over the horizon so I could see a little better.  I finally saw the little spring ratchet clip that was not in the right place and used a surgical hemastat to grip it and put it in the little hole where it belonged, and PRESTO... it went back together the way it was supposed to.  By then it was much too late to ride to work so I loaded the bike up on the RV bike rack and DROVE all the way to work.  Yuck.
I was, however, able to get in a several-mile noon ride to make sure the gears were working again.  YAY
Noon Ride Datum:
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.5       Ending Voltage: Wobbling from 12.2 to 12.5 (gel cell getting very soft)  
Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   5.02
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
10.4. Mph                           12.2 mph            23.6 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
29 mins 0  secs              24 mins 47 secs       4 mins 13 secs