Ride Report: flats suck

Today I rode from Redwood city The weather was lovely ... the sun was shining, birds were chirping, the rich were walking the dish loop at Stanford... glass was glistening in the bike lane Right when I crossed El Camino I thought to myself "gosh it's so weird how every time I'm on this particular patch of road I always think I have a flat! It's all those mini rolling bumps!!" but then I noticed myself thinking it longer than usual... I was scared to look down at my tire... "ooohhh please no no no no no" But of course....I had one I pull over and think "well... I guess today will be the day I fix a flat by myself for the first time" as I open my little zipper-d up sack thingie on the back of my seat. And I thought that right until I realized I had nothing in my little zipper-d up sack thingie. shit so then I think to call my homie and office mate so he could come get me. And what happens? Friggin blackberry from hell is on low battery and won't let me call. I'm deserted!! At that point my MacGyver-like instincs emerged... "hmm.... I do at least have a pump...I should try and pump up my tire and see if the little flat-causing-hole will just sorta...you know... forget to let out air!" Turns out it remembred... And so I started walking my bike...kicking little pebbles and muttering a stream of invectives until a mountain biker dude passed me. At first he keeps going and I was like "am I invisible?! Am I fundamentally un-bike-lovable?!" but then he stoped a bit up and sort of stared at me. "Are you just taking a break or do you need help" I think "if I wanted a break I'd just stop pedaling... walking this thing is significantly more work than that!" I say "oh no no I need help!" and proceed to tell him my sad tale he used his patch kit, fixed my tire (as I *believe* a few Googlers passed me... I thought I saw an Oscar the Grouch jersey) and sent me on my merry (and very late) way. Lesson: I hates flats. I hates blackberries. And I hates that I didn't look in my friggin sack thingie ahead of time! The end -Heather PS: thank you mountain bike riding dude from Campbell!! --- That is a sad, sad tale, heather. -mike --- it's not a "sack thingie", it's a scrotum, just so you know. -sc --- Let this be a lesson to you not to do things half assed, you're either whole assed and riding from SF or you're sitting on the side of the road. ;) oh and Scott's right, it's a scrotum. as long as you're an amateur make sure it's full, once you go pro like Lance you can afford to do the half fill thing but then he's got a car trailing him with new wonder machines. -steve --- ...is it really called a scrotum or is this like the time my friend in high school told me it's 4:30 (not 4:20) ?? yeah riding "naked" is no good! Riding without the skills to actually fix a flat isn't so hot either but baby steps, baby steps :) --- It really is called the scrotum, and all experienced cyclists also call a mini-pump 'the wanker' -nils --- Murph's saddle bag looks exactly like a scrotum. I try to avoid looking at it. -ted --- Heather, I, for one, have never referred to my saddlebag as a scrotum. I don't know -- it does seem kind of like high school. If you do find this hilarious, however, you might enjoy http://www.bullsballs.com/ --- ewwwwwwwwwwww!!!!! I'm so happy I'm female. I'm so happy I'm female -heather --- If you ride tubulars and the saddle bag is a scrotum, then would the spare tire strapped to it be the epididimys? Sorry, needed comic relief, today has been way too serious so far. Barry --- I think that those balls are a great way to keep someone from wheel sucking but, I don't think I could sport one. Besides I like riding in groups :) -thEPO --- Yeah, that's my Grouchy jersey. I called out a "How ya doin'?" but seemed to get a happy reply, so I breezed on past, only afterward saying, "Oh, that was Heather, wasn't it?" Had I known the abuse the Campbell mountain biker was subjecting you to, I would not only have stopped but made Lina and Nils sing you a happy little song. --mark --- nils speaks the truth. it's simply the most descriptive/shortest term, and thus it has gained ascendancy. i often forget its puerile provenance and talk about "checking my scrotum" in mixed company, which can elicit some amusing reactions. -sc --- Yes, and it's common to hear 'i stuck the wanker on the valve, flipped the tip, and started pumping' Really, you shouldn't be alarmed if you hear things like this on the road. -nils --- or even, before i knew it was a snakebite on my tube, i popped my wanker out of my scrotum and went to town. i wailed on that thing heroically but after 40 or 50 squirts i wasn't making any progress so i switched tactics, luckily i had packed my scrotum chock full of emergency supplies and so i was able to beat off an unfortunate situation with liberal application of vulcanizing fluid and some rubber patches. next time i'll make sure to ride with protection, maybe some Slime or Mr.Tuffy. -steve --- Well at least I don't need to browse casual encounters today for my dose of perversion. -sir chalk

thurs 3/26 bayway COYOTE POINT VARIATION 6:25 RRR

ride report:

drained of reasonable riders by the rival skyline summons, a diminutive bayway band of 3 departed ritual at 6:40 with malevolent disposition, and the zeitgeist devolved in minutes to one of displeasurable fastness, tho no words be spoken.

