Tuesday, December 5, 2006

Yaaaagh. Dang dad nab $#%&^# goat head thorns

Well, since I was ill over the weekend I thought Monday would be a good day to ride both ways and get some miles in and some night training. Well, I was still digesting that Chipotle Burrito from lunch but still managed to keep a pretty good speed up. As darkness set in it started to get cold and I was glad I had enough oomf left to keep myself warm through riding. That is until I was stopped by the axis of evil. Somewhere after turning onto Guadalupe I managed to ride through a whole patch of goathead thorns. Rolling my bike off the road after detecting a squishy front tire I was dismayed to see multiple goatheads sticking out of both tires. Well, I sat down and set to work putting three patches on the two tires, pumped them up, and was off again. Dang! My sidewall is about to rip out of the rim as it didn't seat! Hmm, Front tire seems a bit low too? Dang! Ok, 2 more patches later and I am ready to hop on my bike and get out of there when I notice that the front tire is once again, wait for it.......flat. So at this point I decide it is now time to dig out the spare and do this thing right as apparently the goatheads turned my front tube into an air collander. So, I pump up the front tire with the spare, which I discover has a large hole in it. Hmmm, what a uh, nice surprise. Ok, I am out of the nice little patches and now need to rip a big patch in half to cover this thing but miracle of all miracles this tube holds! I now discover that over the last 45 minutes of flat fixing the temperature has continued to drop and I have cooled down. Well, good thing I wasn't more than a few miles away from home as it was a cold ride from here.
Incidentally here is my training partner. Today the Bridal Vail Falls bike path, tomorrow a brevet!

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