Ride Report 8/26

Total 45mi, 35mi group ride with Sacramento Wheelmen

I sulked for three days over pinching and flatting three tubes while changing the Bontrager tires for new 700x23 Gatorskins. I finally took them in to the bike shop to have them put new tubes in the tires. Apparently, part of the trick is to put talcum in the tires first and on a nice hot day (is there any other kind in August in Sacramento?), leave the tires in the sun so they get nice and pliable. I take small comfort when the bike store clerk has difficulty getting the last few inches of tire back on the rim.

So, for my first ride on the Gatorskins, I check out a group ride with a local bike club, the Sacramento Wheelmen (who I'm very sorry to admit I did not catch their names). When I arrive at the meeting point, they laugh when I tell them I can't keep up with a paceline over 20mph and assure me they won't go that fast because this is a relaxed ride. Famous last words.

We head north along Steelhead Creek, then E Levee Rd to Elkhorn Blvd, and Garden Hwy to loop back to Discovery Park. The magnet on my rear wheel is misaligned, so I don't have an accurate speedometer or odometer reading for the entire trip, but I do still have my cadence meter, so I try to focus on form/RPMs during the ride.

The Wheelmen are very welcoming, but I can't keep up with the main group even when I shift into the big boy gears. I'm not sure if they don't want to go as fast or if it's out of pity, but a couple of the Wheelmen keep me company in my misery as I try desperately to keep up. When we pause at the intersection of Elkhorn & Garden Hwy, I ask how fast we have been going and I'm told we've averaged 17-20mph. The 15 miles on Garden Hwy seems to last forever, although the views of houses along the river at least make for nice scenery.

We do 35 miles in a little under two hours. The group stops for lunch at Pearl on the River, but I haven't brought any money. I am invited to sit in anyway, and I gulp down 3 glasses of ice water and listen to stories of bike rides/races past. At the end of the meal, the ride leader gives me half of his hamburger that he claims he can't finish. Not a bad ride at all...

After lunch, we take Garden Hwy that allegedly connects again with Discovery Park, but of course I can't find the turn. I do find my way to another path that connects with the bike path. As I rejoin the path, I hear the ominous fipfipfip from my front wheel of a goatshead thorn in my tire. My brand new puncture resistant Gatorskins. And my tire levers are in a bag with the spare tube I bought yesterday. By some miracle, I see a few of the women from the ride on the path and they see me cursing at my front tire. I pray the tube will hold for the 6 miles home, but it goes flat after several hundred yards. I had only just pulled off to the side and flipped the bike over when two of the women come back to check on me. In an amazingly short time, they have the tire off the rim, the tube pulled and the new tube in place. We do have to flag down a male cyclist to help get the last few inches of tire onto the rim without using levers.

So, hot, tired, and cursing my new tires, I finally make it home after my first group ride and having my ass handed to me by a group of senior citizens, most of whom have been riding longer than I've been alive.