Dura Ace Axle Replaced Fast

When you have an emergency related to the catastrophic failure of a bike part the folks out at Ultimate in Mathews sure know how to get what you need in the store fast, like real fast. Last Wednesday you may remember my not so near death experience when my front axle broke in two while I was turning off of Tyrone, I mean Tryon Street onto 3rd. Well 6 days later the shop called to let me know the threaded steel rod, cones, jams and nuts were in one nice little bag waiting on me in Mathews. Yesterday after commuting in and a normal'ish day at work in the 50 degree rain, that's 11c for all y'all Twink loving Canadians I strapped my work wheel(which was stashed in St. Lissa's car in a garage) to my bag and rode out Monroe Road to put it back together. The strangest thing I witnessed on the 38minute ride out to the shop was at East Meck High School. I hit the exact time that they were letting the buses loaded with hoodlums out of the school yard onto both directions of Monroe with a crossing guard on each side stopping Monroe traffic. It was pouring rain and the drivers were racing, no kidding accelerating out of the lot down a narrow street for a short distance and then gunning it even harder once they got onto Monroe. There was no gap between them, less than a meter or two all racing as fast as they could to get to the road. About 20 of them passed directly in front of me at speed while I held a track stand watching in some sort of cracked out state. Once at the shop the friendly folks there let me use their cone wrenches and borrow some grease that I hope to return one day. I rebuilt the innards of my work bike's front wheel with new bearings and put it on the bike replacing my road wheel which had been used as a back up. While there I also purchased 12 tubes, a 6" rotor kit, a new 2.1 Ignitor, a 2.3 Rampage, replacement lenses for my Tifosi eye wear, a Salsa 32 tooth Chain Ring and my new I9 wheels which will be here 'soon' enough. Oh yeah and of course I paid for the axle. Shimano's policy Bootsed me by not granting a warranty, something about the part was more than 5 years old. As expensive as this steel rod is, it is key to my set up and operation. I most definitely thank and appreciate the kind folks at Ultimate for getting the part so quickly and taking care of me as they have for the past 11 years. Okay, it has changed hands a time or two since then but at the core the shop has the same soul.

Sorry I did not take a picture of the axle out of the bag, somehow the price took creativity space out of my brain while I installed the part. An axle, right?
Work bike rolling again with new nuts.