Sunday, April 8, 2012

A Ride of Mishaps

Hello everyone!
Today looked to be a perfect day for bike riding. It was bright and sunny, and it was the last day of a great spring break. Mac and I began our day with preparing for our 55 mile bike ride with Missoulians on Bicycles (MOBI) with some routine maintenance on our bicycles such as: pumping our tires, lubricating our chains, and adjusting our seats to the appropriate heights. Everything went smoothly in our routine maintenance check until it was my turn to pump up my tires. The problem I encountered was that I put the pump too far on the tube opening and consequently when I took it off I ripped the seal on the tube opening. At this point we were already late and we sent Mac's Mom, Ginny, off to MOBI to tell them we would be a few minutes late. Mac and I attempted to put another tube on the bike, that didn't fit perfectly, in the hopes it would hold up for the ride. This tube popped before I even mounted the bicycle. In exasperation we fetched another tube for my troublesome tire. Although this tube didn't fit the tire perfectly, we were running out of options and decided to make it work the best we could. Thankfully, this tube didn't pop immediately when we fitted it to the tire. At this point Mac and I were already 10 minutes late and so we knew we would have to work hard in order to catch the MOBI riders, who were already well on their way up the rattlesnake. And so Mac and I rode hard for 10 miles with no problems until I heard the terrible sound of air rushing out of my back tire, and I knew at this point our ride was over. So Mac and I stopped and we walked a mile back to Mac's house in dejection. Despite our misfortune there was a major lesson that Mac and I learned from our experience today. The most important thing you can do to make your ride go smoothly is to prepare completely and properly with as much time as possible. The primary mistake that Mac and I made today was that we took around 15 rushed minutes to prepare for our ride today. In fact, we needed at least 30 minutes to prepare properly for our ride. If we hadn't been so rushed we could have avoided popping the tubes and enjoyed a nice 55 miles on a great Missoula day.

2 comments:

  1. Great lesson learned Drew. You won't make that mistake again!

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  2. That's a bummer guys. Lesson learned though, and at least you got ten good miles in and broke down close to home.

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