What you are looking at is one of the new tires – yes sir-ree.
The other less obvious point would be the air shocks without dah air.
I started out this Thursday afternoon with the idea of riding to my buddies house in Elk Grove. About a 1/2mile or so into this ride my front tire went flat. Ok now this is not a good thing you know.
I groaned and headed toward the gas station after finding my compressed air cartridge was spent – DOH. Then it hit my pea little brain that the tube was not patchable as it sort had a rubber disintegration thing thing going on. Then I noticed the knobs on the tire were pulling off.
Oh gee could this possibly be due to my ignoring the fact after hanging from a ceiling maybe, just maybe they would be rotten? One of those – boy was that stupid moments. So what the heck I stuffed packed some weeds up into the carcass and slowly made it home.
Then I futzed around – gosh this simple thing took forever – and got the wheels off and headed to the shop. I purchased a set of cross tires – way heavier than my Mythos xc that were on there – pride and coolness were overcome with common since -well ok how about price and use . … I admitt this really p’d me off – the cost is a factor thing and that I really don’t need narly dirt tires right now .
Got home, got the tires back on, and headed out again. Made it there only to discover that my computer was not registering the miles – augh another overlook what should have been checked when I put the wheel back on – the sensor got bumped to far away from the little magnet that makes it all good to go.
After my pal and I did our usual coffee banter, bet on who could guess the weight of our bikes the closest, who had the best portrait lens, oh anything really that we can egg each other on with I realized it would be dark before I could peddle myself home. So KRP came and drove me and bike home.
Then I got the most brilliant idea I might have come up with today. I decided to adjust the air in my shocks. I checked the pump (special one for the shocks) and made sure it build up pressure and instead of air going into the shock cartridge – all the freaking air came out – WTF! Dang if the little tiny o-ring on the adapter isn’t there. So now my front shocks are flat I guess would be a good description and I am hoping to all get out that it is the missing o-ring pump thing and not a bad cylinder thing.
This has all put me in a really foul mood. As if the shock is toast my riding dah bike is out with the air – Now I just rode about 7 miles, walked home because of the flat and I am getting testy ok.
Crap! and I drank way too much coffee so I am still wide awake at 4am with nothing to do but think – and stew, and then think about how my thinking is stinking – oh yeah I forgot to turn the video camera on so I could see if the mount worked better.
Oye!
Jeez, Jan, what else could possibly go wrong? Oh, wait… never mind…
Now that is one of those million dollar questions – gosh what would I do with a million bucks?
Better attitude this morning after a few hours of sleep. I think the crux of my irritation was that it all happened of my own making. Kind of one of those days where my cognitive issues bit me in the arse.
Guess I will head back to shop today and see what is up with the forks. I think I will wait for KRP to take me as one and a half minds might work out better for me today LOL
It sounds like one of those epic trips but with a new twist. Weeds into the carcass of the tire — now that’s ingenuity. Also sounds like a song.
When I lived in Santa Fe there were these stickers called goat’s heads that went through tires. For a while I was patching the tires every week until the bike shop folks turned me onto this hard strip that went in between the tube and the tire.
Look forward to hearing that your bike is fixed and that you’re back in the saddle again.
I detest goat heads. Yeah I have those strips I think Mr Tuffy or Spin Skins. Anyway I ran them in the areas notorious for goat heads and such but preferred not to add the weight. The tire went flat cause it was old and rotten LOL The new treads are heavier and more cross type tread pattern so good for the city riding sucko for mountain – but like I am so not ready to go prime time mountain live hahahh.
Stuffing the tire is an trick I learned years ago from someone- cram the tire full and at least you can ride ever so slowly and pushing is much easier Plus it saves the rim from damage – if I could remember who passed that trick on to me I would send them a thank you card!
“Now I just rode about 7 miles, walked home because of the flat”
Did that mean you walked home 7 miles? Or that you have ridden 7 miles total, and walked home the 1/2 mile where you got the flat? Because walking half a mile is good. But if you walked 7 miles I should be sending you roses or something.
I half the time road and half the time pushed for about 1/2 mile. The ride to my friends is the seven mile deal. My sentence structure lacked eh? How about:
This has all put me in a really foul mood. If the shock is broken my bike riding is on hold. After walking and pushing the bike for a half mile and then riding another seven miles to my friends I am exhausted and getting testy -OK!
The 1/2 mile from the way I feel today did me in – augh at least I had the bike to lean on cause riding with a tire full of grass is well – not really that easy LOL neither is walking that far. I found it interesting that holding the handle bars and rolling with the bike enabled me to make it that dang far. As typically making it to the truck in the carport is about as far as I can motivate on my own.
I think I made it to my friends cause I was so pissed. I was pissed that it was my oversight that put me there with the flat tire, pissed that just removing the wheels from the bike was super hard – I mean it is really a simple no brainer thing to do I think it took me longer than a complete service used to. Then it really rubbed me the wrong way when I realized that the cool nifty light weight trail performance tires were not what I needed – crap what I needed was a set of heavy duty wimp tires LOL it killed me really it did – then the fact of a 50-100 buck price difference really factored in.
oh yeah and he had a pot of coffee he made with his $100 buck a pound beans waiting for my arrival.