Worst Training Ride Ever

I have this weekday 'cross training ride that I like to do whereas I ride the cross bike up from downtown Portland up through the hills to Skyline. I then ride North for a mile or so and drop into Forest Park via Firelane three - From there I ride Lief Erickson trail (dirt road) back into town. This 14 -15 mile ride takes me about 50 minutes which makes it a great lunch time ride. On this particular day I had 90 minutes between meetings...

Well this Thursday I met my friend Matt at the base of Lovejoy (the road up to Skyline). He was on his mountain bike as he has not yet been indocternated into all that is 'cross. (Poor Neophyte).

Anyway, all went well until we dropped into Firelane three. This is a pretty fast 2 mile descent that I think drops 800 feet or so. On a mountain bike it is pretty tame however on a rigid skinny tired cross bike it is kind of hair ball.

I hit something pretty hard with my front wheel and it started skipping when I used the brakes... Shortly after the front tire went out. Luckily I was carrying a spare and a pump. I rapidly fixed it and Matt and I were on our way. We got on Lief Erickson and I got my 2nd flat. This time in the rear. With no spare tubes (and Matt riding a mountain bike ) I had no choice but to try to patch it. At this point it was about 12:55 (my meeting was at 1:30), and Matt decided to bail on me due to his own work schedule. I patched the tube, pumped up the tire and immediately it failed. Ugh... I pull out the inner tube, and pull out my other holy inner tube (from the front wheel). It only had a small hole so I patched it with my remaining tube. I pumped up the tire. Eureka! It held air and I was on my way. At about the 2 mile mark (2 miles from the exit to the park and about 5 miles from my office) the tire failed again. I rode it for a bit and then decided to run it. I called in to the office using my cellphone and said I would be late (it was about 1:25 by this point).

I ran for about 2.5 miles until I reached the Fat Tire Farm (local bike shop) where I begged for a tube in exchanged for my good word and my roadid as collateral. Luckily they took pity on me and let me have the tube. I fixed the tire and made it back to the office by 1:55 (the call had been rescheduled for 2:00). I downed some water and called into the conference number to talk about my Treatment Cost Estimator product line with a client.

I returned to FTF on my way home that evening and paid for the tube (and bought another one).

3 flats, 1 ruined rim (my nice Chris King wheels) and a 2.5 mile run in bike shoes carrying my bike... Matt emailed me later to tell me he made it back to his downtown office by 1:20...

-D