as early as cortland, drew "the cows*" sherwood and thEPO laid down a blistering attack, while I wondered off the back what happened to the theo I used to know.

arriving at the coyote point bike path juncture, it was observed that a time of around 1 hour flat for the san mateo pitstop was within reach, but the grim train of riders would not deviate from the mission, and upon entering the coyote point diversion, a calm, zenlike, and not unwelcome tranquility descended upon the riders as the unknown scenery of lost beaches and forlorn orange cliffs came dramatically into view.  see attached.

back on the usual course, thEPO graciously added feral cat circumnavigation to his commute and pulled at 24-26mph for pretty much the entire way to oracle, whereupon he peeled off for foster city.  the cows then took over until blomquist/seaport, and so I figured my leadout was exhausted, but no, there was Another.  dude from Sun rolled up, with a pretty cool "8am Riders" team kit, which means there is a peninsula commuting gang that beat us to the punch on kits.  lame! (us).  not to be trifled with, he pulled me smartly along at 25mph until Sun, at which time a respite was welcome.

shocked the incredulous chefs with my 9:07 arrival, and I think they started reflexively hiding the food.

great ride gents.

-sc

*cuz those ain't calves

On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 11:10 PM, Theo Cummings wrote:

+1 -Theo

On Mar 25, 2009, at 8:35 PM, Drew Sherwood wrote: > > +1 > > See you at Ritual > > On Mar 25, 3:59 pm, Scott Crosby wrote: >> building on the success of eric's idea of mixing things up with the >> tour de >> colma ('cemetery city') today, i'm thinking of doing a coyote point >> circumnavigation, which is cool, scenic, a little off-roady, and >> only takes >> a few min. longer than the usual route.  it was invented by legendary >> classical cartographer Brett >> Lider<http://www.flickr.com/photos/brettlider/2495258874/> , >> who may elect to join for the ride. >> some info on the route variation:http://sf2g.com/bayway.html >> >> who's in, anyone? >> >> -sc > >

3/19 Skyline moderate pace 6:30ish Peet's

Ride report to Feral County:

At exactly 6:30ish Ted, Marius, Michael and I departed Peet's with much Moxie, -1 Scott Crosby not sure where he was... (ED: sleeping off hangover) maybe talking to Ralph on the big white phone? On to the Dark Park. We met Trinh and Tom + Tom's friend (never caught his name) and off we went. The park was nice with chirping nature abound and none to cold. We caught up with space or he caught up with us at Sloat and the Great Highway and from there went on a nice and easy moderate pace all the... yeah right. We were pleasantly surprised that Sawyer Camp Trail part 1 was open. Sawyer Camp Trail was great with glimpses of deer and nice views of the misty reservoirs. I think it's hilarious that the bike speed limit in SCT says, "speed limit enforced by radar". No flats, a great work out and a glorious warm day. Oh and Scott the camera wouldn't have helped. We all ended up chasing space.

10/3 Skyline 6:30 Peet's

ride report:

6 riders headed out from peet's, picked up trinh and drew on the way. mark flatted just after sloat (he clearly couldn't have been using ultremos!) and was assisted by trinh and space as the rest of us headed up skyline. we passed a tiny little bike with may on it up the hill, doing a solo ride. at the top i realized my saddle was still somewhat turned sideways after my bike fell over (without me on it) last sunday, and, well, let me just tell you that you shouldn't be riding like that. IT HURTS. i fixed it and we waited and waited for the flat people and i swear there were icicles in ted's beard! after an hour or a minute of waiting, i couldn't tell, my internal sense of time had frozen over, we concluded that they'd surely be able to catch us up and we needed to start riding to get those icicles out of ted's beard.

we had some good times on the 280 and trinh and space caught up with us just before the second session of fine 280 riding, having left mark who was going to youtube. at the end of SCT i was shocked as half of the peloton (trinh, theo, othman) peeled off! cheating! what's so appealing about san mateo anyway? ted, drew, space, and me bravely rode on and there was pretty fog hovering on the surface of the reservoir. as we rode in to the fog i realized it was pretty ICY DEATH FOG OF DOOM and i swear that those who hadn't shaved their legs must have had icicles on their leg hairs by then. this must be why bikers shave their legs.

before we have even reached the end of canada drew left us, ted took off at woodside, and it got scary as this reminded of "and then there were none" and i started to wonder who would disappear next - me or space.

we narrowly averted a motorcycle cop on the portola loop who was busy lecturing two other bikers. let's just say i was mostly thinking about my cornering coming into that turn...

in the end i won because space took off just before i headed into palo alto, riding the last bit to google alone. and then there were none.

-Lina