Random Road Ride Rambling

On a typical day, I *try* my best to be ready to ride at the designated time, I prefer to stop infrequently and above all, I try not to be an anchor.

Today was not a typical day.

First, I think someone slipped me a ruffie or something because I was woken up by the doorbell when Jamie and Glen were at my house at 10:00am. WTF? I haven't slept that late since I've done overnight shifts. Crap. My "give me 15 minutes" turned in to about 30 minutes as I fed myself and the dogs (no coffee for me!), walked the dogs quickly to allow them to relieve themselves, suited up, prepared a couple of water bottles and finally strapped on my fanny-pack. Yeah, I'm rockin' a fanny-pack. What do you want to say about it? Here's the deal, ever since last year's "photo a day" project, I feel naked if I leave my camera at home. So again, yeah, I'm rollin' with a fanny pack. Deal with it.

Anyway, we rolled out of the driveway and headed toward Gloucester. As I'm primarily a mountain biker, and essentially a singlespeeder at that, I'm not well versed in road etiquette. I could be described as a squirrel. Glen and Jamie taught me the meaning of the "flapping chicken wing," and how NOT to attack hills, and passed on some other pearls of wisdom. 

As if my 30 minute delay at the onset of our ride wasn't bad enough, I also flatted. My tube change was pretty fast, but then Jamie noticed that my tire wasn't seated properly and the bead was popping out. I was able to deflate, re-seat, and re-inflate fairly quickly, but I was feeling like the black cloud on this ride. Oh, and I was sucking wind, but that's beside the point. 

Glen also flatted, but his tube change was done in the blink of an eye. Jamie used that opportunity to promote the fine bicycle products offered by KHS. We were back on the road fairly quickly and after a total of about 20 miles, I was back home. Jamie & Glen headed back to Salem, no doubt talking about New Mexico races from 5yrs ago...

When all was said and done, my "recovery ride" had me peaking with power at more than 1000 watts at one point, with plenty of surges over 600 watts. D'oh. I can recover for the next 7 days at work!