Sunday Long Bike- 35mi

Sunday Long Bike- 35mi by terrypeppers at Garmin Connect - Details

Today was the 1st group bike and we were suppose to be doing 35 miles!! I though we'd start off at 10, 15, or 20 mines, but nope.... 35 miles bitches!!  Damn...

I drive out to the middle of nowhere (Pearland) and meet up with the group.  First thing Alex said to me was "do you have a pump?".  I said "no, why do I need one".  He said you should always check your tire pressure before you ride, i.e. I need to buy a pump.  Makes sense.

J.P explains to us where we're going, but there's no way that I'm going to remember "turn right at blah, blah, blah... turn left at blah, blah, blah" so I really wasn't listening to him at all.  I just interrupted him and said "you're riding with us, right?  We'll just follow you, no need for all this detailed shit, let's just go".  Everyone agreed and laughed and we were off!

I almost fell off the bike (once again) as soon as we started because I'm still not used to attaching my cleat to the pedal and being physically attached to the bike.  Actually, to be specific, I almost crashed AND took another rider out with me, but luckily it didn't happen.  We start the ride and they're going alot faster than I thought we'd be going.  J.P had said that we were going out for a "nice, slow ride to get you use to riding".  Didn't look that way to me.. before I knew it, I was at the back of the group.  I was next to Theresa and there were two people behind us.  Everyone else was in front of us, but not by alot. 

Next thing you know, we (Theresa, myself and the people behind us) got stopped by a stop light.  This was about 1/2 a mile into the ride.  I was thinking that it wouldn't be a big deal, but once the light turned green, I could see that the group had pretty much left us.  I couldn't even see them!  Now I'm thinking I'm fucked.  I have no idea which way to go.  Alex pulled up in the TOTR (Tri on the Run) truck and said to just go straight until we get to a gas station, so that's what we did.  It turns out that the gas station was pretty far away.  Anyways, so now I realize that I'm not going to catch up to the group, so I'm just riding with Theresa choppin' it up.  Next thing I know, I see Johnny (he had stopped and was waiting for us) and he says from this point on, we have to ride in single file for safety reasons.  Cool.  So I get in front of Theresa and I just take off.  I know they're way ahead of me, but I wanted to see if I could catch them, or at least get to the point where I could SEE them!  That would have been good enough for me at that point.  So I keep riding and eventually I see J.P.  He had stopped and was waiting.  When I got to him, he started riding again.  So now we're riding and choppin' it up and eventually we catch up to a few more riders.  After about 18 miles, my ass was killing me, literally.  I wanted to get off of that damn bike!  Luckily, J.P had to pee and the others wanted to pee too, so we stopped and took a bathroom break.  That's exactly what I needed.  We took about 10 minutes rest and get back on it.  When we started riding again, for some reason J.P and some of the others just took off, I mean FAST!  I tried to keep up, but realized that I just couldn't, so I just went as fast as I could, but they just kept getting further and further away.  Next thing you know, I see J.P again.  He had stopped to wait.  Once again, we were riding together...  then all of a sudden, I hear a "BOOM!"

I got my 1st flat tire... WTF!  I had gone about 32 miles at this point and now this.  He asked if I had a spare... nope.  Guess I need to get that too!  Note to self, figure out what I need BEFORE I actually need it!  Anyways, he stops and look at the wheel and he's like "Damn... you blew the tire".  Not only was the inner tube blown, but the tire had a hole in it too!  Great!  He called Alex (who was luckily only a block or two away) and he comes Alex to the rescue.  Alex tells J.P to go ahead and finish the ride, but J.P says he wants to stay with me.  Alex shows me how to fix the flat (since I had no idea how to do it) and they stick a piece of cardboard inbetween the inner tube and the wheel so that the inner tube won't creep out of the hole in the wheel.  He also didn't fill the inner tube all the way up because it was starting to bulge out of the hole in the wheel.  He asked if I wanted to continue the ride or if not, I could put the bike in the truck and he'd drive me back to my car.  Of course I wanted to finish the ride, so that's what I did.  J.P stayed with me to make sure that I made it.  I really appreciated that.