you’re kidding, right. not one minute after leaving my house, a front flat. I came down one block on broadway and heard a loud pop – the looping hiss faded, and before I knew it, I was riding on rim. I rode back up to the house to pull another tube, and as I inspected the tire for any debris, I found a fairly big chunk of glass sticking out of the tire. fair enough…time to swap on a new tube. I remounted the tire with the new tube and pumped it up. but something didn’t look quite right. a bubble the size of a quarter was protruding from the sidewall of the specialized mondo tire, the one I started running at 90psi after all the continental blowouts a couple weeks back. time to swap on that fresh new folding bead gatorskin I bought at the shop 2 days ago. and here I was saving it for later, oh well.
taking connor’s advice, I pumped up the tire to 95psi, only a tad more than what I was putting in before. I’m inclined to think that because there’s heavy load upon braking, weight shifts from the front to the back, thus creating more tire deflection up on the tire. granted, I don’t think anyone has had really explored varying pressure on 23mm wide rims, since they’ve only gotten popular in the last year or so. fingers crossed with a 5% difference in pressure.
so finally, I left the house (for real this time). the sun was starting to come up as I rode across the empty bridge. farther up ahead, I spotted a group of 4 guys, all wearing sparkling new black and green kits. I caught up to them in sausalito, and what do you know, it was joseph, naveen, gabe, and jason wearing their new brite sport kits – new season, new team. they were heading out to tam for some climbing, I figured I’d tag along since it’s been groundhog day for months now (with paradise and half paradise). naveen was in for a 3×20 minute, joseph was doing a 2×45 minute session. we rode up to 4 corners via mill valley and jason split off. gabe and I tagged along for the ride. joseph and I continued up towards east peak – we stopped at his 45 minute session, looping back towards a parking lot to wait for gabe and naveen. cue photo above.
after regrouping, we descended down to stinson. I haven’t really descended recently (maybe 5+ months?) so initially, going fast seemed a bit spooky. I was unsure how the front end was going to handle on the wet pavement, with 5psi more, and a fresh new tire. I’m glad to report that all the descents for the day went swimmingly, no blowouts, no squirrelly movements, and no loss of traction at any points. only bummer part being my cassette – so while joseph and naveen were patiently climbing in 27t cogs, I was stuck in a 25t. I rode up the road, farther ahead, as naveen split off to the ranger station to wait for gabe. joseph tailed farther behind me, on his last climbing session of the day. wish I had a 27t…sorry I couldn’t wait up more, joe!
we flew back down towards the ranger station, topped off the bottles, and started the descent back down into sausalito. there were tons of people out, I wasn’t used to seeing so many cyclists, pedestrians, and runners. we had a close call with a girl riding a mountain bike, swerving all over the place…is it tourist season already? I split after the bridge as the others headed up towards the presidio. glad I ran into you guys today, definitely fun to mix up the riding a bit!
oh yea, and as a side note, my powertap battery died (or got loose, or something). what a pain.
