that’ll be $1 (plus material fees)

My long Fourth of July weekend is over. During the weekend I went on to great rides, saw some great fireworks, and otherwise woke up early all three days (what was I thinking?) to check the weather.

Friday’s ride was a lovely, 68 mile loop out of Damascus, MD. The weather looked ominous, with low, dark clouds and wet roads from the previous night’s rain. The ride leader even backed out of riding the course, though she signed us in and handed out cue sheets.

She missed out on a heck of a ride! The wet roads weren’t much to speak of, and they dried by mile 10. From there, it was a lot of rolling terrain through the hills of Maryland. I ended up riding with a few guys from ABRT, and we set a fast pace throughout the ride. The predicted rain ended up being 50-or-so drops over the course of a 15 minute period – trivial, at best.

The fireworks were fun to watch down at Kennedy Center. While security initially nagged sprite and me about our bikes (we kept them with us and didn’t get harassed after the initial encounter with the rent-a-cops), we enjoyed the view (and the rain). You could feel the explosions, and the reflection of the sound off the marble walls of the Kennedy Center was really cool to experience.

Saturday’s radar looked a bit wet, and the plan for a ride in the Blue Ridge Mountains fell apart. Jonathan and Chris ended up riding Mt. Weather….

…. in partly cloudy skies! Bugger! But that’s OK, as I needed the rest, and got to see not only the Wimbledon ladies’ final (Williams beat Williams) and the first stage of the Tour de France. Oddly enough, both the tennis and the cycling finished within 60 seconds of each other, which was odd synchronicity. And in the afternoon, sprite and I went to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival (best part: the temple from Bhutan; otherwise, a bit of a letdown compared to previous years).

Sunday’s weather looked dreary, but not very wet, so I headed up to Laytonsville to ride a fast, rolling 67 mile loop with a bunch of the PPTC gang. The ride leader hadn’t expected such turnout, so he was caught short of cue sheets. So for the first 22 miles, we rode as a pack and called out directions – what a blast! After the first rest stop, we all had cues (thank you, photocopier!).

We continued, with me helping pace the front group with Joyce, Ira and Hugo. We were having a blast, and I wasn’t pushing too high an effort.

But at mile 36, on Ijamsville Road, I rode through some nasty glass and PFFFFFFFfffffff……

Falt tire, due to a clean, 11 millimeter cut from the center of the tire to the left flank.

Bugger!

So I pulled off the road, with friends there to help. Thanks to teamwork, we managed to get my tire booted with two self-adhesive patches and a dollar bill from my wallet. We put in a new tube, pumped gently up to 70-ish PSI (any more and the hole bulged precariously), and got back on the road.

And lemme tell ‘ya: a tire that’s built to ride with 120 PSI is a challenge to ride at 70 PSI! I had to keep an eye on my line to avoid any big bumps, dips or rocks. I couldn’t rock the bike too much, back and forth, so standing to climb or sprint was out of the question. I had to take it easy on the downhills and not hammer the uphills. I had to be very careful on left turns, given the cut wasn’t mended, so much as temporarily covered from the inside, and the tire’s structure was mortally compromised. This combination of factors led to two things:

1. I rode really smoothly for the rest of the ride (including the longest climbs of the ride); and
2. Because I couldn’t stand, my back was really, really sore by the end of the ride.

I think part of the latter was due to the fact that those of us who performed tire surgery skipped the second rest stop, though I did keep nourished and hydrated throughout the ride.

So my tire repair cost me a dollar bill from my wallet – plus material fees of approximately $42 (new tire and tube, plus tube patches used to help seal the cut in the old tire).