(See the post from 5/4/10 for Audax 200K details)
There was a time when I seemed to break chains a lot. I finally figured out that if I stopped “power shifting” this didn’t happen. Chains can take an enormous amount of power, but they don’t react well to impact.
Then I went through the “Time of many flats.” I sort of thought that was just the nature of the beast. But just as I was starting to notice that most of the folks I rode with didn’t seem to have this problem, I had that day. I started out for a nice Summer afternoon ride. I deserved that ride. More, I needed it.
I got about a mile into my ride when my front tire went soft. I pulled off the road, and went to work. I found the leak, marked it, and checked the tire. I removed the offending hunk of debris, and completed the repair.
The next flat occurred about a mile and a half later. I wasn’t too worried. I had started with two spare tubes. This time it wasn’t a puncture. Or at least I couldn’t find anything in tire. But there was a definite hole in the tube. Not a big one, but it was there.
I was getting pretty hot from standing in the sun and pumping tires, but I completed the repair.
At mile five, the rear went down again. Okay. Deploy patch kit. Patch a punctured spare. Look up at the sky and say, “I get the message. I’m going home now.”
The fourth flat occurred about a mile later.
The fifth flat happened when I was still a mile from home. I walked the final mile, dragging the bike with me. As I recall I didn’t get on the bike for a week after that.
I did eventually learn that quality tires, good tubes (not the ones from the department store), and proper inflation took care of this problem. I go years between flats. I did double flat on a brevet a few years ago. But that’s another story.
There was the day I was riding in the mountains. Solo. I was underprepared, and starting to bonk. I needed water. I had no idea where I was, or how far it might be to services. I found an open store, in the middle of nowhere. I had just walked out side and sat down with my meager purchases, when…
A car passed by. It had a bike on the roof rack. The car stopped sharply just beyond the store, reversed and pulled in. Two grinning people emerged. “Steve!” The leader called.
Here were a couple of folks I hadn’t seen in ages!
“Yeah. We came up for some mountain biking, but it got rained out,” One said.
“Rain?” I replied, looking up at the hot sunny sky.
“Yeah, the other side of the mountain, it’s pouring!” came the reply.
So suddenly I had a reunion with old friends, a ride back to civilization, and an escape from an afternoon and evening of torrential rain.
It’s true. Ride long enough, and good or bad, everything happens to you.
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