Muse back!
March 22, 2008 / Saturday
So Much For Planning
So the plan was to do a test ride of the race routes at Fort Ord today. Of course, the thing with planning is that what you plan often doesn't end up happening. Aaron's some sort of sick, and I'm waging something of an internal war against either whatever Aaron has or pollen. Add to that the fact that I've been too lazy to load the race route onto my GPS (or figure out how to use my GPS, for that matter), and our Ford Ord plans went out the window.
Despite feeling tired and sore, I wanted to do at least a small ride, so I headed over to Fremont Older, a.k.a. the closest hilly dirt trails from home. I pushed hard, and was able to reach the usual landmarks faster than I normally do. I even dared to ride down the steep little section of trail I avoided all last season. So far, so good.
I felt like I was breathing really hard, and that my heart was beating really fast, but I have no idea because my stupid HRM doesn't pick up my HR properly anymore. Pfft!
So yeah, I felt kinda crappy (I was feeling a little nauseated, too), but I pushed on. I went up all four peaks and then hit the Toyon Trail from the top. The top section of that trail is in terrible condition right now; there were deep ruts running along some of the steeper sections, which forced me to ride down them much lighter and faster than I usually do. Not wanting to die is good training!
Then, right after clearing the gnarly rutted downhill section, my front tire blew off the rim. I stared at the now-gigantic tube that had squirted out. WTF??
I flipped my bike over and fixed it up. But now I had a problem: I no longer trusted my tire. Going uphill was fine, but if that happened again on a fast downhill I'd be toast. Really, really broken and scraped up and bloody toast. Maybe dead toast. Not in any condition to do anything toast. I didn't want to be toast.
Not trusting your wheels is terrible training. I took the least technical route possible back to the parking lot and rode my brakes all the way down the normally wide and speedy downhills. Overall, I got a workout (at least it feels that way, but it's probably because I'm not feeling well), but my numbers for the ride are all screwed up now. Pfft again.
So here's the new plan: I'll get different tires for my bike, start taking Claritin, get to know my GPS, and go for a ride at Fort Ord next weekend.
You know what's lame? I just put these tires on a week and a half ago. Today was their second ride ever! Stupid me for buying them because they have pretty red sidewalls (and what I thought were decent reviews). I'm going to slap some Specialized knobbies on there instead.
March 22, 2008 04:13 PM | Mountain
Comments
Ooh, they are purty, though. Damn their purty red sidewalls!
Posted by: Jennie at April 4, 2008 01:06 PM