The day started out kind of chilly. I was dressed almost perfect for the mid 40's start and enjoyed the rapid ramp in temp. I did find myself somewhat overdressed by the end of the ride and found a cool new useful trick. I recently read that a standard toe clip strap can be very useful as a tie down/strap for holding thing on a bike. I had been carrying a small bunge cord but swapped it out for the Toe strap. When I peeled off the tights I was able to roll them up and strap them to my aero bars with the toe strap. It worked really well. Stable, and out of the way.
On my return home, I have a grueling hill to ascend right before my house. I was tired from the ride and was mentally preparing myself for the hill for about 5 miles as I approached it. I got a good start and was making my way up when I became distracted by yet another flippin flat.... the front was going down. Now, I have had a huge number of flats on these tires. So many that in the last 1000 mile I have had more flats than in 14ooo prior miles. I had swapped out hte rear tire several weeks ago for an older tire since it had flatted the most. But now the front flatted. All of these have been small objects picked up and slowly driven through the tire into the tube. I blame it on the soft sticky nature of these tires (Continental UltraSports). This time it was a small bit of metal wire.... like a staple.
(Its the u shaped thing towards the center of the tire). Anyway, the flat came about halfway up the hill and I was determined not to stop on the hill so I powered up the hill, flat and all and stopped at the top to add air for the last mile to my house.Funny, as I was pumping the tire up, another rider came up the hill, a friend from my office. It is a small world.
Today put me over 700 miles YTD. An excellent start over my usual YTD progress.
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