The No Ride

This Ride: 1.4 mi
Kona Miles: 1663.3 mi
Month to date: 314.5 mi
2010 Total: 2129.8 mi

Or, “Comedy of Errors”.

I’m such a “newbie”.  There, I said it.

I climbed on the Kona this morning for an easy ride.  It was already 80 degrees at 7 am and only going to get hotter.  Just 1.4 miles into my ride I hit a rock hard with my rear tire (missed it with the front), heard air escaping, and sure enough, a flat.  I pulled off to change it.  That’s when things went from bad to worse.

I pulled the tube, put a new one in, but the new one wasn’t holding air.  I thought maybe the hand pump wasn’t seating properly on the valve (and it turns out that was part of the problem) so I pulled out the CO2 cartridge and noticed a mistake I made a month ago when buying the cartridges.  I had 3 CO2 cartridges without threads.  My valve requires threads.  Re-working the hand pump I got the valve to pump sealed, but still the tube wouldn’t hold air.  I had another tube, but by now I was frustrated.  I called home, got the ride of shame, and started investigating immediately.

The first flat indeed was of the “snakebite” type.  Two parallel cuts in the tube.  The rock was the culprit for a “pinch flat”.  The other tube had a hole in it on the inside of the tube.  A careful examination of the spoke tape didn’t find any burrs, or sharp edges.  I never had the tube inflated hard enough to even cause a puncture.

While the wheel and tire are both off, I’ll keep it off to perform some maintenance on them later today and take a second, harder look for anything in the tire rim that could cause another problem.  I will also buy some threaded CO2 cartridges!

I need to have the Kona ready for tomorrow’s breakfast ride.