AbramClark
Active Member
Woohoo! I did the Presta segment today with the Grizzly Peak cyclists. 80 miles and over 4500 feet of climbing. I've done harder rides on the Silvio, but not this year (I know I know I've been lazy :-|), and probably not this fast, and definitely not this hot. At around mile 50 on a nice downhill going 20-25 mph my front wheel blew out. I fortunately was not making a turn, and simply slowed down and got off the road, but then I started to realize how weird the front fork is on the original Silvio (first front flat on this bike).
Fortunately, I was second to last then, and the last rider caught up to the others and let them know I had a flat. Mark and Doug climbed all the way back up the hill and showed up 10 minutes later and immediately got their hands dirty helping me replace the tube. Once I removed the skewer, the entire front end just falls apart, with the chain stay popping off the fork and pivoting away, and the derailleur dangling on its cable. We ended up having one of us holding the derailleur, another holding the forks, and me squeezing the wheel in. Now that I know how it works, I could do it myself I guess, but I was damn happy to have their help. After a lot of wiggling and generous quantities of road grit distributed between the 3 of us, we finally squeezed everything back together and the three of us continued on at a comparatively leisurely pace (these Grizzly Peak Cyclists are machines on wheels, and the rest had continued on, presumably at their brutal pace).
At mile 60+, we hit the hill of doom on Redwood road. It wasn't even that big of a hill (700-800 feet or so over 6 miles), but I was really tired at that point, and it was about 95 degrees. Several times I really thought we made the summit, where I could see sky and down into the valley, and then it would switch back and keep climbing. I was literally pulling myself up with my chin (never done that before
). But we were rewarded with a beautiful twisting downhill with decent road surface and hardly any traffic, with big redwoods growing right up against the asphalt, and madrone, bay laurel, and live oaks overhanging the road.
We made it back to the start point without further incident, and I was wiped. We chatted for a bit, then I jumped on the Bart back home. At home I, grabbed some things, swapped the Silvio for my electric Quest, and took the Bart into San Francisco to stay with my friend on Twin Peaks. He fed me a perfect recovery meal: chocolate stout, a cauliflower casserole, and cottage cheese with fruit and cashews, plus some chocolate I never got around to eating on the ride.
All-in-all I'm quite pleased with the ride. Having not done any serious rides all year, I managed alright. Some of the group was kinda laughing at me at the start (in a very friendly way), as I was the only recumbent (another bent rider with a Bacheta showed up later), I was the only one without clip-ins, and the only one not wearing spandex (in shorts and a button up plaid shirt). But I was never slowing down the group. The short times I was in the rear, I was drafting and saving up my energy. The rest of the time I was in the middle. And (with a lot of help) I repaired my first front flat on the side of the road .
Fortunately, I was second to last then, and the last rider caught up to the others and let them know I had a flat. Mark and Doug climbed all the way back up the hill and showed up 10 minutes later and immediately got their hands dirty helping me replace the tube. Once I removed the skewer, the entire front end just falls apart, with the chain stay popping off the fork and pivoting away, and the derailleur dangling on its cable. We ended up having one of us holding the derailleur, another holding the forks, and me squeezing the wheel in. Now that I know how it works, I could do it myself I guess, but I was damn happy to have their help. After a lot of wiggling and generous quantities of road grit distributed between the 3 of us, we finally squeezed everything back together and the three of us continued on at a comparatively leisurely pace (these Grizzly Peak Cyclists are machines on wheels, and the rest had continued on, presumably at their brutal pace).
At mile 60+, we hit the hill of doom on Redwood road. It wasn't even that big of a hill (700-800 feet or so over 6 miles), but I was really tired at that point, and it was about 95 degrees. Several times I really thought we made the summit, where I could see sky and down into the valley, and then it would switch back and keep climbing. I was literally pulling myself up with my chin (never done that before
). But we were rewarded with a beautiful twisting downhill with decent road surface and hardly any traffic, with big redwoods growing right up against the asphalt, and madrone, bay laurel, and live oaks overhanging the road.We made it back to the start point without further incident, and I was wiped. We chatted for a bit, then I jumped on the Bart back home. At home I, grabbed some things, swapped the Silvio for my electric Quest, and took the Bart into San Francisco to stay with my friend on Twin Peaks. He fed me a perfect recovery meal: chocolate stout, a cauliflower casserole, and cottage cheese with fruit and cashews, plus some chocolate I never got around to eating on the ride.
All-in-all I'm quite pleased with the ride. Having not done any serious rides all year, I managed alright. Some of the group was kinda laughing at me at the start (in a very friendly way), as I was the only recumbent (another bent rider with a Bacheta showed up later), I was the only one without clip-ins, and the only one not wearing spandex (in shorts and a button up plaid shirt
). But I was never slowing down the group. The short times I was in the rear, I was drafting and saving up my energy. The rest of the time I was in the middle. And (with a lot of help) I repaired my first front flat on the side of the road .
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