A week in review

It has been an odd week of training etc with some weather not being real friendly, being out of town this weekend, and flats... unfortunately I am not talking about the stretch of road you can just hammer out.

Last week I did my first group ride... well sort of. I started the ride with about 15-20 people who are also participating in the MS150 I got my new road bike assembled and ready to ride. We took off and stopped at the first light. After crossing the intersection, We moved onto the road. I saw a bus behind us and knew he was getting close to my position so I tried to give him room since at this point there was no labeled shoulder I got to the right. All of a sudden I see a storm drain, this one happens to have the grates running parallel to the road, not the typical one that is perpendicular which can still be a nightmare for bikers. At this point the bus is now along side me and I did not have room to get left of the grate. I do the only thing I can think of, I pop the front tire up and wheelie over it, but did not get my weight forward enough and the back wheel lands in the grate and I hear a loud CLUNK! Then I feel myself pulling backwards as the wheel starts to slide back into the grate. I push hard on the pedals and somehow get forward out of it as I feel myself starting to lean, quickly unclip to hear PSSSSSSSSSTTTT!

My first group ride... foiled by a flat. I was running my HED Jet 60 rear with Powertap, and did not have a spare 80mm valve tube with me. Time to turn around and head to the bike shop and see if they have a tire. Luckily I was only 3/4 a mile away, I took off my shoes and walked barefoot back. They changed the tube, 9 dollar tube, and 8 dollars to install.

I ended up biking back and making it about 11.5 miles before meeting my group coming back, so I turned around and got another 12 miles in with them. Friday, I was messing around with the bike and noticed a large bulge in the rear tire. Wondering if I damaged the tire too would have been my luck. I let the air out to find that the tube was pinched under the tire/rim thus causing the bulge, but I fixed it and inflated, all seemed well.

We got home last night and I swapped the wheel back to the P2, go about 13 miles out and turned around, feeling very slippery on the back end, I stop and clip out. Yep its flat again. After calling my wife to come pick me up (yet again with no kit) I decided I will be buying valve extenders and not messing around with the long valve stems any longer.

Keep tuned for a few reviews in the near future... 2 different items with a few different clues as a teaser:
- Rhymes with a popular search engine
- Recovery Time
- ANT+

I also just realized I never posted my Garmin 310xt Review. Look for that as well as a review of the Garmin Forerunner 50 in the next week or so.