Bike to Work Day report

Yesterday was Bike to Work day in Salt Lake City (and lots of other places around the country.)

So, naturally, I rode my bike to work. Much as I do every, most, well, approaching most, other days of the year. So, naturally, I had a rather crappy day. I woke up later than normal, lost time in the shower (no joke here, I do this occasionally, I think I actually fall asleep standing up in the shower. I suppose that I'm lucky I don't fall and hurt myself...) and couldn't get my Garmin to turn on*. At all, nothing happened. And I couldn't find the owner's manual and I was late so I didn't have time to look it up online.

But I biked anyway, all the while not knowing how fast I was going, whether I was in mile one, or mile two, or mile three, or mile four...the only real thought in my mind was, why do I care? I guess it's because I track my miles. Because I set goals for the year, and miles is one of them and I don't ride enough non-commuting miles to count them as junk miles, so they count.

I looked it up when I got to work and sure enough, it's pretty easy to re-boot one of these things, you just have to know which two buttons to push at the same time. (Mode and Lap, btw.)

So, I approached my ride home in a much better state of mind. Until I changed, got to my bike, unlocked it, pulled it out of the rack, looked down and saw the flat rear tire.

No big deal, I thought. Being the prepared cyclists commuter that I am, I, of course, have not one but two spare tubes in my saddle bag (this becomes important later, though I guess me telling you this gives it all away.) I quickly change my tube, inflate said tube with the handy-dandy compressed air cartridge, re-mount the rear tire (realizing that it was past time to clean my chain) and started off.

I got 250 feet (I know this because, as I said before, I got the Garmin to work) and the rear tire went flat, again. Didn't see that coming, did you?

Well, I stopped, removed the tire, again, pulled the tube, pulled the tire, ran by thumb all through the inside of the tire (trying to find, through pain, whatever insignificant piece of whatever had caused the flat.) Finding nothing, I put in the new tube, mounted the tire and started to inflate, which is when I noticed that those little air cartridges contain pretty much one tubes worth of air. Which, of course, left me stranded, since the only other guy who rode to work yesterday (out of a company of 600+ people) had left.

So, I called Robyn and got a ride home.

Needless to say (but I will anyway), I am now the proud owner of not only two replacement tubes and three cartridges but also a nice little tiny air pump, all of which is now crammed in my saddle bag (along with tire irons and a multi-tool) for the next flat I have.

So basically, for bike to work day, I biked less than I do most other days. Fun.

I'm getting pumped up (pun intended) for the Cycle Salt Lake this weekend, and then Fatty's 100 miles to nowhere next weekend, and then (as of a few minutes ago) a planned excursion up Emigration and Big Mountain the weekend after. Cycling season is back!

[* after reviewing this post, I realize that, just in case, I should mention that my Garmin is the Garmin Edge 205 bicycle computer and not, as might be misread here, my pet name for any body part or anything...]