Muse back!
August 09, 2006 / Wednesday
Interesting Ride
"Interesting" in this case would be a euphemism for, "Holy crap, how many things went wrong today?"
I'm sure I missed a few, but here's what I remember.
1. My hydration pack is kaput. It drip drip drip drip dripped when I filled it up at the office before the ride. It was really hot out, though, and I had no other containers for water, so I decided to deal with the drip and use it anyway.
2. There is a strange squeak coming from my bike. I tried to isolate it before our ride, but no luck. Maybe the crank, maybe the rear gears or hub. No biggie. At least not compared to all the things that went wrong on Victor's bike.
Today was Victor's first ride. He purchased his bike used from a coworker (I think) a while back and never got around to riding it. Or to tuning it up. That made for an interesting first ride.
3. Victor's front brakes were on. On, as in, they rubbed against the rim, and it took a good 10-15 minutes to adjust them before we took off.
4. Victor's toe clips didn't fit his foot. He turned them over and they scraped the ground when he turned. We stopped and I took them off this bike before we reached the hills. I bungeed them to my leaky hydration pack.
Speaking of my hydration pack, my lower back and ass were pretty soaked at this point. With ice water. Good thing it was hot out.
5. Three police cars, two firetrucks, and an ambulance came down the hill. Er, that's St. Joseph's hill. We should have taken that as a sign.
Victor and I eventually made it to the trails and onto the first landing, where Wayne and Veronica were waiting. We continued uphill in reorganized staggered groups. I went to the top and headed back down, where I met Wayne at the first junction. I convinced him to ride down the hilly bumpy windy trail with me.
6. Wayne successfully rode all the difficult parts of the hilly bumpy windy trail and then pulled a muscle trying to clip out while falling on a really boring part of the trail. Good job, me, for convincing him to ride it.
On a side note, (much) later I dared him to ride down a flight of concrete steps, but Veronica thought we'd had enough bad luck in one day and said no.
Anyway, after Wayne stretched out his pulled muscle, we rode around the corner and saw Victor and Veronica stopped on the trail. Veronica was working on Victor's bike.
7. The chain broke on Victor's bike. Veronica reconnected the link, but it was warped, so I suggested we remove the warped link. By then it was starting to get dark, and no one could get the pin through the links. Then it got darker. And darker. Finally we decided to just coast the bike back down the hill. We got ready to go.
8. Wayne's rear tire was flat. I figured it was a slow leak, so I whipped out the pump and filled it back up. No time to fix; we needed to get off the moutain, and fast.
By this point, my bike shorts were completely soaked with ice water. And it wasn't hot out anymore. And water was streaming down my legs and into my shoe. And I had been standing around for a long time. And there's not much exertion to be had going downhill (but lots of cold wind), which was all we had left.
We rode back down the trail slowly. It got darker and darker as we went, and toward the bottom everything just looked dark grey to me. I rode in the back to make sure we didn't lose Victor, and the only way I could see him was by looking at his white socks.
Finally, we made it back into town. We had no headlights, Victor had no chain, and Wayne had a leaky tire. Veronica called her husband, who came and picked us and our bikes up in their gigantic truck. Phew.
I think it's time for me to start carrying a master link. And maybe some lights.
August 9, 2006 11:14 PM | Mountain
Comments
And replaced your hydration bladder. ;-)
REI has a good selection
Posted by: Shadow at August 10, 2006 09:37 AM
Holy crap, did you know hydration bladders cost $30?! I might as well buy a new hydration pack!
Posted by: Viv at August 10, 2006 04:06 PM
Is it possible that it's like my new one and there's a stupid 'nut' on the opening that can screw itself up and prevent the lid from closing?
If not that, then you might want to check out http://www.campmor.com/. Good folks, good prices.
Posted by: Jennie at August 11, 2006 11:26 AM