After I planned a long ride on Saturday and the weather decided to throw us a tropical storm, I cancelled that ride and instead did a Friday ride like old times. Left much later than I could have, and despite working all day and being up since very early, this turned out to be one of my fastest ever rides out in Chattahoochee Hills. Very thin clouds covering the sun and keeping the temps down in the low sixties, with light east/northeast winds. I felt really good initially and decided to ride the loop hard and felt probably better than ever while doing the loop. So I rode the couple of extra sections of gravel(normal for most folks doing the loop). This was a great ride. Also at the beginning of the ride I was hearing my chain skip occasionally, and I thought perhaps it was a worn cassette, because I had just installed a new chain. However it turned out to be a master link that wasn't connected properly, and it actually was performing fine under heavy power, until I was on the brief HWY 29 section and riding on the trash strewn shoulder that it decided to let go. So I dragged my chain through all of the dirt and muck beside the road, and managed to get the links out and install a spare set. This held perfectly the rest of the ride, with no skipping. It goes without saying, check that the master link is seated correctly before leaving home.