Macgyver at work

So what exactly is going on here? Picture One looks a little like I might be taking a nap on the sidewalk. However, Picture Two seems to reveal that I'm actually tampering with a fence.

What I'm actually doing is using my Macgyver skills to free my bike from being locked to the fence without using a key. Unfortunately, it wasn't some cool dare or trick that was causing me to do this.

No, actually in my haste to get to my team ride on Monday night I remembered to grab my lock

but not the key. So when I arrived at Barriques for the post-ride meeting I locked up my bike and 2 seconds later it dawned on me that I had grabbed my house key but left my bike lock key behind.

Luckily I had only locked the frame of the bike to a railing. Now at first I wasn't sure how I was going to get myself out of this situation without getting a ride home and driving back to get my bike. First I attempted to pick the lock using tweezers and a small allen key. No luck with that.

Then my friend Sam realized the fence was a bit loose so I tried working the rail out of the fence. Still no luck. Then Sam noticed that the rail had a screw in the bottom. Luckily my multi-tool also had a tiny screwdriver so I lay down on the wet concrete and went to work removing it. Good thing for technology as Sam had a camera phone and couldn't help but record the moment.

I was able to get the rail out and my lock off the rail. I did screw the rail back in place as well so my team should be welcome to return to Barriques. The best part is that as luck would have it all my teammates were sitting in the window of Barriques watching and wondering exactly what I was doing. And no one called the police either--although I was the only soaking wet person in cycling shorts at the place so I would hope I didn't look like a bike thief.

On the ride home I had to wrap the cable lock around my water bottle and cages to keep it from swinging wildly from the top tube.

My advice - remember to take a multi-tool when you ride as you may need it for the strangest purposes!