30 mile ride in 1 minute

Coach Jen had me scheduled for a 4 hour ride yesterday. I was PUMPED!

I mapped a killer route from my house north to the Wisconsin border & back. It’s part of a 112 mile route I want to ride later this season.

There were problems with my ride from the beginning, like not sleeping because of being up with a sick kid all night. But I still got on the my Felt DA4 as planned at 6am, just as the sun was starting to come up. It was really cold… like 32 degrees cold. I was layered up & ready to ride!

The wind from riding was cutting right through me.

About 10 miles in POP! … front tire blew. I made a quick change, or as quick as I could… My fingers were numb. Once I was back on the road I was trying to think about ANYTHING other than how cold I was… After about 5 more miles I got another distraction… POP! Front tire again. I used my last spare to fix it and started on my way… I was only 50 minutes in!

As I rode and froze, I started thinking what would happen if I blew a 3rd tube? I was on farm roads riding by myself. I’d be stranded. Thats when I made the executive decision to head back home.

I was pissed. Ok well not THAT pissed, It was freezing. I figured I could ride the trainer inside for the remaining 2 hours.

So just when I figured it couldn’t get ant worse, the bike began to feel mushy… there was a slow leak in the rear. Luckily there was enough CO2 left in the pump to get me home. Well there went my trainer ride.

I was really excited to do that ride, I’m going to have to give that route a try again next Saturday!

I mounted my Contour HD camera on my bike to shoot a video of the ride. Take a look!

SIDE NOTE: Later that afternoon I was telling a friend about how horrible the ride was & that I couldn’t even finish on the trainer cause of the rear tube leak. Then he made me feel like an idiot by saying

“Don’t you have a 2nd Felt tri bike and your Madone? Why didn’t you use one of those on the trainer?”

Because I’m and idiot and it didn’t dawn on me.