Yesterday I rode my SART 200k starting at 5pm to try to beat the heat. There were mild Santa Ana conditions which reversed the normal wind flow for most of the ride so I got down to the turn around in Newport Beach in slightly over four hours - an excellent time for me.
The Newport Beach Café does not seem to be doing so well. They've reduced their hours and their shelves are largely empty. They no longer sell any sandwiches after the deli closes so I had to search hard for some calories. In the end I settled on a box of oreo cookies which wasn't exactly appetizing. I may have to find an alternative for when I do this ride at night in future. I also drank a can of Monster.
Obviously when I turned around I had a headwind so I where I was riding at 18mph on the way down I was struggling to hold 14mph on the way back. I kept waiting for the Monster and cookies to kick in but they took forever. It was at least 30 minutes before my energy level came back up.
At mile 22 on the return I decided to stop and use the restroom, top up my bottles, and eat an Odwalla bar. Let me describe an Odwalla Strawberry and Pomegranate protein bar to you. Imagine a bear had feasted on strawberries and pomegranates and then taken a huge dump. Someone comes along and press and shapes the crap into a bar and puts it in a wrapper. It tastes slightly of berries but that is about it. Also, it doesn't have the pleasant chewy consistency that I assume bear crap has - this bar has the consistency of drywall. On the plus side it has calories, it does speed me up, and I'll be regular for a month. Normally I like Odwalla but this particular bar won't be gracing my shopping basket again.
Continuing into the headwind I was descending Green River road towards Palisades when my rear tire blew out. I walk the bike to the next street lamp and get my flat gear out. Oops - I'm out of CO2 cartridges, I guess I'll have to use my pump. I put the new tire in and start to pump it up and part of the chuck blows out the back. It must have been damaged when it fell off the bike on the SLO 300k. So now I'm sitting by the side of the road at midnight with no way to inflate my tire. There's no point in calling the wife because she leaves her phone in the living room and we don't have a land line.
I had 30 miles to go and six and a half hours to complete the ride. I decided to finish the ride on the flat rear tire. It's really difficult to ride on a flat tire. It has far more drag (which is probably why we put air in them), it keeps sliding from side to side like it's on ice, and every tiny bump slams your butt (which is another reason we put air in them). After a while I felt comfortable riding at 8-10mph but that was the fastest I could safely ride.
Somehow, on the top half of the SART, the tube folded over on itself, creating a big lump in the tire and making a screeching sound like I was being following by a flock of angry seagulls. It drove me crazy and it couldn't have pleased all those transients sleeping under the bridges. It took me over four hours to complete the final 30 miles (remember I rode over 60 miles in the first four hours of the ride). I ended up with an 11:22 ride time. Not even my slowest 200k!
I'm sure I destroyed the tire treating it like that. I'm going to replace it with a Vittoria Randonneur tire. I need more CO2 cartridges and a new pump too. I hope the wheel is OK.
No comments:
Post a Comment