Lesley and I had planned to go hiking on Saturday, we had planned on spending a day enjoying the last of summer warmth and sunshine, instead, it rained. Rain sucks. We spent much of the day sleeping and grocery shopping, not exactly the romance I had hoped for. Best of all I slept so much I had all kinds of trouble sleeping Saturday night.
Sunday was a group ride with the BCC, as I mentioned earlier I was the ride 'helper'. Which I took to mean, I ought to ride with the slower pack. Which was fine, up until the point where someones tire blew out, perhaps 2km into the ride. Now replacing the tube went reasonably smoothly except for some bizarre reason that I cannot explain I just knew that tire was going to cause more problems. I should have said something, I don't know why I did not, because sure enough, at about 35km into the ride, at Elgin Mills and Regional Road 30 that same tire failed again. This time a patch was attempted, it did not work, then someone else threw their spare tube in, it had a hole in it, then someone else donated a tube to the cause and we were fine. Just prior to the tube failure I had started my own little break away, there was a steep hill and I wanted an easy ride to the top. It was after I got to the top someone else caught up with me and told me that so-and-so's tube had failed.
I would like to quickly enumerate here (this was one person's tire problems for one ride):
- change of tube 2km into ride
- patch at 35km
- patch does not work, change tube again
- new tube has a hole in it, change tube again
Of course to make sure we were suffering appropriately, it was around the same time we got that second tube working that the sky started to open up a crack. We decided to cut the ride short and head west on Elgin Mills. It seemed, from looking at the sky, that the rain was in a tight cell that was centered on Elgin Mills, just west of us, so I had the pack steer North to Stouffville Rd and then west on Stouffville. It was a good call, we got a couple drops of drizzle but not much rain.
We made it to Unionville and stopped for coffee when the sky opened up and rain really started with force. I have decided that riding in the rain is not fun, especially when it is cold. There is something even less fun than riding in the rain though, that is being the looser who rides over a piece of metal or glass or whatever it was that slashes a tire and causes yet another tube problem, when it is a nice day changing a tire is perfectly reasonable thing to do, but when its raining and muddy, changing a tube sucks the big one.
It sucks to change a tube even more when the first tube explodes during inflation. It sucks to change a tube even more when it is your own bloody tube on your own bike! And it sucks still more when the second replacement tube does not even get you home and you are stuck taking shelter from the rain in a bus shelter until your wife can come out and pick you up. At least one person was kind enough to wait with me until Lesley came out and rescued me. That made the wait so much more pleasant, if I was not so darn cold I probably would not have minded the whole experience so much, but with all the tube failures, three of my own and four of the other guy (who will remain nameless on this blog) it was a pretty frustrating day. The rain certainly did not help, the best part, the weather report, which I checked prior to the ride, looked fine.
Here is the route I took on Sunday, in high definintion or see below.
To top off the whole experience, last night I was showing a friend how to install a replacement tube, the tube was not installed correctly, the tire blew during my morning commute to work. Oddly when I checked, by applying weight and bouncing the back wheel the tire seemed fine, it was only when I got into work and pinched the tire I realised I was riding a flat, even during the ride itself everything seemed reasonably smooth. I seem to have bad luck with tires these days.
No comments:
Post a Comment