Good ride today — a strong pace with the Saturday crew over to Riverside to meet up with some other clubs and groups, and then off on the fast part of the loop. I usually get dropped fairly quickly, but today I hung in much longer. I wasn’t planning to, as I was really going for an easier day. But as I started to drop off a friend gave me a push and said “You’ve got this!” and then I couldn’t just drop off and do my own thing. So I worked a bit harder than planned. A few miles later I did get dropped, but the group hit a light and I got on again for a couple more miles. Then I was perfectly content to turn off and do my own thing, which usually means meeting back up with the group at the end of the speedy loop for the ride back to Redlands.
So we met up, and refueled at the gas station. Usually just water for me, but I was actually feeling hungry so grabbed a Gatorade and a Snickers, and let Mike know that I had gone harder than planned and so would be going a bit easier than usual on the ride home. He stuck with me, even though I said he could just keep going with the group. But we had a nice calm ride towards home.
And then almost at the top of one of the last climbs, pftssssssssssssssss and my back tire was flat. We pulled off, and I set about changing it (he is faster, and I let him help if the group is waiting as they do on the way over, but on our time I get to practice). Looking for what caused the flat, I noticed it was the rim — the rim tape was really out of place and even broken in spots. Makes sense… I had grabbed the wheels I rarely ever use since my favorite wheel still has the disc cover on from Barb’s. So I had a dollar bill boot, and then needed another, and the snickers wrapper in my back pocket was perfect.
So thanks snickers bar, I’m home now, and it was a good ride 🙂