Two Wheel Blogs

Man I hate these things.

I woke up this morning and noticed my rear tire was flat. Odd, it was holding just fine last night as we rode for 2 hours?

What is even worse, I could find no explanation as to why it was flat. The bike was secure in my locked garage last night, and there was no evidence that anyone tampered with it. I expected to find a sharp puncturing my new tire and tube but inspection revealed nothing out of the ordinary. I even went to the extent of submerging the tube in water to reveal the leak.

I reinstalled everything and it has held nicely for 2 hours, so I ought to be happy right? Why is that not the case?

I suppose this is just an extension of the bizarre ride I had last night. Everything seemed strange.

I was riding along at one point and noticed a bird flying next to me (it was a nice section where we were holding a very fast pace). All of a sudden the bird that seemed to be perfectly matching my speed for the last few hundred meters changed course and crossed in front of me. I bowed my head and prepared for impact. Luckily there was no great impact but I heard what sounded like wingtips brushing the top of my helmet!

About a half hour later I noticed a squirrel drinking from a puddle in the road. I thought little of it until it decided to leave the puddle and attempt to cross in front of me (through my lane). This would have been fine, but it did that squirrel stutter step that a frightened rodent does at times before lunging ahead. I suppose the squirrel's judgment was good since technically it made it to the other side of the road, but to say it was a near miss would understate the situation. I was looking over my bar tops as the animal passed and could see the leading edge of my tire several inches ahead of the mid-section of the rodent at the point when it was directly in front of the tire's contact patch. I was bracing for impact, but I never took my eyes off that luck sucker. I am happy to report the impact never came.

Finally, as we were only minutes away from the end of the ride I felt something hit my chest. It felt a lot like what I would expect getting hit by a tennis ball would feel like. I looked down to see a hornet stuck to the front of my jersey (perhaps dazed from the impact). I let out one of those particularly non-masculine screams as I frantically swatted the bug away. The other riders got a nice laugh out of that one.

I was happy to finish the ride unscathed, so I suppose I should not be so unhappy about this mystery flat considering that while the tire may have a yet-to-be-found puncture, at least it is a tire and not my body!

Have a great weekend!