Low Pressure

Last night we had some magnificant lightning and rain as a line of storms streaked through at about 40 mph, so I wasn't quite sure what the morning would hold. Creaking out of bed a mere fifteen minutes before meet-up time for the morning ride I glanced out the window and was happy to see a dry street. I arrived at the end of Nashville Avenue about a minute late to find a larger than usual group waiting. One of the guys is here doing some kind of community work with Duke University. He's originally from New Zealand.  I had to ask, because although his accent was British, it wasn't very heavy and didn't seem like a proper "English" accent. Anyway, we rode out to the lakefront at a pretty good clip - I guess there was a bit of a southwest wind blowing - and when me met  up with everyone else I took a moment to count.  There were over thirty riders. Someone said that the lakefront bike path was dry, which was good because sometimes when there's heavy rain it is wet from runoff the next morning. I guess the ground was dry enough that it soaked up all the water.

We had a light tailwind heading east on Lakeshore Drive so although there was a little group already off the front, and the pace was fairly fast, I let myself drift to the back, anticipating the need to dig into my reserves later, once we made the loop at Seabrook, hit the headwind, and things got serious.

Rounding the loop at Seabrook there was a car merging into the right lane as the group came around, and of course they just forced the car to stop, but as everyone was shouting warnings about the car and the group mushroomed across the road I found myself way over on the right. That's when I rolled over something that slashed my front tire.  Naturally, it exploded immediately as I struggled to make the last bit of the curve on the flat and eventually rolled to a stop where a couple of the guys stopped to help. The tire had a half-inch incision in the sidewall that I could nearly put a finger through, but luckily I had a couple of pieces of Mr. Tuffy in my bag to use as a boot. The first time I tried to inflate the tire the boot shifted and the tube nearly blew through. Fortunately I was kind of expecting that and let the air out right away. My second try worked better, although I don't think I put more than 40 psi in the tire.  Better soft than flat!  That worked fine and so I rode out the length of Lakeshore Drive and the lake bike path to the Suburban Canal, carefully lifting the front end for every little bump in the road to keep from pinch-flatting. The group came up on me just before Causeway, so I was able to get on the back pretty easily, although making the turns was a little sketchy with the tire so low.  Made it back home just fine, though.  Guess I'll have to check on my tire inventory tonight!