Clydesdales/Athenas (200+ lb / 91+ kg) - What a ride today!!!

Today was a pretty neat day. I met up with Bonnie from the Philly Bike Club. She was a really neat person and she was the first one I rode with when I bought my road bike and started riding. When I rode with her over a month ago, I barely could keep up so it was really neat to ride with her today. All the rides got canceled except our ride which made it extra neat. There was no rain and the clouds were a little gray but not bad at all.

The ride was great at first. At about the 12 mile mark, I got a flat so we stopped and I fixed it. I just grabbed a new tube and put it in. Before I did that, I noticed that I picked up a pretty big staple from the road so I removed it. Made sure nothing else was on the outside or inside of the tired. Put in tube it, pumped it up and we were on our way.

The rain started and it poured. The other two stopped and put jackets on and such but it didnt phase me at all. I had no jacket and I didnt care. Being from Seattle and the fact that the weather was in the upper 70's I felt pretty damn good. We rode for a little longer and then the other guy that came iwth use didnt like the rain so he left. Just Bonnie and I. Road some more and then another flat. Crap. It was pouring down rain, no shelter in sight so I just sat on the gorund, took tired out, checked for sharp stuff, tried to patch it with self adhesive patches and put tire back together. Ride a little more and another flat. Damn it. Tire out, the orginal patch fell off, put another in and aired up. All air came out quickly. Found a small gas station and used there air, filled up and in seconds it was flat. So Bonnie called a frind to shuttle me back.

We rode 17 miles which was great and I learned alot.... some things include:

1) doesnt just rely on CO2. Sometimes they dont work (like today) so use a hand pump. Practice once with the co2 before going out!
2) glasses make life easier in the rain
3) If someone else is leading (at this point, the ride leader was sweaping for a few minutes so the other guy was leading) and doesnt use hand signalss, ask them nicely to please use signals. If they dont, over take them on the left and do it the right way.


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Wow, sounds worse than my "one of those days" from yesterday! Well at least you made it home. That's always a good ending!

this is true. Almost had to cal la taxi. I have no family and dont know many people out here yet so it could have been a bad time. Learned a lot though and had a great time.

Rain kills me - it seems that at least half the time I ride in the rain I get a nasty flat, nasty being a tiny splinter of glass that is very often really hard to find, especially because the rain makes it difficult to see where the glass got into the tire. The last time it happened, I couldn't find the glass, got the next flat 3 miles later, no other tube, decided to get a ride home since it was too wet to try to patch the flat.

CO2 is definitely a double-edged sword. I keep a frame pump on my bikes in case of problems. I found an eBay deal on a big box of cartridges (50), split it with a few friends. The first time I used one, I about froze my fingers off! The first cartridges I used had some insulation around them, but the bulk set did not. I fixed it by putting a piece of inner tube on the cartridges, it really helped.

the forst co2 I used didnt even work. crappy it was.

Rain kills me - it seems that at least half the time I ride in the rain I get a nasty flat, nasty being a tiny splinter of glass that is very often really hard to find, especially because the rain makes it difficult to see where the glass got into the tire. The last time it happened, I couldn't find the glass, got the next flat 3 miles later, no other tube, decided to get a ride home since it was too wet to try to patch the flat.

CO2 is definitely a double-edged sword. I keep a frame pump on my bikes in case of problems. I found an eBay deal on a big box of cartridges (50), split it with a few friends. The first time I used one, I about froze my fingers off! The first cartridges I used had some insulation around them, but the bulk set did not. I fixed it by putting a piece of inner tube on the cartridges, it really helped.
If I'm not mistaken, the insulation can be moved from the used cartridge to a new one. That's why they don't put it on all of them.