Bruce From Chicago Has Nothing On Me

Yesterday, I rode 70 miles on an organized ride, the Huntington Bike Club's Gold Coast Ride. It was extremely challenging, with lots of climbing and high temperatures. Nevertheless, I did pretty well.

But the interesting thing about the day was that I (almost) changed three tires for the same rider...not me!

I arrived for registration few minutes before 7. As soon as I got out of my car, I saw two riders from the Alyn Ride. They asked me if I knew how to change a flat. One of them, Billy, had suffered a blowout while inflating his tires prior to the ride.

Amazingly, I changed his tire in just a couple of minutes. Bruce from Chicago (penultimate paragraph) has nothing on me.

Billy, Charlie (the other Alyn rider) and I decided to ride together. We were a good match; all strong riders but not insanely strong. I was faster on the flats and a much better descender and they were better climbers. Around mile 25, Billy picked up a stray rider, Jen, who was also very strong but riding alone. Everything was going smoothly until mile 40.

Boom. Billy rode over a big pothole and blew out two tires at once. Yikes.

We pulled over and I took out my tools again.

I very quickly got his front tire fixed and started working on his rear tire. He had run out of spares but luckily (or so I thought), I had brought a couple of tubes so was able to give him one of mine. I pulled out his busted tube and started to insert the spare, valve first. Houston, we have a problem.

Billy has very fancy Zipp wheels. The problem with the Zipp (as you may be able to tell from the picture) is that it requires an extra long valve to reach through the wheel. Unfortunately, all of our tubes were standard.

Billy tried flagging down passing riders but no one admitted to having extra long valves. In the meantime, I tried patching the blown tube but the hole was not conducive to a patch.

In other words, Billy was screwed.

He called the sag van and we rode on.

30 uneventful miles later, we met back up with Billy at the parking lot.

Morals of the story:

1. Don't ride over potholes.

2. Don't buy fancy wheels; you're not that good anyway.

3. If you are going to buy fancy wheels, bring a whole bunch of spare tubes.