Friday Can Blow Me

You know how some weeks start out really well, you get a good ride in early on and you expect great things for the week?  Well, that was me last week.  Tuesday I hit the Brunswick road ride, suffered like a dog for three hours and felt content knowing that I'd be hitting another three hours at the Camden Snow Bowl on Thursady and then another ride or two on the weekend bringing me to a solid 8-10 hours for the week.  That WOULD be good if it actually happened that way.  Because of one thing or another my Camden ride got pushed back until, finally, on Friday I made it over.  In the lot I ran into Trevor, a blog lurker and almost never commenter, who had strategically timed his ride to avoid running into me not knowing that the sunny day and Friday-ness of the day had me sneaking out of the office early to get my riding fix.

I conned Trevor into riding with me which was a good thing because I was riding on my newly mounted Racing Ralphs and had forgotten my pump.  In the lot, the front tire was perfect but the rear tire was a bit slack so I added more with the floor pump I always carry in the car.  Immediately onto the trail, the front tire started to get slack and I was forced to bum a pump off trevor to fill it up twice before the top of the climb.  I topped off again at the top and hoped, hoped that the tire would be fine for the long downhill.  I was already a bit "off" because I was riding new tires and had forgotten my gloves but I tried to put those things out of my head during the plunge down the front side of the mountain.  Immediately, things felt weird so I told Trevor that my ride plan had just changed from four race loops to a single loop since things didn't feel right and it's never smart to ride like that.  Not two minutes later, as I was taking a tight hairpin downhill turn, I burped the front tire and supermanned it onto the trail ahead of me.  Did I mention that I wasn't wearing gloves?  Well, the two reasons I like gloves is that they keep my grip on the bars secure (no sweat to grease things up) and for over the bar falls when your hands hit first.  To add insult to injury, my left hand was already sporting two abrasions from an episode of chicken/thunder storm rescue the night before (story tomorrow) and, AND I smashed my camera that was residing in my new baggy shorts, got my new shorts dirty and stove up my leg.  Drat.

I tried airing the tire up one more time, burped it immediately, threw in the towel and walked to the bottom of the mountain.  FAIL!  That was close to two hours of driving for a 40 minute ride and 10 minute walk.  Yippee!

I couldn't see what was on my camera but I was able to snap a pic of Trevor as he rode off into the sunset.

Saturday, I spent a bunch of time messing with my tires, adding more stans, shaking them like Michael J Fox and airing them up again and on Sunday went out for a quick spin to make sure things were cool.  Thankfully, they seem to be now.

 Ralph's in their natural environment.

 My new Mavic shorts.  Review to come.

Tonight, Monday, I'm going to try the Bowl again.  The race there is this weekend so I need a few "get to know you laps" before Sunday.  If you don't hear from me by morning, send help.

Note: all photos in this post were taken without the luxury of a camera screen.  They are all taken blind and, somehow, look no worse (possibly better) than my usual pics.  maybe things aren't all bad...