Psssssssssssss . . . Flat!

I had my first flat in a long while yesterday while out and about riding in Denver. It might have something to do with the fact that I was running two tires per wheel on my winter training rides which is when I used to flat most often. I had the heavy wheels, with goo filled tubes, a 700x23c tire with the bead removed as a tire liner, and a 700x25c Continental Gatorskin for the rubber that met the road.

I was on my way towards City Park, cutting through all of the other parks, to see what the road looked like for Sunday's extended course. On the way to 7th Ave. Parkway, heading up Downing, I hear, "PPPPFPPSPSPPPTPPPFFFTTTT!!!" This was no slow leak, my tire went from 105 to 0 PSI in about .4 seconds and then there was a strange buzzing sound. My tire the victim of a killer sheet metal screw attack.


"Instantly penetrates and engages in heavy gauge sheet metal and layered light gauge . . ." or rubber. The inner tube was fairly well shredded, fortunately the tire had just one point of entry as opposed to a giant gash. The buzzing noise I heard was the screw (and accompanying washer) rattling between the wheel and the fork where it decided to lodge itself after doing its damage.

I fixed my flat and kept heading north to City Park. The course is about as expected, there were some corners I couldn't get much of a feel for because of parked cars and traffic, but it should be an amusing course.

I get to make a local television appearance sometime in the coming days. Reggie Rivers, who is a former teammate of mine from the good old HART days emailed me a couple weeks ago saying he wanted to do a story on me with the focus being the transformation from a cycling ugly duckling to a cycling slightly less ugly duckling.

Back in 2002, I was about 45 pounds heavier than I am now and no where near as active as I had been thanks to a 4th degree AC separation in my right shoulder. Apparently my dental hygiene suffered greatly as well.


Thank goodness Les saved all the pictures from back in the day when he was my absentee tenant. The before and after, at least from a fitness standpoint, makes for a decent story and speaks volumes for my work with Mike Carter. My sister still says I have a face only a mother could love . . .