Feelin' Stronger Every Day

I'd like to think that this title and it's lyric describes my riding, but I'm not sure of that. Anyway, that was the earworm for Saturday's ride: the 80  miler that shrank to about 70 after 6 mechanical issues delayed the whole procession by an hour.

First, I figured that an 80 mile ride would properly prepare us for the 111 mile ULCER this coming Saturday. That's about 75% of the total distance. Seemed reasonable. It also seemed reasonable to figure that a 25 km/h average speed would let us finish that 125 km ride in, well, 5 hours. So much for reasonable.

I will take credit for the first mechanical. I, cunningly, found a section of loose, sharp rocks hidden in a patch of shade on the shoulder of the road. At first I thought I snuck through it, until I got to the top of the hill and coasted for a second, feeling a strange cyclical breeze against my calf. Oops.

From there, however, it became the Phillip show. There was a flat back tire first. During that repair he noticed that his tire was getting thin, as in down to the threads. We rode further on faith and cotton thread,  until about 2 km past Taylor's Bikes. Then, Phillp flatted again; this time it was violent. The threads had given out. So I shared the rest of a Clif bar and we booted his tire for the ride back (uphill) to Taylor's. There he bought a new tire and tube (on borrowed credit -- always bring a credit or debit card on a ride). After putting his own new tire on, the shop inflated it for him. About a half hour later we were off again. That finished up mechanical 4.

At about km 80, we crested another small, steep climb and pulled over for a breather. Phillip cleverly noticed that his front wheel was out of true and was rubbing against his fork. After realizing that none of us had an adjustable wrench, we just put his wheel in off-center so it would stop the rub. Off we went for about 100 meters when we got the call of another flat from Phillip. Mechanical 6 had struck.

After that last delay, we had only a strong headwind to contend with for the next 20 km before we turned around for the final, truncated leg of the last lap.

Hopefully having that many problems on the last training ride portends having a safe, uneventful ride on the real event!

Here's to well-oiled machines and tailwinds!