Was in a nice 250W SST groove this morning and my front tire blew out at ~32mph on a descent, after hitting a pothole. Just to prove that the bike gods were not out to smite me for being a d!ck (as many of you seem to think), I did not lose control and ground to a stop although it took what felt like forever, but was actually 23 seconds according to my data. During that time I was riding/sliding on my rims trying to get enough traction to stop and not fall over. The tube was wrapped around the axle so I had to remove the QR and untangle the mess. I checked the rim and tire and there was no indication of any damage, so put a new tube in, inflated it and was off again in about 6 minutes. Fortunately I had been making good time and still arrived to the group ride a few minutes early

The ride itself was fast, everyone said. I've been making pretty good power gains with my SST training and it felt pretty comfortable despite me being fairly active on or near the front. I must confess that I took the "B" route cutting out one of the climbs because the descent was really crappy and I had enough descending issues for one day. Interestingly it sounds like someone apparently flatted and almost caused an accident so I'm doubly glad I cut it out

Glad you weren't hurt umd.

I have also had a front blowout at high speed, mine from a particularly nasty piece of glass. The key is to brake with the other wheel and keep going as straight as possible. I think it also helps to have tires that fit tightly; mine were still on the bead when I finally came to a stop.

Man I'm glad you're ok, same thing happened to me but in the 20s in griffith park.

Mine came off the bead

Glad to hear you came out on the winning side of this one umd!

I gathered that. Good job keeping it upright!

Wow you're right the bike gods were with you; glad you're ok.

What tires were you running?

I hate the descent coming into the main portion of griffith park from the observatory if thats what you're talking about. Way too many people riding 4 or 5 wide and leaving the potholes free for me to run into. Pisses me off, especially like yesterday when a group didn't even say anything as they proceeded to block the only safe routes down the road.

Sounds severe. Nice recovery.

Actually it was off of Los Filez in the residential area. I had just finished the main descent from the observatory and was doing like 42 mph in front of The Greek just like 10 minutes before this happened. If it had happened then I would have been in the hospital no doubt.

Ahh. So...You kept going straight down from the observatory through the tunnel?
I usually ascend from travel town up over the mountain and then take a right up to the observatory, enjoy my propel, and head back down...making a left before the tunnel and hitting travel town on the way down.
Is there anything nice up that direction?

Specialized Mondo S-Works, 700x23. They are the tires that came with the wheels, and I liked the way they rode so I kept buying them...

Hey umd, are you the guy in this video?

On that particular ride i start in Burbank off burbank and hollywood way and go down riverside then up around travel town up the first hill and then i climb Mt. Hollyhood *cough* sorry Hollywood way and then up the final climb to the observatory parking lot. Then I go down around the front of the observatory and take the straight front in front of the Greek. Once you pass the Greek there is that road that goes left and around a golf course, it's blocked off at the end of it and goes into a residential area. You end up coming out on Los Feilez right where it intersects what I guess would be Riverside.

Very Nice. I enjoy those mountains other than the obvious goons. I saw a young gal with a track bike up at the observatory the other day and my legs started to hurt...

damn, thats f-ed up!

I really like climbing Mt. Hollywood, if they ever repaved that road it might be one of the best climbs in the city. I like descending it because the fact that there are potholes larger than my bike it forces me to have the highest concentration.

Pretty cool that you stayed up. I think you have had enough injuries for the year. You didn't trash the rim?

The only deflation I've had was riding up hill at about 15 kph. Fortunately it wasn't that dramatic. I wasn't riding with any spares at time (just doing a brief sprint around town) but coincidentally I rolled to stop approximately 100 feet from a local shop.

That could have easily gone with a very different outcome. Glad you are OK.

sorry to go off topic, but can someone explain SST training? FWIW I used the search function and google but neither was helpful.

Search for sweet spot training instead.

Sweet Spot, 85% to 95% of functional threshold power. Here was my workout today, I drew a line at 250W, or 93% of my FTP, and you can see most of the power graph concentrated around it. The descent starting around 28 minutes is too winding and narrow to maintain power (I would go too fast), and my tire blew out around 32:45.

Scary. Good job keeping your cool. No luck there.