FLAT TIRE, THE REST OF THE STORY

 I had a flat tire on today's Trek Parmer Pedaler ride.  It has happened before, it happens to everybody at one time or another.  But this flat tire has a back story, and an epilog.  And so, I begin at the beginning.

In August I purchased a Trek Madone road bike (really nice).  It came with carbon wheels that are tubeless ready, but not tubeless tires.  At the time, I proclaimed that I would switch to tubeless (several years after inquiring about them) in February or after the first flat.  February because that is the start of racing season and after first flat because I saw no reason not to give these tires some wear.

Taking off these thru-axel wheels is more involved than my quick-release ones.  Only a few weeks ago did I even practice removing a wheel, and it was the front one.  So it was an unwelcome surprise when cruising along about 17 mph when the rear wheel suddenly went flat.  I called out "flat" to get the group to stop and called out to Jim H that I was going to need assistance.  This would be the first time removing the rear wheel.

First thing Jim said was turn the bike upside down.  I never do this, but removed the water bottles and turned it upside down.  Then shifted to the smallest cog.  Jim removed the wheel for me, I handed him the tire tool, and he started to remove the tire.  Meanwhile, I removed the saddle pack and took out the spare tire.  Well folks, since I haven't had a flat on the road in quite a while, and hadn't planned on having one with my newish tires, my mind hadn't fully considered my new Madone with the Pro51 Carbon Wheels.  My spare was perfectly fine for my Emonda with the Dura Ace wheels, but the valve stem was too short for the Pro51's.  Jim had a spare.  One of the benefits of group riding is there are plenty of spare tubes.  The trick is getting one with long stems.  Anyway we used Jim's.  Uh, my tires are 25mm and Jim's tube was 35-45mm.  Jim did the installation, I aired it up with CO2 cartridge, and we cleaned up and were on our way with no further interruptions.

Here is the epilog.  When I got home I intended to switch out Jim's tube to give it back to him (not getting him a new one is another story).  That's when I discovered I could not remove the tire from the wheel.  By this time I could remove the wheel from the bike, but not in the upside down position.  Try as I might, I could not get tire the off.  It will have to stay there until I go tubeless.

I immediately ordered two Continental 5000 tubeless tires and will be visiting the bike shop tomorrow to arrange to get them installed.  Plus buying tubeless repair kits and extraneous stuff that goes with going tubeless.  If you read earlier posts from this year, you will learn that I'm not a big fan of tubeless.  But I am a big fan of how they ride, so I'll suck it up and learn how to deal with them.

CYCLING HIGHLIGHTS FOR THE YEAR

 In working on our Christmas letter, I realized my cycling escapades would take up too much space, so I'm writing them up here and will provide a link.  There needs to be some context.

The year started off March3 with the Senior Games at Pace Bend Park.  Regular readers know I hate racing at Pace Bend, mainly because I don't do well.  This was not billed as a State Championship, but since there weren't any other Senior Games in Texas this year, I prefer to think of them as Championships.  The full write up can be found in my March post, but I ended up with two gold and a silver in the three races.

Next on the agenda was USA Cycling State Time Trials in Hempstead in May.  Again, the full write up is under the May posting, but I came home with a gold medal.

For some reason, I didn't do a post about the USA Cycling Nationals in Augusta, GA in July.  Fort Gordon underwent a name change and is now Fort Eisenhower.  I had the time trial July 25, road race July 27, and criterium July 28.  We had booked our annual stay in Suches, GA  July 15-August 11 so that meant I left the mountains, raced, and drove back.  

I warmed up for the time trial in a drizzle but for the race itself, it had stopped and there weren't any puddles on the road.  I had previewed the competitors and was confident of getting on the podium.  I came in third, which was also last (not by much).  One person who signed up didn't show up.  This is a difficult course and I've ridden it faster.  I'm thinking it's a nutrition thing.

For the road race, Durwood and the new guy(showed up wearing a National Champion jersey) were racing for gold and the race turned tactical.  Two laps with lots of climbing.  Durwood set the pace for the first lap and we suffered.  Then he backed off.  I knew I was racing for third, but couldn't put any moves on the front because it would be Durwood who would reel me back in and not my competitor.  So it came down to the last climb, and I cracked.  Fourth place, but still on the podium (which went five deep).

In the criterium, it was only me and Durwood in our age group.  We were racing with the 70+ guys, so I was happy to hang with them for maybe fifteen minutes.  Then it was survive to the end.  But I still got the silver.

Next is a story of a non-race.  We go back to last year.  Shortly after road Nationals, USA Cycling held Gravel Nationals.  Only one person in my age group participated.  His time was much slower than what I could do.  So I set my sights on this year, if no one signed up in my age group.  Trek sponsored some gravel rides early in the year and I rented a gravel bike to see if I really could ride gravel.  I also went up to Waco to ride with my team leader.  Whitney advised that the Nebraska course was no worse than what we were riding on.  As we got closer to the date, and only the one guy signed up, I was ready to go.  I bought a really nice gravel bike.  Rode it for a week.  But when the last day of sign up came, I gave it a lot of thought (plus how much money it cost), and decided that gravel really wasn't in my future.  I returned the gravel bike and came home with a new road bike.  Ray at Trek gave me a super deal on a Trek Madone SL7.  I followed up on the results this year.  The three oldest competitors came in over 12 hours (should have been 5).  I haven't talked to Fred yet on what happened, but I'm thinking my guardian angel helped me avoid this.

On my new Madone in September I returned to Fort Hood (now Fort Cavazos).  No illusions on this one.  The oldest age group was 70+  AND we were starting with the 60+ guys, so I had no hope of staying with the group.  This is another love/hate course. The full write  up is in the September post, but I came away happy with a 5th place trophy.