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My riding on Saturday was different and exciting.
I had Jacque go with me out to Chesterfield Valley, where a ride starts at Ghisallo - a trendy bike shop - then Jacque drove the truck home, while I did the Saturday morning ride, to St Albans and back, and I would then ride home from there.
Well, first off, about a mile or two before I got to St Albans, a spoke on my rear wheel broke. This wasn't to far from where my broken spoke experience took place last week on the Steel Leg Century. So, I turned around and made my way back to Ghisallo. Upon arriving there I planned to have them replace the spoke and I would then be able to complete my ride home. When I arrived at the store, I asked one of the staffers if someone would be able to fix my wheel. His reply was something to the effect that I would have to leave the wheel due to a busy schedule on the docket. I told him leaving would not be an option, since I was riding the bike home, approx. 30 miles away. He went on into the store an a few seconds later an other person came out, looked at the wheel and invited me into the store. He proceeded to take the bike, replace the spoke and true the wheel. Awesome, I was on my way home in less than a half hour.
The ride home was exciting, partly by being a new route. After looking at maps, a couple days before, I pretty much knew where I needed to go, but I managed to find myself going onto an interstate (64) on-ramp a couple times. Well, I eventually found my way to familiar roads and was well on my way. After a stop at my work to refill my water bottles and grab a bite to eat, I then made my way towards Forest Park, then back the Ladue area and then started heading north again, toward home. Approaching the 70 mile point, I noticed my rear tire was feeling a little soft, so I stopped and changed the tube in the rear tire that had a slow leak thanks to a strand of copper wire that caused a pin-hole somewhere in the tube. Then about 3:00 pm, around mile marker 80, I made a second pit stop at the Bridgeton Municipal Athletic Complex to refill my bottles again, and call home to update my progress and ETA. About five miles later, as I was making my way through Earth City, I heard a loud air leak coming from my rear tire. Instead of taking 10+ minutes to fix the tire (I would have to patch one of the two bad tubes), I decided to call home and have Jacque come get me.
As that turns out that was probably a smart move – thunderstorms rolled through and hit our house by 4:30, and I probably wouldn't have made it home before that time. The storms were so bad that over 200,000 UE customers lost power, many for hours, and several for a couple days. Our electric was restored probably around 8:00 a.m. Sunday, while we were gone to church.
I succumbed to the wet weather that continued on Sunday and Monday and did not ride either days.
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