Saturday, May 10, 2008

Today Was Supposed To Be A Long Ride!!! Arrgh!!

It's great that the weather is nice enough now in Grande Prairie to ride outside. It was still a little cool at 9am when Amber and I headed out to highway 40 for our Saturday ride. I was hoping to finally start working on my endurance and get in at least 120km but it just wasn't in the cards today. I sliced open my new $90 rear tire and although I should know better, I've been using my race wheels until I could buy a new one.

I went out feeling really good and not pushing too hard and I was managing to hold a good pace. I could see some rain clouds coming in from the west so I decided to make the turn north to try and avoid them. Highway 723 to Valhalla Centre doesn't have a lot of traffic but it is a little rough and I think the constant pounding and little rocks were too much for my warn rear tubular. I could feel it slowly going flat, aaarrrrggghh! And of course I didn't have a spare! I was 46km into the ride and I thought it wasn't that bad and a CO2 should fix the problem. I used one and it seemed to do the trick but I wasn't taking any chances so I headed toward home. Unfortunately it only did the trick for about 5kms and I was forced to use my second and last CO2. About that time Amber "sensed" something was wrong with me and gave me a call, thank God because I left her a couple messages with no answer. I was riding on a flat by the time I saw her and she gave me her two CO2 cartridges to get me a little closer to home.

I was still 40kms away and I knew I wouldn't make it back but I was determined to get as far as possible. I left Amber and put the hammer down, pushing as hard as I could on highway 40 (a much smoother riding surface) and I think it helped because I was able to go about 15kms until I needed the last CO2. I kept pushing and I half thought I would make it home but my luck ran out at the 80km point, damn. I was still 12kms from town and was forced to walk, oh well 12kms is not too bad. AD passed me 2kms into the walk and I walked another 2kms until she retrived the car and picked me up, thanks babe. I'm really fortunate to have a great training partner, I owe you one.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

It is good to have training partners that have that "sense" hey? Yikes ... I wouldn't know what to do that far out...probably sit down and cry.... Oh well, lesson learned hey? Next weekend can only be better...

Too bad you guys can't make it out to the Mecca May long...but plan for something later in the summer hey?