Remember kids if you get a flat during a ride patch or replace your spare tube before going out on your next ride. It’s probably for the best if you do that replacement the moment you get home.
I’ve been experiencing a rash of flats since Tuesday’s night ride. Always the rear and always slow. It happened again on Friday near the end of the ride, but thankfully close enough to Boots’ house for a quick tube swap and floor pump.
This morning the rear was going soft by the time I got to Via Inspirada and Las Vegas Blvd. I hit it with my portable inflator, but it only got me as far as St. Rose before it was low enough to warrant another top up. I nursed it until the Terribles at the corner of Starr and Las Vegas Blvd.
The last thing I wanted was to call up the wife for a pickup and have to add the dreaded “DNF” to my ride title. Thankfully I carry a patch kit with me on all my rides. I pulled into the Terribles and sat down on the sunny side of the building and got to work figuring out the issue.
After removing the wheel I broke the bead on the tire and removed the inner tube like I normally would. This time I was especially careful to remember the tube’s orientation within the tire which helped me to finally identify the culprit of my recent spat of flats. It seems there was a decent sized piece of glass embedded in the tire. It was deep enough to puncture the tube when inflated, but not pushing through the tire enough to be felt with a bare hand. I was only able to see it by going over the area meticulously.
With the glass removed and the patched tube ready to go I got everything put back together. I started the pump and hoped that it had enough juice to fully inflate the tire. It came up just short of the 75 psi I usually aim for, but only by a mere 10 psi. It would have to do for the remainder of the ride into the office, and it did.
At the office I took the time to top up the rear tire to 80 psi and also went about patching the tube in my repair kit. It had a hole in the same place as the tube from earlier in the morning. So I’m fairly confident that the issue is squared away.
I left work early to ride to my dentist appointment at 5:00. Along the way I came across a gem of a road find. I saw a book sitting in the road face down and I just couldn’t leave it behind. I picked it up and burst out laughing at the title. Second best road find to date.
The rest of the ride was nice. Leaving the office early made for a nice afternoon ride with the sun still up. Sadly the sun was long gone by the time I was done at the dentist’s office. The ride home from there was nice and I was even spotted by the little darling at the corner of Green Valley Pkwy and Horizon Ridge.
New bike fund: $118.85 (+$0.37), €1.52, ₱10.00, ֏10.00, CA$0.01
599 total shifts, 53 front, 546 rear. 63.6% of the ride in the big ring, 36.4% in the small ring. Most time spent in 36×21, 16% — by di2stats
276 vehicles @ 5.9 per mile, 1.6 per minute, Speeds: 34.5 mph (avg), 67.6 mph (max) — by MyBikeTraffic
Sunny-Cloudy, 54°F-59°F, Feels like 53°F-59°F, Humidity 62%-42%, Wind S 5mph-S 4mph — by Klimat
— myWindsock Report —
Weather Impact™: -0.5%
Headwind: 80% @ 8 – 9.9 mph
Longest Headwind: 07h 16m 6s
Air Speed: 7.4 mph
Temp: 55.8 °F
Precip: 0% @ 0 Inch/hr
— END —
Max elevation: 3056 ft
Min elevation: 1844 ft
Total climbing: 2024 ft
Total descent: -2078 ft
Total time: 11:58:59
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