Well I failed to heed several omens today and paid the price...
My plan was to take the road bordering the northern end of our country
subdivision (Ky 1156 ) down to the Kentucky river and come back on
Ky 169 which goes by the southern entrance to our subdivision, the total
trip is about 19 miles.
My bike is a Specialized Sequoia Comp with 700x25 clinchers.
The first warning was that I dressed to warmly...I was just getting ready
to start and decided that the windbreaker might be too much.
I came back and stashed the windbreaker.
I took off again and a couple of hundred yards down 1156 I felt that
something was wrong...
Turns out I did not have my gloves or my helmet on
Ok, back to the house and 'armored' up and took off again.
This time things went fairly well, 1156 has a bunch of 'rollers' that
did not impose too much of a burden on me.
1156 ends with the steepest hill in Madison county ( according to the lbs)
fortunately it is downhill in the direction I was traveling
Being a cowardly type I kept the speed down to about 35 mph with
a liberal use of the front and back brakes.
At the bottom of the hill ( about 8.5 miles) into the ride I stopped and
had some water and peanut butter cups. I pushed the bike across the
intersection with 169 and mounted the bike and started home...
After about 20 feet I felt a thump, thump. thump...
I unclipped ( hooray! ) and stopped the bike, the rear tire was flat.
I was filled with dread ( there is no cell service down by the river).
I used a plastic tire tool to remove one side of the tire and extracted
the tube. I could not find any problem with the tire and the initial examination
of the tire did not reveal any problems.
Upon closer inspection of the tire I found a small tear near the valve, I guess
the tube is toast. ( I had filled the tires to 120 psi just before leaving.)
I had a new tube with me and it took me what seemed like forever to get the
tube and tire back on the rim with hopefully no pinches.
All I had was 3 CO2 cartridges and a small filler head that I had never used
before.
I somehow botched the first cartridge... and most of the second cartridge...
For the third cartridge I mashed the filler head on the presta value and screwed
the cartridge on and got all of the last cartridge into the tire.
I remounted the tire on the bike ( it took a while to remember where the brake
release lever was located).
Hopefully the tube does not have any pinches, it was a 10 mile ride home with
a granny gear hill coming into the subdivision.
I understand that CO2 will not stay in the tire and that I will have to re-inflate
the rascal with 'real' air.
Any comments/suggestions?
Jerry