Saturday, July 2nd, 2011
Sometimes, you just can’t catch a break. Let’s recap the last 24 hours.
I went out last night to enjoy some beverages with some good friends I haven’t seen in a while. I enjoyed an appropriate amount of beers and had to leave my car and take a taxi home.
I woke up at 5:45 am to realize that:
1) I had a training brick with Kim at 7am
2) My car was 2 miles away
3) My bike still had its trainer tire on it
Ugh. I threw on some running shoes and hauled my hungover body over towards the bar, just to jump in my car and turn back around. Within a half hour, I rushed to swap out my back tire, threw together all my bike and run gear, bolted on my SpeedFil and jumped in the car to go meet Kim.
Showing up late to the parking lot, I throw on my gear, fill up my bottles and pump up my tires.
With two seconds to go before I’m ready to roll and BAM! My front tire blows while still on my bike rack, hanging off my trunk.
Not. Awesome.
Kim and I just laughed and used it as an opportunity for me to teach her how to change a tire. I pulled out the old tube, threw in a new one and pumped it back up.
Kim slyly pointed out “Aren’t you supposed to check if there is anything sharp stuck in the tire?”
First of all, who is teaching who here?
Second of all, she was right. There was a big gash in my tire and as soon as I pumped it back up, it busted again. BAM! Two ruined tubes in 5 minutes. Not. Awesome.
I was out of tubes used her only spare to attempt one last repair. In reality, I just wanted to pack up, head home, and spin away on the trainer. This time Kim had the idea to put a piece of food wrapper inside the tire to cover the gash. That girl is wicked smaht.
45 minutes after I initially wanted to start, we finally roll out of the parking lot. Between the two of us, we had four wheels and no spare tubes. And none of the local bike shops are open yet. Annoying. We decide to ditch the original route and and do repeats of the 10 mile time trial loop in case one of us flats and needs to hitchhike it back to our cars. A great loop, but doing it 5 times back-to-back? Snooze.
The good news is that all my flubs REALLY fueled my bike. I came out of the gates and dropped Kim like a bad habit. She is a strong cyclist, but I had plenty of pent up frustration that she didn’t.
Three hours later, I finished up one of my fastest long rides ever. Not a bad way to end a morning, eh? And it was all held together by a piece of trash inside my wheel…
With all the mess that went on, I decided that my bike must be upset with me for not taking her outside enough lately. To try and make it up to her, I outfitted her with a brand new front tire and gave her a full on wash, degrease and lube job. Hopefully we are back on solid ground…
| Posted in Cycling, Training Log, Triathlon | 5 Comments »
