Earning My Stripes

With a race coming up just 3 weeks from now I desperately needed to get my butt in the saddle, but I was seriously lacking the motivation. The BF was also eager to ride but couldn't find it either; we pooled our mojo and found enough between us to get off the couch and onto our bikes Sunday afternoon.

Whenever I ride around town - which I have to do now because my favorite country ride is all hills and would blow my HR restrictions - I always end up taking the same safe, boring path around the same neighborhoods. Today was a blast because the BF grew up here, so she led me around the winding streets and showed me where the obscure little connections are that can take us just about anywhere in town without having to ride on the dangerous major roads.

We looped around town and then decided to catch a section of the bike trail for the trip back home; stopped at the light at the worst intersection in town I got my first "Get A Car!" from some idiot driving by.

I felt So Cool.

We continued on our merry way and were barely a mile from my house when I got my next first - a big ol' blow-out that announced itself with all the requisite fanfare. All my other flats have been slow leaks I found in the garage - this was my first full-fledged exploding flat on a ride.

The best part was that not 5 minutes earlier I'd had the thought "Gee, I haven't had a flat in like a year, I wonder if I'm tempting fate for the race?"

I didn't want to make my companion wait for my ridiculous slow version of changing a tire, so we called Wonderful Husband for a ride. We were close enough we'd normally have walked, but my options were barefoot or bike shoes so that wasn't happening. (Sidebar: She's so sweet and protective of the pregnant me she insisted walking between me and the cars when we were hoofing it to the nearby intersection where WH was picking us up.)

We dropped her off at her place, then I plopped down in my front yard and got down to the task at hand...

...but not before I managed to lay my bike down funny and the big chain ring tore a nice little hole in the top of my bare foot.

Slight pause for colorful language, THEN I turned my attention to the tire.


I must say I was quite pleased with the (relative) speed with which I dispatched with the changing of the tire. I'm finally starting to feel like I could do it out on the road, or even in a race.

Then came the moment of truth - using my brand spankin new CO2 cartridge gadget to fill the tire. Part of the reason I wanted to change the tire at home was that I'd never used the thing and was a little nervous.

I promptly - and by promptly I mean by the time I had the thought "that's starting to feel firm I should let up," maybe 3 seconds after pressing the button - made everything worse than when I blew out not just the new tube, but the tire as well, with my fancy schmancy CO2 gadget.

Good times. All I could think about was if I hadn't earned the title before, today I was a triathlete. And an efficient one at that - I managed to squeeze a whole season's worth of bumbling into a single afternoon!

Methinks I forsee a trip to the LBS in my immediate future.