What a strange cycling day filled with unexpected minor mishaps! First, on my morning workout/commute which takes me up through the Cornell campus, past the airport and back down the hill again, I experienced a most bizarre complete loss of traction. Roads were wet, with a noticeable oil slick on the shoulder for a two mile stretch along Pleasant Grove Rd. When I took a right on Hanshaw Rd. and stood on the pedals, my rear wheel started fishtailing violently back and forth. I stopped to see if I had a flat, since I had one yesterday, but the tire was fully inflated. So I stood once again, started fishtailing once more, and looked down to see my rear tire spinning in place and getting almost zero traction. It sort of reminded me of a scene from a Roadrunner cartoon. So I sat down, road through some gravel, and gingerly finished my ride, being extremely cautious about banking turns and descending. For the rest of the ride I thought about the horrible oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and about what happens to all of that oil released onto our roads. So sad to think that all of that nasty mess eventually makes its way down to Cayuga Lake. All the cars in the world spewing and consuming petroleum products can't be good living things. Sadly I fear that it will be a long time before our public transit infrastructure is as robust as it needs to be, and electric cars constitute the majority of vehicles on the roads.
The other incident involved an evening ride in the South Hill/Danby area. After dropping off my son at his Karate class on East King Rd., I headed East on East King, south on Ridgecrest, southeast on Nelson, then east on Danby Rd. until my time ran out and I had to turn around to do the pickup. I must have had some sort of premonition, because I prepared him for what to do if I didn't return in time, and that he should just assume that I had a flat. Sure enough, one mile before my destination I rolled over some shiny metallic object, resulting in a rare double puncture. I can't remember this ever happening to me before, and when I realized that I had less than ten minutes to pickup time, I just started running alongside my bike for the remaining mile! Luckily a new tire just arrived in the mail, since one tire was totally trashed with a blown out sidewall.
In addition, I had a puncture yesterday, so I'm hoping that this series of mishaps will leave me free and clear until at least after the Tour de Syracuse, especially considering the fact that I can't afford a spare wheelset for the race!
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment