Another Fun Friday Ride - Until it Blew Up

Very good coverage with the Tracker today
We did our usual Friday Forum Feed today for the LDS students at the UNM Institute.  Then, as usual, we unloaded the Terratrike and took off for our usual loop.  We stopped - as usual - at Old Town and enjoyed a soda and a bathroom break.  Then we rode on west to the venerabe Bosque Trail.  As soon as we got away from the crowded intersections at Old Town we realized we were staring at some VERY dark threatening clouds directly ahead, seemingly headed straight east.... at us.  We rejoiced in the idea of getting some rain, but were not crazy about getting caught in it and soaked.  Around here we'd be wasting effort hauling around rain gear when it rains so seldom.... so we didn't have any.  We turned north on the Bosque Trail and pedaled with motivation, watching the oncoming storm on our left closely.  We decided if it really started to rain we would take the Montano bike trail, rough as it is, and cut the ride short - say, in half - but the farther we rode the weaker the storm front seemed until it just sort of faded away.  It went south of us and we never noticed any actual rain, though hopefully the folks in the South Valley got at least a little rain out of it.  So we rode onward, upward to the usual Paseo Del Norte turn east and back south on the North Diversion Trail. 
We were approaching Second Street when, of a sudden, our pedaling effort stopped dead, locked up.  Jacque got off and looked at the rear gear cluster, expecting to see the usual chain popped off, and suddenly she became alarmed.  I didn't believe her at first, just thinking it was a particularly tight chain jump, but I was shocked at the damage right in front of our faces.  The rear derailleur had bent sideways, right into the rear wheel spokes, and even the axle dropout holding the derailleur (Solid Steel) was bent, with the dropout slot opened impossibly wide. 

I dug out the bike tools from the rear pannier but I did NOT have the proper tools to try to re-bend the dropout back into alignment.  As we poked and prodded around we also found a separated link in the chain, which evidently had caused the disaster in the first place.  It seemed to have jammed in the rear derailleur , which bent the surrounding support (the axle dropout) nastily.  I realized I DID have spare chain repair links in my kit, and my bike super-multi-tool has a great chain breaker and pin vise.
First, what to do about the hopelessly bent steel axle dropout?  We considered calling for someone with a vehicle to come rescue us, but we were at least a mile in each direction from the nearest road intersection and we did NOT relish the idea of dragging the wounded beast such a distance.... it is ungainly enough trying to hand-tow it even with all 3 wheels fully functional.
So, I looked around.  I had no hammer or long wrench or bending device so I looked around for a decent rock.  Indeed, I found a nice heavy round river rock and thought it might work as a hammer.  The largest tool I had was my large Gerber multi-tool, and by golly, it actually had enough grip and strength and leverage to slowly bend the steel dropout bracket back to very close to proper shape.  A few dozen blows with the "river rock hammer" resulted in more successful steel re-arrangement, and we were able to get the derailleur reattached and installed.  Then, already coated in black chain grime, we successfully broke the broke chain and removed the offending 2 links and installed one of my two repair link sections to replace it.  It worked.  It didn't shift quite right, it had trouble staying in any particular gear, but it got us going.  At one point Jacque got so worried about it we stopped and called Jake, our son, who owns the only local pickup we knew of in the immediate area, but he was out of town.  His in-laws had current possession of his pickup, and were willing to come to our assistance, but were busy nurturing one of our mutual grandson's baseball games, far across town.  So we agreed to continue limping back toward our own dino-powered vehicle and call them back if we had further difficulty.  It was a wee bit stressful but we got back OK, barely before sundown.  We're bummed we won't be able to ride this wonderful machine for a while  until repairs are completed, and non-Walmart chains installed, but we are also very grateful to have made it back OK at only about an hour later than planned.  This pointed out to us ONE disadvantage of a shared trike:  When it's disabled, we're both disabled without a ride.  If we had been on separate bikes/trikes one of us surely could have ridden back to the car to rescue the other.
Beginning Battery Voltage:  12.8        Ending Voltage: 12.3
Lowest Temp  66 F      Highest Temp:  78 F
Stats from the GPS: Total Miles:  20.94
Overall average speed            Moving Avg               Max Speed
 4.6 MPH                                 6.9 MPH                    21.3 MPH
Total Trip time                       Moving Time             Stopped Time
 4 hours 35 mins                     3 hours 1 min           1 hour 33 minutes