OK, so I’m out riding my bike, trying to get in a 100-mile ride in prep for IMWisconsin. Things are going pretty good…riding at a fairly leisurely pace for me. At about the 37 mile point, I get the dreaded squishy rear tire feeling…I look back and see that its going flat on me. So, I dutifully stop, shift down into the lowest cog, and get ready to take off the rear wheel. That’s when I notice the complete lack of a saddle bag…shit!!! I have an R2.5 that I also ride, and I completely forgot to swap it out…I have no way to fix my tire. This is not good…I’m about 20 miles from my hotel. So, I whip out my cell phone (thank god for those things), and call the Floriday Highway Patrol. I figure they might be able to help me…I get to the automated answering service, and decide to press #1 for emergency…it was the only one that really matched my situation. Well, it rang again, and disconnected. Hmmmm, good thing I’m not be murdered. So I try calling a buddy at the hotel. Not in. I call another dude that I know at the hotel, though not as well…hallelujah, he answers the phone. I offer him twenty bucks to come get me…and he agrees. He was actually very cool about it…probably would have gotten me for free, but I figure I owed him for wasting part of his weekend. I’m about a mile away from a convenient intersection, so I tell him I’ll meet him there. I take off my shoes, not wanting to ruin my cleats. I walk about a half mile or so when I realize that my feet are burning on the hot asphalt!! Crap!! I try to get my cleats back on as fast as I can, but stopping makes its worse! I finally wrestle my feet back into my shoes, and clip-clop the rest of the way. I wait about 20 minutes at the intersection, and my buddy shows up, in a small car. No problem, I think, I’ll just take off both wheels and it’ll fit in the back. About this time, a pickup truck pulls up, and they offer to put my bike in the back and follow us in…I decline, thinking that may be the last time I ever see my bike. But after I leave, I realize that there is no way the bike is going to go in his back seat with that damn saddlewing sitting so high up. Thank goodness he had the right size allen wrench…whipped the seat post down, got the bike in, and I was finally good to go. Got back to the hotel room, perused the blisters starting to appear on the soles of my feet, and attached a note saying “PUT ON SADDLE BAG BEFORE RIDING” to the saddle of my bike with a rubber band…
I’ve done that once. Had a flat and forgot the spare kit. I just called my wife and she picked me up. We run a B&B and its no big deal to come get me. I felt really dumb for not having the spare stuff with me. I’m actually training now a days without a change kit, on purpose. I’m using tubular clinchers and don’t have a spare.
That’s normally what I do as well…my wife is very cool about stuff like that…but I’m in Florida for the summer while she’s home in Ohio. So, I was screwed. I’ve been thinking about those Tufo tubular clinchers…how do you like them? I keep reading stuff on here about their crappy rolling resistance…what are your thoughts? Do you race or just train on them?
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