Two Wheel Blogs

Last night Peat, Switzerland, and I met up for a lap around Binder for what we thought would be a hot but otherwise uneventful ride.

Now some of you may recall the last time that this group got together for a ride. Yes, it has been a long time since the three of us have ridden together, and it seems that the results were similar...

As I commented in my last post, we had a few problems. This entry gives the full story.

You may recall that on the Middlefork Epic, Switzerland (a.k.a. Cary) exploded a chain. I think he rode that bike once or twice since that technical was properly repaired. So we were a little surprised last night when we were not even 5 minutes into the ride and Switzerland was way off the back. We stopped and turned around to find him standing there with a broken chain in hand...unbelievable. Nothing we couldn't fix.

It was at this point that something sort of cool happened...I was wearing a jersey that I have not worn in a few years, and when I reached into the pocket to grab some tools to assist the repair, I pulled out two five dollar bills tightly rolled up. Found money is a great thing, on a ride is even better!

So back to riding we went. We got to the top of that first hill, and started to head down. I was leading and took off like a shot. I rounded the first curve and got a little sloppy and bounced off my line. Long story short, I blasted a hatchet head at full speed. As I descended the hill, I could hear the hiss-whip-hiss-whip-hiss-whip as the tire tried unsuccessfully to seal itself as I rolled at top speed. I pulled over and tried to assist the Stan's in sealing the tire (held the cut at bottom dead center). Nothing doing, a steady stream of white sprayed on to the trail. DANG! slapped in a tube and rolled on.

We rode a while before the next problem. It happened on Lakeside. Peat was in the lead, and I was second rider when he ran over a log (about 2 inches diameter). It flipped up and danced around on the trail in front of me. I figured it would lay down, but no...it was positioned at a 45 degree angle with the far end planted firmly and the other end raised pointed at my leg. A split second later it jammed into my ankle and skidded along my sweaty flesh gouging a nice puncture as it slid off the side of my leg. The lucky thing is it slid to the outside rather than towards my bike...wouldn't want to damage a wheel too you know...

A while later, we were returning along the Water's Edge section, and again a rider was off the back...this time it was Peat (seems he finally came up in the rotation). He had a simple puncture in the rear tire. Not much to say here other than we all acknowledged the fact that it was now Switzerland's turn and headed back cautiously (since we were all now out of spare tubes, CO2, and anything else we might need).

We made it back and were all smiling as the ride ended. I think we were all a bit sad actually. It is not very often that we get together for a ride, and even with the problems, we all had a great time. Hopefully, we will all get together again soon. The plan is to ride the Chubb middle of next month....I will bring more supplies for that one.

So that brings us to today. I have to fix this tire. No way I can run it tubeless with this half inch cut in the casing. Problem is, I have only 5 rides on this tire...can not let it go this early. So I am trying something new (to me). I patched the tire and reinstalled it tubeless. Here is a photo of the repair. So far it seems to be holding nicely! Gotta keep an eye on it to make sure that there is no bulging (indicating that the belts in the tire are separating). I used a two ply repair...so as long as the vulcanizing holds, the repair should work.