Good Sam Ride

Longish (for me) 32 mile Thursday bike ride. Such a delightful trail. I was glad to be the Good Samaritan on this ride, and offer up my biking multitool to a guy whose handlebars were loose and rotating down, and really messing with his riding. I was doing pretty well, until I turned around, and I suddenly felt really tired. I need to remember to take food, if I think I might be gone awhile. All I had was 8oz of Gatorade and 30oz of water, and I was definitely having troubles with my pace, on the second half of the ride, heading back home. I was dragging... the good news, is that I made it home intact. Honestly, the trail is so nicely hidden from the neighborhoods it passes through, that without thinking about it, I probably passed several places that I could’ve bought something great to eat. That’s all on me.

Peaches came!

We’re excited about this box of Palisade peaches we ordered months ago. Can’t wait for them to ripen!

Friday Crash

Crashed. Argh! Yet another biking mishap, in the same week! Much worse than Wednesday’s flat tire. I thought I was doing a good job of navigating an eroded part of the trail, until I suddenly found myself on the ground - one of those wtf moments. 

I managed to collect some road rash on my elbow, arm and hip, and apparently a big set of abrasion stripes up my back. Oh, and somehow my glasses got smushed, and no longer fit anywhere close to correctly. 

I did take a more pleasant photo of McLellan Reservoir on the way home from my spill.

 ---  Update: Headed to the Littleton ER to see if I broke anything… Spoiler: this experience and increasing shoulder pain feels a lot like my broken collarbone did back in 2007… except this time we couldn’t find an Urgent Care that would take an X-Ray on short notice.

 --- Update: Waiting on results of a CT scan of my shoulder, and an X-Ray of my elbow. Apparently they do more, when you’re over 65… 🤷‍♂️ 🤦‍♂️

 --- Update 7pm: According to CT and X-Ray analysis, nothing’s broken! Woo hoo! Just a little crunchy in the shoulder, is all… 🤔 Oh, and did we mention that you have nodules in your lungs? 🫨

 --- It looks like I’ll be sore for some time. She wrote me a script for some muscle relaxant, not sure if it’ll help much, but I’ll start out with it as recommended, and go from there. Maybe add an OTC pain med, if it goes any higher. And, IYKYK, planning to parallel the relaxant with MiraLax and lots of hydration…

 --- All in all, it seems like I mostly got away with it this time. 🎉 Maybe I get partial credit, for promising myself in 2007, that I would do my best to twist around and try not to land on my elbow or shoulder next time. That thought must have gotten burned into my muscle memory, as I only have a vague recollection of doing that, and then finding myself sprawled out on my back.  

--- Update Sat-3pm: It was a little rough this morning, but by this afternoon, pain is vastly reduced and mobility is much increased, whew… 😅

Wednesday flat

Wednesday’s bike ride started out as a fun longish adventure down the South Platte River trail, to Confluence Park. I’m still dealing with the occasional trail closures and detours due to construction, and believe it or not, some tree cutting this time. I made it down there, grabbed a snack from the local vendor, rested and drank some Gatorade, then headed back up the river. 

About halfway back, my rear tire deflated rapidly to flat in just a few seconds. So much for the fun part. I have plenty of experience, repairing flat tires with my “good old” 52 year old road bike, but not this new gravel bike. Lots of things are different with the new bike, starting with a whole different way of getting the wheel off, then learning about the new rear derailleur clutch, and the new and important (and dare I say, tricky) process of mating the tire bead with the rim. 

I was having zero success at first, simply examining the tire for evidence of what punctured it, when, as luck would have it, a very competent Good Samaritan stopped to help. He was a wizard with these new bikes, quickly diagnosed the leak that wouldn’t hold pressure for even a few seconds, rapidly had my wheel off, tried inflating the tube and realized the leak was invisible, and replaced the tube with the one he carries. Thank goodness for Venmo, which allowed me to reimburse him for his fancy lightweight spare tube, which is now *my* fancy lightweight spare tube. 😉 

After I got home, I was able to submerge the tube underwater in the sink, and immediately found the teeny tiny hole that was letting air out faster than I could pump it in. The glueless Lezyne patch in my new tire patch kit appears to have worked perfectly. So now I have a second spare tube, as I’m planning to stop at the bike store and get a new tube today. Even though I’ve done it many times in the past, the general consensus seems to be, to avoid riding everyday on a patched tube.

There are many fun sights and sounds on this route, but sorry to say, the only photo I took on this adventure, was of this pretty Snowy Egret in the South Platte River, near the beginning of my ride. 

Here’s the photo I took of my patched tube, including the part number, so I would know what to replace it with.