Ride Around the Bottom of the Bay - A Day of Flats!

The ride for today was titled, "66 Miles Around the Bottom of the Bay". Today was considered a "buddy ride" which means that it's not an official TNT ride, which means it's unsupported (ie: food on our own and no ride support). It also meant that you ride at your own pace and you ride with whomever you want to.

I don't know why, but when I went to sleep last night, I wasn't as nervous as I was the prior week. In fact, I caught myself saying, "hmmm...I don't need to get up too early tomorrow morning, it's only a 66 mile ride tomorrow"! DOH!! Would I regret thinking that way later!

We started in Los Altos and our route was to take us about 15 miles to the Dumbarton bridge. The past week was filled with rainy days so we were lucky that it wasn't raining...yet! We started the ride and wouldn't you know it that it started raining on mile 2! We were getting soaked! Our first stop was a restroom stop at mile 14 right before we were to go over the Dumbarton bridge. Luckily it stopped raining and we didn't see anymore rain for the day. In fact, we got some sun for part of our ride.

Going over the bridge was a trip! I've lived in the bay area all my life and I think I've been over the Dumbarton bridge once in my life and of course it was in a car. I never knew there was a bike lane on the bridge. This is where one of our teammates got his first of 3 flats. I didn't know he got a flat until I was already off the bridge on the eastern side. We had to ride in single file and it was hard to hear anything since all the cars were passing by. That teammate decided to call it a day at around mile 23 when he got his 3rd flat! It wasn't until later that I found out that another teammate had brought a friend to ride with us and that friend actually got 2 flats before getting to the bridge so she called it a day as well.

One of my teammates, Annette and I were ahead of the pack when we made it over the bridge. Since our other teammate who got the flat was with one of the coaches, Annette and I decided to keep go ahead since it was getting cold and were still wet from the rain. We got to Patterson Ranch in Fremont. We had no clue where we should be going next so we rode around a bit and tried to wait for the rest of the team. We definitely thought we went the wrong way so we decided to go back towards the road we came in on. Once we saw other teammates, one of the mentors asked us if we did the loop already? We were like, "what loop." She said, follow me so we did.

I guess we were going in the right direction and just needed to do the "loop". The loop was around a large hill in the park that we would have definitely thought we were lost if we kept going. What we didn't realize was that it was a big loop that would get us back on the same road that we came in on. Oh well, whats a few extra miles! The only bad thing is that we lost a lot of time waiting so we were in for a looooong day!

Ok, after regrouping with the rest of the team, we headed out with 4 of us in a small group. The other three included my one teammate, Annette, and then two TNT Mentors, Arielle and Butch. What all three of these guys had in common is that they are all fast! I had my work cut out for me! In fact, by mile 40, I was done! My legs just couldn't go anymore! I was so tired. I slowed it down and let the three of them go ahead of me. I tried to keep a constant cadence and not push too hard. I came to a corner where I saw the other three waiting for me. I told them that they didn't have to wait but they were very cool and said, "Hey, we are a team!" I think what really got me was when Annette said, "C'mon Harold, what are you a B#$%$? Suck it up!" Wow, not what I would expect from a lady! :o) Nevertheless, that got me motivated to step it up and dig deep in the fuel tank! I took in a GU pack and went from "sad to glad"!!!

At around mile 47 (we were in Milpitas by this time) , Arielle (one of our mentors) got a flat! Whew, I don't mind the rest even though I didn't tell them that. :o) She changed it pretty fast though so off we went again. At about mile 50, Arielle got another flat. Ok, now I didn't wish for this rest! She didn't have another tube but she still had her last one and a patch kit. But to save time, I gave her my spare tube. Ok, changed it out again and then this time, we decided to try and use her CO2 cartridge to fill the tire (don't ever use one of these). Well, it didn't help that none of us have ever used one of these? I mean what the worse that could happen? The cartridge filled her tire in about 3 seconds! It was instant! So Arielle puts the tire on and instantly the tire went flat again!! She had to take the tire off the bike again. Something is wrong! We tried pumping air into the tire with a regular pump but it wasn't holding air. Could I have given her a bad tube? Was it the CO2 cartridge?

Since we were down to one last tube between all four of us, Mentor Butch decided to take the wheel off the tire and inspect the wheel and tire carefully. Both Butch and I were also supposed to be somewhere by 3pm and we knew that wasn't going to happen so we had to make phone calls to our wives. While I had the phone out, I took a picture of my 3 teammates on the side of the road. Say hi to Annette, Butch and Arielle (standing). How many TNT people does it take to change a tube? LOL!! All we could do was laugh...what a long day!

The last 16 or so miles was tough. It was getting cold, lots of traffic, and the headwind was picking up. Mentor Butch led us back to Los Altos and we drafted behind him the rest of the way! What a lifesaver! What was supposed to be a 66 mile ride ended up being a 70 mile ride for Annette and I. Total ride time was only 4 hours 41 minutes, but total time from start to finish was 7 hours exactly! A lot of time definitely wasted, but still a great workout and I got to see the bottom of the bay!

One thing is for sure. I have met a lot of people who have ridden for a long time and never ride in the rain. I have been riding my bike for only about 3 months and I can say that I have a lot of experience riding in the rain! That also means that I have a lot of cleaning to do on the bike!