How many to fix a flat? One to watch, one to film (film?) and 3 disinterested

IMG_7972flatAnother nice morning, still just barely warm enough to not have to consider leg warmers, but that won’t last. Karl, Eric, JR, George, Kevin… anyone missing? A few of the regulars are off in Europe doing a non-sanctioned week-long race in the mountains, including pilot Kevin and Mark P. But hey, we’ve got George, 3rd place mountain biker in his age group at the World Championships!

Fairly easy pace up Kings; Kevin’s still adjusting to a change in his meds so he’s a bit of a late starter. Works for me! At least for a little while; by the time we got to West Old LaHonda, a few minutes after George took off ahead of us (he’s 3rd place mountain biker in the world, so we let him do things like that from time to time, just to keep his image up), Kevin decides it’s time to go and takes after him. Whoa, where did that come from, as he goes flying past me! He almost caught George; Kevin says he came within 20 feet or so on the final steep pitch up to Skyline.

Oh, that flat tire? That was Karl’s; he’d picked up a “Michelin wire” somewhere (a “Michelin wire” is what you get when a steel belted radial car tire is driven too long and the steel mesh gets shredded on the roadway, leaving little bits of steel wire waiting for a bike tire to puncture). And his spare tube? Not adequately protected in his seat pack, so it, too, was flat. Kevin ended up loaning him two cartridges and a tube. Too bad; before his flat we were finally running on a normal schedule!






Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *