A good ride gone bad.

Hot as hell around here lately - around 90, midday, which is about 15 degrees hotter than normal for this time of year. But I still gotta ride, right?

Yesterday I sissed out of a ride, for every reason in the book. It was too hot, my new shoes weren't fitting well, my feet hurt...so at about the 3 mile mark, I took a short loop home, ending up with 7 miles. Weak. The worst part was, by the time my tastefully decorated townhouse was in sight, I was starting to feel better; nothing unusual for me, as I generally don't ever feel good til I have at least 5 miles in, and the heat was definitely exacerbating things. But with the homestead in sight, my day was done.

I felt shame. So I set a goal for today - 50 miles. From my place, to my LBS of choice (Bike Haven, in Fair Haven, NJ), and back, which is about a 50 mile round trip. For the record, there are closer bike shops, but Bike Haven is the best. But I digress...

I set out at about noon, which was definitely later than I wanted to go, and felt just as crappy as I did the day before, but this time I slogged through it. One interesting note was my heart rate seemed to be 10-15 beats per minute faster than on a cooler day - something I decided to take note of. Wisely, I think. I wasn't keeping a very fast pace at all...slightly under 15 mph, but again, heat, heartrate, yeah, better to take it easy. And the miles were rolling away...5...10...15...At one point, I seemed to pick up a wheelsucker... The guy had a nice bike - a Trek 5500, but he wasn't dressed like a cyclist, and even though he looked like he was in decent shape, he wasn't built like a cyclist. Not that I am, right now, but I have pretty strong legs, and I like to climb. He first started falling behind on a climb (really hilly terrain), closed the gap on a descent a bit, fell behind on the next climb, closed up a bit on the decsent, then finally fell back on the next climb. Kind of like Savoldelli chasing Simoni, in super, super slow motion. He disappeared for a while after the last climb, but I stopped for a minute to adjust my shoe, and as I got started again, the guy caught up to me, and told me he was busting his ass to catch up...which is kind of funny, because I am by no means fast, but as I said, he wasn't built like a cyclist, nor was he dressed like one, so that probably explains that.

Anyways, we go our separate ways, and I settle in for the rest of the ride to the bike shop. I noticed around mile 17 that I actually felt pretty good...but just a short time later, at around mile 21, my legs started feeling pretty dead. No problem, just a few miles more to go. I get there, receiving the kind of congratulations that a fat guy will receive for riding 25 miles, hang out for a bit, and then split. No food on me, and I'm starving, so I hit a deli at mile 28, got a sandwich...and that's pretty much when it all went to hell.

I eat my sandwich, get back on the bike, go out to a light, I'm making a left. Light turns green, I clip in...there are cars all around me, so I want to get through the intersection as fast as possible, so I hammer the pedals...for about one and a half revolutions...and then...all of a sudden...I'm going sideways. This can't be good. Much like Wile E. Coyote, when he runs off a cliff, and then falls after looking down, I crash, but good. No idea what just happened. I'm ok, thank goodness, barely a scratch...but my back wheel is tacoed. Great. So I call a friend for a ride, go back to the bike store, and find out the wheel is gone, and the handlebars as well. That'll run about $400, thank you very much.

*sigh* Nobody ever said it was a cheap sport.

Crazy as it sounds, I actually think I may have been sabotaged, while at the deli. When I was picking up my bike, I looked down and saw the quick release on my rear wheel was open, and it definitely was not on the way down to the bike shop, or from there to the deli. The bike was only out of my sight for a couple seconds while I was in the deli, but I was in there for 20 minutes, eating, and one of the dozen or so kids that walked past my bike could easily have flicked it. The guys at the bike shop assured me that I could very well have been right, since there's no way I would have made it 28 miles with an open quick release, and there's no way the fall would have opened it up. Who knows. Maybe just a freak accident. That ain't making this any cheaper.

The worst part? Outside of the money...I had about a 10 mile an hour tailwind. I never have a tailwind going home from there. I so wanted to ride that tailwind home....

Stay tuned for pics of my new Ksyriums! lol

P.S. Shoe epilogue - picked up some nice inserts, which really helped with the fit. Good thing - Sidi doesn't have a return policy.