Another Early Turn

The pre-dawn temperature was again around 40F, but the wind had diminished considerably when I arrived, a couple of minutes late, at the ride start. Scott and Richard were there, but that was about it.  We picked up Pat and Lenny and Judd by the time we hit the playground, but it was already clear that there wasn't enough combined horsepower to keep the pace much above the low 20s today.  That was fine with me because for some reason my quads were loading up quickly every time I'd take a pull, even at the serene 21-22 mph consensus speed.  Nobody had said anything about turning around early, at least not that I heard, but I knew they were thinking it. A small group and slower pace translates into a late arrival back home when we do the longer ride all the way out to Ormond.  As we approached The Dip, where I figured we'd probably turn around, Lenny was on the front.  He had been pushing the pace a bit. At the last minute the others ahead of me sat up and started asking each other "are we turning around here?"  Lenny was already heading down the Dip, oblivious to what was going on behind him.  I had to grab the brakes as I tried to guess who might be following him and who might be turning back.  In the end, everyone stopped except for Lenny.  We watched him as he pulled off and motioned for the next rider to come around.  There wasn't a next rider.  Finally he figured it out and turned around.  Oh well.  That was a clear lack of planning on everyone's part. I wasn't feeling very good at all, so the ride back into a slight but increasing wind was frustrating, even though I was taking short pulls.  Just after the bridge I started to feel some mushiness in my rear tire and gave the bike a little bounce.  I felt the rim touch the asphalt and knew I had a flat, so I coasted to a stop around the playground to change it.  Still wearing my gloves, I stuffed the new tube into the tire as Judd walked up with a floor pump that he had in his car. I probably got about 90 psi in there before it blew off the rim because I hadn't taken the time to check that the tire was properly seated.  Fortunately I had another tube and was more careful that time.  I was glad I'd picked up a big can of tire patch glue at Auto Zone last weekend and had patched a couple of extra tubes. Of course my rear tire most definitely needs to be replaced.  I can see the casing in a couple of spots.  I just haven't taken the time to deal with that.  Guess I'll have to now.

So this week's mileage isn't adding up very well so far. I didn't ride on Monday, and then we turned around early both Tuesday and Thursday.  Perhaps I'll do another ride out to Slidell on Saturday to balance things out, assuming that this achy feeling I have right now doesn't turn out to be the early symptoms of a cold or something.