my first dailymile meet up

tonight's ride was my first dailymile meet up. i drove up to mark h's house and together we rode over to karla g's where we picked her up. i felt a little out of place on my standard road bike. they were both outfitted on sleek aerobarred tri bikes.

we had a nice moderate to fast paced ride on 21st street after we left karla's place (that's where we are in the picture above) and headed east. the shoulder was wide enough to go two abreast, so we talked some. pretty nice.

i don't know how many miles out it was, but i suddenly felt the bouncing that indicates a soon to be flat rear tire. i slowed down and told mark what was up. he chased down karla and they both came back to watch me change out my tube. we shot plenty of footage, i think, to make a great confession video in a week or two. we'll see.

the tire fixed and back in place we continued on our way. about a mile and a half or maybe two later, we passed a couple of cyclists on the other side of the road. they had a flat too. we said hi and they shouted back, "we're new at this." but they looked like they were handling themselves pretty well, so we kept going.

somewhere a bit further down the road, we turned around and headed back toward wichita. we rode much more quickly now that the wind was at our backs. in just a few minutes we were back to the flat tire girls and they were clearly not doing so well. we pulled up and, believe it or not, i started working to fix their flat. got the tube in and the tire on, then started pumping air into the lifeless ring of rubber. i worked for a minute or two and then, tired from pumping up my own tire, i handed off pumping duty to mark. in less than 20 seconds, he somehow managed to pop the valve stem out and all the air we'd put in came out in an audible whoosh. (i think i have it on tape. we'll see.)

the tube was pretty useless now. one of the ladies had called her husband and he'd shown up some time shortly after we'd arrived, so they decided to pack up their bikes and head home. we told them about DM, so maybe they'll show up here sooner or later. i think one of them said she worked at the northwest ymca. if so, i hope she doesn't see my spin class video. yikes!

from there on, we took it fairly easy with a brief sprint down the only hill on the route. (this is kansas remember.) i got up to 35mph. fun stuff! i breathed for a bit while i waited for mark and karla to catch up. i weigh considerably more than they do, so i had an advantage going downhill.

at 119th, we parted ways. karla turned left. mark and i turned right. we cruised down to 13th and then hit deer trail and curved this way and that until we got back to his house where he graciously offered pizza! i enjoyed my slice with ice water. yum!

a great ride with some great people. hope we can do it again soon. mark's laughter while i was fixing my flat and then the other cycle's flat was much appreciated. no really. i'm not being sarcastic at all.