BANG!!!hissssssssssss

Not the sound you want to be hearing when your sad, hungover body finally gets on the bike to start your ride. But that's not where the weekend started.

Saturday morning I met Bree, Sandy and Anita for a little run along the Lafayette-Moraga Trail. I had subverted Bree's attempt to run hills by shanghaiing her email and saying I'd be staying on the flats for now and anyone was welcome to join me. We changed the run to 7:00 am and were afraid that would be too late. We've been having a lovely heatwave and the temp was expected to soar.

I was hoping to run 6 miles without any knee pain and managed the first part. Anita turned back with me at the 3 mile mark while the others continued on. I was having the normal achiness that I've been having but thrilled not to have any shooting pains. I enjoyed the run, the lovely morning, the company. We finished before it got too hot and headed home.

I scurried to shower and dress then headed over to Claudia's house. I was going to Sonoma with her and Rocky. Ymmm, wine. We had a fabulous day and entirely too much to drink. Yikes, we should have stopped after the first winery. Or the second. Or the third. Maybe the fourth. Absolutely I didn't need dinner, I think that's what sent me over the edge. Ow.

As I tossed and turned Saturday night I considered texting Bree with a plea to cancel our 8:00 am ride. I didn't, but that doesn't mean I was happy about dressing and getting my bike ready. I've been having problems with my tire pump, but after Bree got here we managed to fill the tires and headed out for our anticipated 25 miler.

Which ended up being a 435 footer. Seriously. We were less than a block away from my house when we heard a loud bang. Or pop. Or blowout. I'm not sure what happened but the tired blew and went flat. We got off and walked home.

Sigh. It had to be the back tire, the tough one to fix. Bree asked me how many tires I had actually changed by myself and the total was a big fat zero. We knew the theory, not the practice. So we took a break and went and had coffee, so we could think about it first. We came back and Bree got the tire off the bike and between the two of us, we managed to replace the tube with my (only) spare. We went to inflate it and it just hissed at us. After trying over and over we finally stripped out the tube and found a tiny hole in it. Damn!

So we grabbed the wheel and headed over to a local bike shop, ready to have them change the darn thing. The mechanic very nicely gave us step-by-step instructions for repair, most of which we'd already figured out. He put it all together, went to fill it up and ... hisssssss. Yeah, it was another bad tube with a hole in it. He stripped out the tube, put in a new one and inflated it. I bought a couple of extras just in case and we went back to see if we could get the wheel back on the bike.

After fiddling around the bike was finally whole. I took it for a spin around the block, made sure we hadn't screwed up the gears or the brakes, took it back home and hung it up. Way too much effort! It was late enough that we postponed the ride until next week.

At least I got to run!